Hearing the news of the Qing Dynasty's determination to build the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, this was like a whirlwind blowing among the foreign envoys stationed in China. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 After all, France's Vietnamese colony is next to Yunnan, and the slightly larger movements of Yunnan can't be hidden from them at all. Then this news began to circulate among the legations, but the ministers of various countries only regarded it as an after-dinner joke, building railways, jokes, and people who can build railways in China have not yet been born.

When the Qing government officially announced the construction of the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, the ministers who had previously regarded all this as a joke took the matter seriously. There is no doubt that as the general representative of the interests of various countries in China, in the face of such a huge interest cake, all of them are ready to move and want to take a bite of fat. As a result, Britain, as the world leader, first came to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, followed by France, the United States, and even Russia, the breakdown of Europe, not to mention Japan, which is watching China in close proximity.

For these uncles, the Manchu Foreign Ministry obviously did not dare to offend. For these officials, their ability to do things is not good, but as an official, one is more refined than the other, one pushes two, two pushes three, and in the end, after I can't push it off, I have to lift Huasheng Group out. After all, this is a private business activity, and as a government, it really has no right to interfere. In this regard, the ministers of various countries had nothing to say, so they had to let the railway companies belonging to their own countries go to Yunnan to meet with Huasheng Group.

Xiao Mubai, who was far away in Kunming, didn't realize that this trouble was coming towards him. At this time, Xiao Mubai was explaining some things to Ma Xiang in Ma Xiang's office in the Army's Martial Arts Hall. And Du Hanfu was not far from the office to watch the wind for the two.

"With the return of students studying in Japan to Yunnan, the anti-Qing revolutionary forces in Yunnan will become more and more sophisticated, and according to this trend, there will definitely be other forces coming to talk about the development of Wutang. Therefore, your task is to recruit more young students to join our party and expand the influence of our party in the academy on the premise of protecting yourself. Xiao Mubai's deep voice sounded in the office.

"Okay, Zicheng. At present, our party's influence is only okay in Class C, followed by Class B, and finally Class A. Most of the students in Class A were patrol battalions and pipe belts in various parts of the Qing army, and they were extremely loyal to the Manchu Qing Dynasty and their thinking was relatively stubborn. Seeing Xiao Mubai's solemn expression, Ma Xiang also said seriously.

"Well, for those old officers, try to fight for it if you can, and if you can't do it, forget it. It's never too much to be careful. ”

"Okay, we'll do what you instruct." Ma Xiang nodded, he agreed with this, these old officers are not reliable in themselves, he does not deny that there are also people who yearn for revolution, but after all, they are a minority, if they are rashly developed into the party, if they have two hearts, it will cause immeasurable losses to the party.

"Okay, do you guys have any questions now?"

"Nope."

"Okay, in the enemy camp, you try to pay attention to safety."

When Xiao Mubai was sent out again, the three of them unexpectedly met Shen Bingkun. At this time, Shen Bingkun was accompanied by a young man, Xiao Mubai didn't know this person, but Ma Xiang and Du Hanfu knew each other, this person was the famous Li Gengen, who was the president of the Yunnan Student Union in Japan and a member of the League.

Seeing Xiao Mubai coming, Shen Bingkun seemed very happy, a few days ago he went on to build a railway, but he was greatly praised by the imperial court.

"Zicheng has free time to come to the school today."

"If you go back to your lordship, isn't it that the new army lacks officers, why don't you come here to visit the door, and when the time comes, we will be assigned a few more outstanding officers who have graduated." Xiao Mubai also replied with a smile

"Hehe, good Xiao Zicheng, dig the foot of the wall and dig here. Let me introduce to you, this is called Li Gengen, the word Yinquan, is a high-achieving student who returned to Japan after studying in Japan, and the new superintendent of the martial arts hall. Yin Quan, this is Xiao Mubai, the co-ordinator of the Nineteen Towns and the Thirty-Eight Associations, whose name is Cheng, and who also served as the superintendent of the academy before you. You'll need to be so close in the future! ”

Hearing Shen Bingkun's words, Li Gengen's obvious eyes lit up. He knew Ma Xiang and Du Hanfu, but he couldn't imagine that the two of them were now instructors in the martial arts academy. As for Xiao Mubai, he has been famous for a long time, and he heard of this person's extraordinaryness as early as when he was in Japan. It can be said that since the estuary, Li Gengen has begun to pay attention to Xiao Mubai, and he is also in the position of a standard official at a young age, and it is difficult not to get people's attention. Now standing in front of you, it's just the right time to take a good look. This person was with Ma Xiang and Du Hanfu just now, will there be any connection between them? I heard that Ma and Du joined a revolutionary organization called the Communist Progressive Party a few years ago, so does this person also have anything to do with the Communist Party?

