What is the historical background of the text "Zhan Tianyou"?

In 1888, Zhan Tianyou was recommended by his old classmate Kuang Sunmou to work as an engineer at the China Railway Company. Zhan Tianyou, who had been hidden for seven years, had the opportunity to devote himself to the railway industry of the motherland. At this time, the Tianjin-Tangshan Railway was under construction. He did not want to stay in Tianjin for a long time, so he went to the construction site in person and shared the joys and sorrows with the workers. As a result, it was completed and opened to traffic in only eighty days. However, Li Hongzhang took advantage of the merits of the Englishman Jinda and promoted Jinda to chief engineer. Zhan Tianyou's work was plagiarized in this way.

In 1890, the Qing government also built the Guanwai Railway (today’s Beijing-Shenyang Railway), with Jinda as the chief engineer. In 1892, the project progressed to the Luanhe River Bridge. Many countries wanted to take over the business. Of course, Jinda put the British first, but the British Kakes failed because they could not build the bridge. Japanese and German contractors also suffered failures. As the delivery deadline was approaching, Jinda had no choice but to turn to Zhan Tianyou. After Zhan Tianyou made a detailed analysis of the reasons for the failure of various countries and conducted careful measurement and research on the geological soil at the bottom of the Luanhe River, he decided to change the pile site and use traditional Chinese methods, using Chinese divers to dive into the bottom of the river and operate machines, and he succeeded. The piling task was completed and the Luanhe River Bridge was built. This victory has boosted the ambition of the Chinese people. In 1894, the British Engineering Research Society elected Zhan Tianyou as a member of the society.

After that, Zhan Tianyou led the construction of Beijing-Tianjin Road, Pingli Road (Pingxiang to Liling) and other railways.

In order to please the Nala clan, Yuan Shikai petitioned in 1902 to build a Xinyi Railway (Gaobeidian to Yixian) exclusively for the royal family to worship their ancestors. Nara was naturally happy to take the train to worship his ancestors. In order not to miss the opportunity to worship ancestors in 1903, Yuan Shikai was ordered to complete the project within six months. Yuan Shikai appointed Zhan Tianyou as chief engineer. Although this road is of little value, it is the beginning of Chinese self-built railways, so Zhan Tianyou still attaches great importance to it. Zhan Tianyou completely abandoned the convention that foreigners had to dry the roadbed for a year before laying tracks, and built the Xinyi Railway in only four months at a very low cost. This greatly inspired the Chinese people's confidence in building their own railways and laid a good foundation for the subsequent construction of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway.

Zhangjiakou is the gateway from Beijing to Inner Mongolia. The passage for traveling merchants from the north to the south has always been a must for military strategists. Therefore, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway has important economic and political value. When the news came out that the Qing government was going to build roads in Beijing, Britain, which had the most influence in China, was determined to win. Tsarist Russia, which regarded the area north of the Great Wall as its sphere of influence, vowed not to give in. The two sides argued and finally reached an agreement: if the Qing government did not borrow foreign debt, , no foreign craftsmen are needed, it is all done by the Chinese themselves, and neither side reaches out. In this way, the Qing government gave up the idea of ??seeking help from foreigners and focused on self-study.

In May 1905, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway General Administration and Engineering Bureau were established, with Chen Zhaochang as the general office and Zhan Tianyou as the general office and chief engineer. In 1906, Zhan Tianyou was promoted to the general office and chief engineer. Zhan Tianyou clearly knew the difficulty of this task. He first had to withstand cynicism from all sides: some said he was "overestimating his capabilities", "just spent a few dollars", and even said he was "daring". He said this in a letter to his American teacher Mrs. Northop: "If the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Project fails, it will not only be my misfortune, but also the misfortune of the Chinese engineers. It will also bring great losses to China. When I accept this task Before and after, many foreigners openly claimed that Chinese engineers could not undertake the arduous projects of stonework and caves on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Line, but I insisted on my project." It fully reflects the patriotism and national responsibility of Chinese intellectuals.

Zhan Tianyou surveyed three routes, and it was not advisable to take the second detour too far. The third line is today's Fengsha Line. Due to limited funding from the Qing government and tight time, Zhan Tianyou decided to take the first route, which was from Fengtai north to Xizhimen, Shahe, via Nankou, Juyongguan, Badaling, Huailai, Jimingyi, Xuanhua to Zhangjiakou, with a total length of 360 miles. The difficulty of the whole line lies in Guangou. This area is full of mountains and cliffs. The engineering difficulty was unprecedented in the country at that time and rare in the world. The slope is extremely steep, and the height difference between the south entrance and Badaling is 180 feet. Zhan Tianyou divided the entire line into three sections: the first section from Fengtai to Nankou, the second section from Nankou to Kangzhuang, and the third section from Yu.

