Why did the great powers scramble to "help" China build railways in the Qing Dynasty?

After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Qing government was defeated by the Japanese and had to sign the treaty of shimonoseki, which humiliated the country. The failure of this war not only dealt a heavy blow to the country's economy and military affairs, but also exposed the essence of the Qing dynasty's strong foreign policy and weak internal policy. In this case, the powers quickly further encroached on their interests in China.

Among the many ways for big countries to seize benefits, one means is worth noting, that is, building railways.

There are always some characters in history who have special hobbies, some love beautiful women and some love men. It's really strange and brain-opening. And our hero Cao Cao today, not only loves beautiful women, but also loves his wife, so-called? Wife killer? . He was busy robbing other people's wives while fighting for territory. It's really amazing that he wants to rob their territory and their wives.

Wife killer

In A.D. 197 (the second year of Jian 'an), Cao Cao went south, and Zhang Xiu, a small warlord entrenched in Wancheng, saw Cao Cao's army under siege. He directly chose to surrender conditionally and accepted Cao Cao's adaptation, but he still controlled his own army independently. Cao Cao easily captured Wancheng and other areas. At that time, he was a little carried away by the victory and a little carried away. At that time, he committed the old habit of stealing other people's wives himself.

At this time, Zhang Ji's widow, Zou, Zhang Xiu's aunt, was living in the city. Although Zou is a widow, she is also a stunning beauty with a unique style. When Cao Cao heard about it, he was in a hurry to find it. Cao Cao was fascinated by Zou as soon as he met him. He ignored his face and directly occupied his aunt Zou. As a result, Cao Cao and Zou had a good time.

A knife on the color prefix

The affair between Cao and his aunt Zou soon spread to your ears. Zhang Xiu bears a grudge and complains repeatedly. When Cao Cao heard that Zhang Xiu was unhappy, he was going to secretly kill Zhang Xiu. However, when the story was revealed, Zhang Xiu took the lead in attacking Cao Cao at night and took him by surprise.

Cao Cao was defeated and almost lost his life. His son and his men died and he survived. Cao Cao paid a heavy price for his lewdness this time. Cao Ang, the eldest son, and Cao, the nephew, were killed, and Dian Wei was also killed. Cao Cao's lust led to the death of his son and love, and he cried bitterly after the war. What a blow!

Zou's ending

Cao Cao's aunt almost died, so what will he do with Zou afterwards? This question was not recorded in the history books, and then even a few words of Zou were gone. So, for this question, we guess there are no two results.

First, Zou died in the army. At that time, Zhang Xiu led an army to sneak attack on Cao Cao, who almost died. At night, Zou is likely to die in the army.

Second, Zou was saved. At that time, Cao Cao and Zou could not escape, and they were probably abandoned by Cao Cao and finally saved. Although my aunt was invaded by Cao Cao, it was not Zou's will, but she was also forced. Therefore, Zou will not be embarrassed. Zou will either go back to her family or follow her and will support her.

As we all know, railway construction is one of the major national infrastructure projects. With the national strength and financial resources of the Qing Dynasty at that time, building a railway was an extravagant hope. At this time, the great powers were fighting for the railway construction right in Qing Dynasty. Will the great powers help the Qing government to build infrastructure with compassion? There is no pity for the ambitious invaders, but only mercenary.

It seems that the greed of big countries is very obvious and not difficult to understand.

Unexpectedly, however, all the great powers are fighting? Help the Qing government? Flag, opened their railway plunder plan.

Among them, the country that is most keen on all this is Russia.

According to treaty of shimonoseki, the Qing Dynasty needed to cede Liaodong Peninsula to Japan. This is not good news for Russia, which has long coveted Manchuria. Especially this Lushun port in Liaodong, a rare ice-free port in Manchuria, has made Russia salivate. If Japan gets there first, it will be much more troublesome to get it again. Therefore, Russia came forward to win over its ally France, Germany and the three countries, which also wanted to gain benefits in East Asia, to intervene together and return Liaodong to the Qing Dynasty on the condition that the Qing government compensated Japan for 32 million taels of silver. Obviously, this is a major failure in the history of Japanese diplomacy, and the unconvinced Japanese instigated the Russo-Japanese War. Of course, this is another story.

How can a mere 32 million taels of silver be compared with Liaodong's sovereignty? The Qing government was naturally overjoyed to recover Liaodong's sovereignty.

However, some officials of the Qing government mistakenly thought that Russia was a friend and worthy of relying on, including many diplomatic celebrities like Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong.

The courtship of the Qing Dynasty was exactly what Russia wanted, so Russia secretly negotiated with Li Hongzhang to build a railway in Manchuria on the grounds of facilitating military support for the Qing Dynasty.