Xiao Mubai stepped forward to salute and salute, "Hello, Superintendent Li." ”

"Hello, Xiao Xietong."

Both of them looked lukewarm, which made Shen Bingkun on the side feel very bored. After saying goodbye to a few people, Xiao Mubai went home by himself.

But after arriving home, Xiao Mubai didn't have a little free, and was called away by a telegram from Zhao Mingchuan, which made Jiang Anna also complain, and left again without even having time to change her clothes when she went home.

Zhao Mingchuan's telegram was very simple, that is, foreign powers wanted to participate in the construction of the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, and asked Xiao Mubai what to do. In fact, Xiao Mubai had already thought of this, the foreign powers at this time were like hungry wolves, they would pounce on them as soon as there was a fishy smell, and if you turned them away, they had a way to grind you. Xiao Mubai didn't want to offend them so early, after all, there were still many opportunities to deal with them in the future. Therefore, his solution is also very simple, that is, bidding, you have the ability, you have the technology, you can build this railway within three years, then you can, you come.

After receiving Xiao Mubai's reply, Zhao Mingchuan, who had long been unable to bear these arrogant and invincible representatives of foreign railway companies, immediately arranged a conference room and told Huasheng Group's intentions. In this regard, everyone has no opinion, after all, the cake is just such a piece, not everyone can enjoy it.

The Chengdu-Kunming Railway runs from the West Sichuan Plain at an altitude of about 500 meters, goes up the Dadu River and the Niuri River, goes down to the Jinsha River valley at an altitude of about 1,000 meters, and then traces the Longchuan River up to the Central Yunnan Plateau at an altitude of 1,900 meters. The whole line has more than 700 kilometers through the mountainous areas of southwest Sichuan and northern Yunnan, the terrain is extremely complex, the valley is deep and the slope is steep, and the banks of the river and canyon are distributed with steep rock cliffs hundreds of meters high. The area through which the railway passes is affected by previous geological tectonic movements. Faults are developed, and most of the Niuri River, Anning River, Yalong River, Jinsha River and Longchuan River passed by the line are tectonic valleys developed along or parallel faults.

The difficulty of the design and the arduousness of the project can be said to be unprecedented. The mountains along the line are steep, deep streams are dense, ravines are vertical and horizontal, and the terrain is complex and rare in the world. The entire Chengdu-Kunming railway project needs to build 991 bridges and 427 tunnels. In some sections of the dense number of bridges and tunnels, the length of bridges and tunnels accounts for more than 80% of the length of the line. The climatic conditions along the route are also extremely poor, with "fire ditches" with temperatures as high as 40 or 50 degrees Celsius, canyons with strong winds of 10 degrees, and snow-capped mountains with perennial snow. Another 500 kilometers of this are located in the earthquake zone. All of this brings great difficulties to design and construction.

Listening to the introduction of the technical personnel of the Chinese Huasheng Group and looking at the information in their hands, in the face of such harsh geological conditions, these foreign experts all shook their heads and were extremely frustrated. Soon, however, they reasserted their arrogant heads. Because after a period of field investigation, they immediately concluded that this was a "road construction forbidden area". Anyway, in their understanding, it is impossible to build railways in such areas, we can't, and you Chinese can't.

The ministers of various countries were also unaware of this situation, but they had no choice but to accept it. After all, the opportunity has been given to you, but you don't have the technology. If your own engineers don't compete, you don't have the technology to win this project, and you can't force people to stop construction, right? So the matter had to be settled.

Without external interference, the Chengdu-Kunming Railway started construction as scheduled.

In September, Huasheng Group's subordinate Chengdu-Kunming Railway General Administration and Engineering Bureau were formally established, regardless of the cynicism of the powers, with Zhao Mingchuan as the general office, biochemical engineer Cao Ren as the meeting office and chief engineer, and at the same time hired a considerable number of foreign engineers and their technicians, the Chengdu-Kunming Railway officially started construction.

Just when Yunnan and Sichuan were vigorously carrying out the construction of railways, the new governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, Li Jingxi, also officially arrived in Kunming and began to assume the post of governor of Yunnan and Guizhou.