Yang Yuxin didn't expect that the person Liu Lantao was waiting for was actually Zhan Tianyou, the most famous railway engineering expert in modern China.

For the traverser, even the history of Xiaobai is not unfamiliar with this name, in the history of China's modern industry, Zhan Tianyou is a very important figure, it can be said that without Zhan Tianyou, China's modern industry, which has not had many achievements, will be greatly eclipsed.

Although Zhan Tianyou has not built the famous Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway at this time, but he returned from the United States, since 1888 as an engineer of the Tianjin China Railway Company, has been engaged in railway construction work in China for 14 years, and has made remarkable achievements, has presided over the construction of the Jintang Railway, Pingli Railway, Jinlu Railway and other projects, before the Gengzi National Revolution, Zhan Tianyou served as the official Guanwai Railway General Administration to help the project, He assisted in the affairs of the railway outside the Guanxi Railway, and served as the resident engineer of the Jinzhou Railway, and presided over the railway project of the construction of the Yingkou Railway branch line. Later, due to the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance, the construction of the Yingkou Railway branch line was interrupted, and the construction of the Pingli Railway was taken over.

The Pingli Railway is the third section of the Zhuping (Zhuzhou-Pingxiang) Railway, and it is also the longest section (38 kilometers) of it. This railway was originally a supporting project for the Pingxiang Coal Mine (now Anyuan Coal Mine), with a total length of 89 kilometers and was built in four sections.

Originally, the Pingli Railway was built by American railway engineers Li Zhi and Mark Lai, but because Li Zhi and Mark Lai advocated that the Pingli Railway should be built with the American railway gauge (1524 mm), it could not be connected with the Ping'an Railway section with a pass standard of 1435 mm, which had been built, and was rejected by the Qing court engineers. Li Zhi and Ma Lai thought that the Chinese could not build this railway, because the water surface of the Pingshui Xiangdong River section through which the railway passed was wide and the water flow was rapid, and the construction of the bridge was difficult, so they had to invite them in the end, so they withdrew with the drawings.

In this case, Zhan Tianyou took the initiative to undertake all the engineering tasks, although there were no drawings, but it took more than a month to re-survey and design, and mobilized people to start construction immediately to repair the Xiangdong Bridge. Zhan Tianyou used the method of combining soil and ocean, with enough sandbags and straw bags, to dig a pool around the foundation of the bridge pier, and dry the waterwheel with a water wheel, that is, to drive piles and stabilize the pier base. After the completion of the bridge pier, he personally commanded the erection of the beam, and in less than three months, the Xiangdong Bridge was paved with steel rails, thus overcoming the biggest difficulty of the Pingli Railway.

Although the Pingli Railway had not yet been completed at this time, there was no major difficulty in the later construction, so Zhan Tianyou had returned to Shanghai to prepare to take over the resumption of the Guanwai Railway after the withdrawal of Tsarist Russia from the Northeast. However, after the first batch of withdrawals, Russia went back and forth, and put forward seven new conditions for the withdrawal of troops to the Qing court: including the prohibition of foreign powers from entering Manchuria, Russia's participation in the administration of North Manchuria, etc., and if the Qing court did not accept it, it would refuse the second batch of withdrawals.

As a result, the two sides reached a stalemate, and Zhan Tianyou could not make the trip, so he had to stay in Shanghai temporarily and wait for the results of the negotiations between Qing and Russia. When the Shanghai office learned that Zhan Tianyou was in Shanghai, it immediately contacted Zhan Tianyou and invited him to visit Shandong, and to visit the construction of the Jiaoji Railway and the planning of all railway projects within the follow-up five-year plan.

It has been one and a half years since the traverser came to this era, although he has also recruited and cultivated a group of local subordinates, but he is basically mainly civilians, and there are also a small number of middle and lower-level officials and soldiers, but he has not recruited celebrities of this era. And Zhan Tianyou was the first.

The goal of the traverser is to build a modern industrial system, and what is needed is the talent of science and engineering, whether it is civil engineering, infrastructure engineering, physics, chemistry, electricity, etc., in short, the traverser needs engineers, not some writers, artists, thinkers, etc. And such talents are rare in China in this era, and there are very few, and Zhan Tianyou is the best one among these very few talents. Because Zhan Tianyou is not only an engineer, but also a railway engineer. In fact, railway engineers not only need to build railways, but also need to be proficient in bridges, roads, tunnels and other projects, which is an extremely comprehensive system. And Zhan Tianyou is just such a comprehensive engineering talent.

In fact, among the traversers, there are a lot of talents in engineering construction, but most of them are housing construction, and there are a small number of experts in bridges, roads and tunnels, but there are no talents in the railway, the railway is known as the industrial bloodline, and it is one of the important symbols of modernization, and the East China government's five-year plan has built more than 1,000 kilometers of railways, and it is in need of such talents as Zhan Tianyou. Therefore, after the Qingdao side learned that the Shanghai office had contacted Zhan Tianyou, it immediately instructed the Shanghai office to make sure that Zhan Tianyou was invited to visit Jingdao. The goal of the traverser was to invite Zhan Tianyou to Qingdao first, so that he could see the various engineering construction and industrial development in Shandong with his own eyes, and then move him to stay in Shandong to work for the traverser.