After Russia's consideration and communication and consultation with Li Hongzhang, it was finally determined that Russia's first railway trunk line in China was Vladivostok to the hinterland of Manchuria (Far East trunk line). This railway trunk line has many benefits for Russia:

1. Tsarist Russia can intervene militarily in Manchuria relatively easily; With the backing of the army, it is naturally relatively easy to gain benefits;

The construction of this railway needs funds. As the railway was built on the site of the Qing dynasty, the money must be paid by the Qing government. If the Qing government can't afford it, it will have to borrow money from Russia. This money is not a free loan, and interest has to be paid, and there must be a source of funds as a guarantee. To put it bluntly, the Qing government had to take certain taxes as guarantees, such as salt taxes and customs duties, so taxes were also controlled by Russia;

Materials for railway construction must be purchased from Russia, and technicians must hire Russians, which can not only stimulate domestic demand in Russia, but also earn an extra fee for raw materials, killing two birds with one stone.

In addition, the construction of railways in Russia must follow Russian standards. Russian rails are wide (the spacing is 1520mm), which is different from other European and American countries (the gauge of other European and American countries is 1435mm, which was later set as the international standard gauge). Therefore, the railway built in this way can only be built in address unknown, Russia, and basically becomes a special line in Russia.

From this point of view, basically, Russia is doing whatever it wants with the money and land of the Qing government (only Russia has put it first), and all this is for the next goal, that is, renting Lushun Port.

As mentioned earlier, Lushun Port is a rare ice-free port in Manzhouli, and it is also the foundation of the military port. It can be said that it is a good place that the Japanese and Russian navies have been coveted for a long time.

It is especially important for the further development of the Russian Far East Fleet, which is also the fundamental purpose for Russia to spare no effort to intervene in Japan and abandon Liaodong.

Finally, in the 24th year of Guangxu (A.D. 1898), Russia signed the Land Lease Treaty with the Qing government in Beijing, and successfully brought Lushun and Dalian into its sphere of influence. It is said that Li Hongzhang said a lot of good things about the successful signing of this treaty because he accepted the benefits of Russia. After successfully leasing Lushun, Russia also built a branch railway line from Manchuria to Lushun, so Russia connected the whole Far East with Manchuria by railway.

After the boxer rebellion, Russia used the Qing army to protect the railway, forcing the Qing government to agree to its garrison protection along the railway, which was equivalent to obtaining the right to station troops in the hinterland of Manchuria.

In addition, due to the serious fiscal deficit of the Qing government caused by boxer indemnity, Russia took the excuse that the Qing government was short of funds and unable to repay the railway construction loan, and obtained the mineral exploitation rights within 30 kilometers on both sides of some railways.

In this way, Russia almost eroded the sovereignty of the Qing government in Manchuria. The land of Longxing in the poor Qing Dynasty has so easily become the fat meat in Russia's mouth.

Officials in the Qing dynasty were not ignorant of all kinds of despicable acts in Russia, but at this time, the Qing government had become a fish, being slaughtered by the great powers, and there was nothing they could do about the Manchuria issue. Dramatically, is Russia also intentional? Lift a rock and drop it on your own feet? The fiasco of the Russo-Japanese War not only made Russia lose its concession, but also transferred all the privileges of building railways in South Manchuria to Japan.

After Russia, Japan has gone further. While sparing no effort to make Japan more prosperous in Nanman, it constantly expanded its military strength by making use of Nanman's natural resources and geographical advantages. Since then, the Japanese navy has become a world power.

Tsarist Russia made huge profits by building railways and allowed other powers? See in the eye, but also greedy in the mouth? . These countries used all the power they had in the Qing Dynasty to compete for the right to build railways. When Germany occupied Jiaodong, it followed Russia's example and gained the right to build the railway from Jinan to Jiaozhou Bay, thus taking control of Shandong Peninsula. In addition, the great powers further absorbed gold through commercial means in the Qing Dynasty.

As more and more inland ports were forced to open in Qing Dynasty, commercial exchanges became increasingly prosperous, so it was necessary to build railways for the Central Plains. At the same time, the anti-Qing forces in various places made the Qing government and officials feel that the ruling power was in jeopardy. How to quickly transport troops to places where reactionary forces broke out has become a top priority, so militarily, the Qing government's demand for railways is even more urgent. In this context, big countries began to be active? For what? Railways were built in the Qing Dynasty.

Railways cannot be built for nothing. While obtaining the right to operate the railway and share the profits, the great powers further controlled the financial sovereignty and tax revenue of the Qing government through amazing usury and mortgage guarantee.

The Qing government was almost powerless to resist the invasion of its sovereignty by foreign powers. The only thing we can do is to distribute loans to foreign countries, hoping to balance their interests in the Qing Dynasty and restrict each other, but in fact this is only the wishful thinking of the Qing government.

It can be said that although this railway was built on the land of the Qing Dynasty, every section of the railway was built with the people's fat and humiliation of the Qing Dynasty as sleepers.