Construction officially started on September 4, 1905, and track laying began on December 12. On the first day of track laying, a coupler chain of a construction vehicle broke, causing a derailment accident. This suddenly became evidence that the Chinese could not build their own railways, and all kinds of slanders and slanders came one after another.

But Zhan Tianyou did not panic. Instead, he thought calmly: This road has an extremely steep slope. If the connection between each carriage is slightly weak, an accident will be inevitable. To this end, he used the automatic hooking method and finally solved the problem.

On September 30, 1906, the first section of the project was opened to traffic, and the second section of the project started at the same time. The difficulty lies in the second section. First, the four tunnels of Juyongguan, Wuguitou, Shifosi and Badaling must be opened. The longest Badaling tunnel is 1,092 meters. This requires not only precise calculations and correct command, but also new types of mountain diggers, ventilators and water pumps. The former was no problem for Zhan Tianyou, but the latter was not available in China at the time and only relied on the hands of workers. You can imagine how difficult it was. They overcame many difficulties and finally completed the second section of the project in September 1908.

The difficulty of the third section of the project is second only to Guangou. The first thing encountered is the Huailai Bridge, which is the longest bridge on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Road. It consists of seven 100-foot-long steel beams. Built up. Thanks to Zhan Tianyou's correct command, it was completed in time. On April 2, 1909, the train arrived at Xiahuayuan. Although the section of the branch road from Xiahuayuan to Jimingyi mining area is not long, the project is extremely difficult. It faces the Yang River on the right and the rocky mountain on the left. A six-foot-deep channel should be opened on the mountain, and a seven-mile-long river bed should be raised at the foot of the mountain. Zhan Tianyou used the stones from the mountain to pave the way for the river bed at the foot of the mountain. In order to prevent flash floods from impacting the roadbed, cement bricks were used to protect it, and the third section was successfully completed.

Zhan Tianyou never paid attention to the difficulties in the project, but the man-made obstacles made Zhan Tianyou extremely worried and angry. There was a man named Guangzhai in Qinghe, who was a former Taoist priest and a relative of the royal family Zaize. He was powerful in both the government and the public. The railway happened to pass through his cemetery, so he led the crowd to cause trouble and stopped the project. He privately offered heavy bribes and demanded a diversion. The Postal and Communications Department didn't dare to ask. To the north is the tomb of King Zheng, to the south is the tomb of the eunuchs, and to the west is the tomb of Nala's father, Gong Gui. It would take a lot of time and money to completely change the route. Zhan Tianyou regarded taking bribes as a shameful thing and would never change his ways. He actually fought hard to stay or leave. In the end, because the five ministers were bombed while abroad, Zai Ze was too frightened to hear about foreign affairs. Only then did Guangzhai lose his backer and agreed to pass through his tomb wall.

The Nala family spent tens of millions of dollars every year to repair the Summer Palace, but they were unwilling to pay for road construction. The funds for the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway depended entirely on the surplus from the railways inside and outside Guanhai, but this money was controlled by the British HSBC Bank. When the second section of the project was entering, HSBC deliberately made things difficult and delayed the payment of wages, causing delays in work. Zhan Tianyou was not good at cooperating with the powerful, and he was even more ashamed to cater to foreigners, so he was extremely angry.

Imperialism always wants to seize this road. As soon as the project started, the Japanese Keijiro Amamiya wrote to Yuan Shikai, saying: The Chinese are unable to build this road, so it is safer to hire Japanese technicians. The Englishman Jinda also came to argue for Japan. Zhan Tianyou flatly refused on the grounds that he would never use any foreigner on this road. After the Juyongguan tunnel project started, groups of foreigners often came to spy on it in the name of hunting. They hoped that the project would fail so that they could take advantage of others' danger. Zhan Tianyou gave this voice to the Chinese with outstanding results.

This road was originally scheduled to be completed in six years, but Zhan Tianyou finally opened it to traffic on August 11, 1909, two years ahead of schedule, with a savings of 280,000 taels of silver. The successful completion of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Road is a victory for the Chinese people and a full manifestation of the patriotic spirit of the Chinese patriotic intellectuals.

After the completion of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Road, Zhan Tianyou was hired by the Guangdong Commercial Office Guangdong-Hankong Railway Corporation and served as the company's prime minister in 1910. In May 1912, he also served as the Han-Guangdong-Sichuan Railway Committee Office. Due to the corruption and incompetence of the Chinese government and the imperialist competition in China, this patriotic and talented engineer was unable to display his talents and became extremely anxious. He eventually became ill due to overwork and died in Hankou at 3:30 pm on April 24, 1919 at the age of fifty-nine.