During the period of the Gengzi National Revolution, Zhan Tianyou has been busy with the construction of the Pingli Railway, but he has also heard about the deeds of overseas Chinese, and from the bottom of his heart, Zhan Tianyou still has a good impression of overseas Chinese, because this time if it is not for the overseas Chinese to return to China at the right time, Dachun may not be able to keep it, even if he does not lose the country, he does not know how much silver to compensate and how much land to cede. And the current result is indeed all due to overseas Chinese. Therefore, when he learned that overseas Chinese asked to see him, Zhan Tianyou was also very happy to meet Liu Lantao.

Zhan Tianyou couldn't help but be greatly moved when he learned that overseas Chinese had invited him to visit Jindao and visit the construction of the Jiaoji Railway, as well as the length of the railway planned in the East China Government's five-year development plan of more than 1,000 kilometers. Although since returning to China, Zhan Tianyou presided over the construction of a lot of railway projects, but the history of these railways is not long, the short is only tens of kilometers, and the long is only more than 100 kilometers, and a Jiaoji railway is nearly 400 kilometers long, plus other planning, Shandong Province plans to build a railway in the next five years as long as more than 1,000 miles, as a railway engineer, naturally hope to build a long-distance railway, whether it is the challenge of the project, or the sense of achievement, it is far greater than the construction of short-distance railways.

Even if there is no railway, from Zhan Tianyou's heart, he also hopes to be able to go to the places under the jurisdiction of overseas Chinese to have a look, after all, hearing is false, and seeing is believing. And Zhan Tianyou is one of the few people who have completed their studies in the eleventh year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1872), although Zhan Tianyou's patriotic thoughts remain unchanged, but the 10-year life experience in the United States has made Zhan Tianyou's ideology more inclined to modern Western society rather than traditional Chinese society, and in this respect, the thoughts of the traveler are closer to the traveler. Zhan Tianyou is not a politician, and he has no intention of entering politics, he does not care about official positions such as railway assistants, but just hopes to have a good environment to build more high-quality railways for China, and do his best to help China develop and become prosperous.

Returning to China for nearly 20 years, although Zhan Tianyou has also built several railways for China, but his heart is not very easy, one is that the scale of these railways built is too small, for a country with such a vast territory as China, it is really better than nothing, the second is that the resistance to the old is too great, and there will be a large number of interference in every railway, although these affairs do not need Zhan Tianyou to come forward to solve, but after all, it has also caused some impact on him; Gengzi's three major changes were also extremely disappointed in the actions of the Qing court.

And now the birth of overseas Chinese, also makes Zhan Tianyou quite excited, because from all kinds of rumors, overseas Chinese are not only good at fighting, but also good at Western learning, customs and habits have been Westernized, and he also determined this point in the conversation with Liu Lantao, Liu Lantao's way of thinking, conversation is almost completely Western, as well as the grand five-year plan of overseas Chinese, which also makes Zhan Tianyou have a good impression of overseas Chinese. In his heart, he really hopes that China can embark on the road of modern industrial development like the United States.

But now Zhan Tianyou is still carrying the official position of railway assistant after all, and he is working under Sheng Xuanhuai, Zhan Tianyou has been able to repair the railway relatively steadily in recent years, Sheng Xuanhuai's help to him is indeed not small, not to mention anything else, it is the mess of the old school, which is basically solved by Sheng Xuanhuai, and did not let Zhan Tianyou worry more, and in terms of funds, equipment, etc., Sheng Xuanhuai also tried his best to meet Zhan Tianyou's requirements, so Zhan Tianyou is still very grateful to Sheng Xuanhuai.

So Zhan Tianyou took leave of absence to Sheng Xuanhuai, saying that he hoped to be invited by overseas Chinese to visit Qingdao and inspect the construction of the Jiaoji Railway. If the Qing court negotiated with the Russian side, he could go directly north from Qingdao to Guanwai and take charge of the restoration project of the Guanwai Railway.

Sheng Xuanhuai, of course, did not want Zhan Tianyou to go to Qingdao, he knew that this was the overseas Chinese who wanted to dig their own walls, although Sheng Xuanhuai did not know the great significance of the railway to modern industry and society, but also knew that his industry needed a railway, and among the Chinese, only Zhan Tianyou could build the railway, and he was not only not worse than foreign engineers in technology, but also dedicated. Seriously, the asking price is much lower than that of foreign engineers, and it is also easy to manage. Therefore, with Zhan Tianyou, he not only had a lot of confidence when negotiating with foreign engineers, but also left a back hand, just like this Pingli Railway, if it wasn't for Zhan Tianyou to save the field, the result would not be easy to clean up.

It's just that Sheng Xuanhuai wanted to stop Zhan Tianyou from going to Qingdao, but he couldn't find a reason, after all, Zhan Tianyou is really fine now, and he just said that he would visit Qingdao, so why should Sheng Xuanhuai stop Zhan Tianyou? Therefore, Sheng Xuanhuai could only give Zhan Tianyou 10 days to let him go and return quickly on the grounds that the project on the Pingli Railway also needed Zhan Tianyou.

In fact, this reason is very strong, because the most difficult construction of the Pingli Railway has been completed, and the engineering personnel on the site can handle the rest of the things, and there is no need for Zhan Tianyou to keep an eye on it, and this time Zhan Tianyou returned to Shanghai, and he was not ready to take care of the Pingli Railway anymore, but Zhan Tianyou didn't care, and still agreed to Sheng Xuanhuai's request.

Seeing that Zhan Tianyou accepted the invitation and decided to visit Qingdao, Liu Lantao immediately arranged a steamer, led by Yang Yuxin, and he accompanied Zhan Tianyou throughout the process, accompanied by 67 young students who were willing to go to Qingdao to work, and set off together for Qingdao.