In 1911, a man who could change the history of China finally stood in the position he had been waiting for:

Sheng Xuanhuai, who advocates radical nationalization, was appointed secretary of the Ministry of Posts and Communications!

Out of financial pressure, and also out of consideration for further cracking down on political opponents and taking the opportunity to seek the personal interests of compradors, Sheng Xuanhuai proposed to the regent Zaifeng that the railway business office was a clear talk and misguided the country. The most pressing task at the moment is to nationalize the railways, and then the political axe will come forward to negotiate with the foreign powers to obtain good conditions for borrowing and management, avoid excessive loss of sovereignty, and strive for the railways to be put into use as soon as possible. This statement is very much in line with Zaifeng's spleen and stomach: depreciating the Han governors, taking advantage of the power to the Manchus and the royal family, and building railways "as quickly and efficiently as possible", he immediately instructed "not to be ignorant".

On May 9, 1911, the Qing court promulgated the "Decision on the State-Owned Railways of Trunk Railways", announcing that "trunk roads are run by merchants" and "branch roads are still allowed to be carried out by merchants and people according to their discretion", and stipulated that the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and the degree branch were instructed to formulate detailed rules for nationalization. Eleven days later, Sheng Xuanhuai signed a treaty with a group of banks in four countries, stipulating that the Qing court would borrow 10 million pounds at an annual interest rate of 5 percent, and use 5.2 million taels of gold from the four provinces as collateral to build the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, stipulating that "the railway will be completed in 3 years and the loan will be repaid in 40 years."

On the surface, the terms of this agreement are relatively generous: after the completion of the railway, the management rights will still belong to the Chinese side, the personnel rights will be led by the Chinese side, and the terms of construction and repayment seem reasonable. But the agreement has a number of fatal, principled errors.

First of all, at that time, the rights of way of several railways were still in the hands of merchant stocks, and nationalization had not yet begun, and the Qing court actually took out what did not belong to it and sold it; Second, the "State-owned Policies for Trunk Railway Routes" only talked about principles, but handed over the detailed rules of nationalization to Sheng Xuanhuai, who proposed different nationalization plans for Lianghu, Guangdong, and Sichuan out of political leaning and comprador selfish desires. In Hubei and Hunan, due to the proper management of Zhang Zhidong, the loss of funds was not large, and Sheng Xuanhuai proposed to replace the "national poly stock" with 1:1 according to the par value of the original stock; However, Sichuan lost 3 million yuan due to the "rubber stock market crash", and Sheng Xuanhuai believed that it should not be "generous to the country" and decided not to bear it.

It seems that Sheng Xuanhuai is righteous and strict, but in fact, there is a lot of article: Shi Dianzhang is the official "airborne" court official, and the equity of the Sichuan-Han Railway has always been in the hands of the official, but the people have been responsible for all the losses; Sheng Xuanhuai forcibly promoted nationalization within half a year of taking office, and forced the gentry to lose profits and sell shares at a loss by means of almost "forced buying and selling", giving people a strong impression that the state and the people were competing for profits and that the managers were pretending to be public and private; At this time, the Qing court was the period when the imperial family and the Manchu Shaozhuang faction gained power and launched a liquidation of the Han governors. In the specific operation, Sheng Xuanhuai engaged in favoritism and irregularities, and included the Xiangyang Hundreds of Miles Railway as a "branch road" to allow commercial operations, but listed the neighboring Kuifu Railway as a "trunk road" and nationalized, which was difficult to convince the public. Not only that, but only talking about "nationalization", but not talking about whether to continue to "increase the amount of land per acre" and whether to repay the "additional tax per acre" that has already been collected, this is tantamount to naked encroachment on the interests of the most grassroots peasants.

Under such circumstances, a road protection movement that was enough to bury the Manchu dynasty began!

The first to launch the road protection movement was not Sichuan, but Hunan.

On May 13, there was a road protection post in the Changsha market, the second time there was a petition of 10,000 people in Changsha, and on the 18th, the first Yamen petition broke out; In Hubei, where the construction of the Sichuan-Han line had begun, Sheng Xuanhuai ordered the suspension of construction in order to forcibly seize the equity, which triggered the gathering of Yichang merchants and people to protest, and the Qing court mobilized troops to suppress the ammunition, and the two sides clashed, killing and wounding more than 20 people, which was the first bloodshed of the road protection movement.

On June 16, Pu Dianjun, chairman of the Advisory Bureau, and Luo Lun, vice chairman of the Consultative Bureau, convened an extraordinary meeting of Sichuan and Han shareholders in Chengdu, proposing "civilized road protection", gathering 2,400 shareholders, and the next day, students and citizens from all walks of life who heard the news made the number of participants reach more than 4,000. In order to strengthen the momentum, Pu Dianjun, Luo Lun and the shareholders set up the "Sichuan Baolu Comrades Association", and in less than 10 days, the members of the Baolu Comrades Association swelled from the initial 2,400 to 100,000 people, covering 142 prefectures and counties in Sichuan, and the slogan of "breaking the contract and protecting the road" spread throughout the country.

At this time, Wang Wenwen, the governor of Sichuan Nursing, sent a telegram to Sheng Xuanhuai and Duan Fang on June 13 and put forward a plan: After investigation, the Sichuan-Han Railway Company had raised a total of more than 10 million taels of funds, and in addition to the receivables that had already started construction and used in the Yiwan section and caused by the "reversal", there was also a balance of more than 7 million taels of silver.

He suggested that the Sichuan-Han Railway Company should decide to convert the money that had already been spent into state stocks, and to transfer the surplus of more than 7 million taels of silver to Sichuan Province, or to return it to shareholders or transfer it to other industries. This suggestion is only his personal opinion, and he has not discussed it with the shareholders of the Sichuan-Han Railway Company, and it is unclear whether the consent of the Sichuan-Han Railway Company can be obtained. But Wang Wenwen believes that if he does, at least he will have the possible surname of the Sichuan-Han Railway Company.

After Sheng Xuanhuai received this telegram, he ignored Wang Wenwen's suggestion.

After being repeatedly applied, Wang Wenwen found that the regent Zaifeng only trusted Sheng Xuanhuai, and he couldn't listen to the words of a magistrate like him who was far away. In this wrestling with Sheng Xuanhuai, it was impossible for him to get the support of the regent, and in desperation, he had no choice but to seek public opinion and fight against Sheng Xuanhuai in the name of the Sichuan people.

Therefore, he revealed the contents of Sheng Xuanhuai's telegram of 1 June to the person in charge of the Sichuan-Han Railway Company and Pu Dianjun, chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Consultative Bureau, and others.

On June 17, 1911, some representatives of the Sichuan-Han Railway Company and representatives of the Sichuan Provincial Consultative Bureau met and decided to establish the Sichuan Baolu Comrades Association, with Pu Dianjun, chairman of the Consultative Bureau, as the president, and Luo Lun, the vice president, as the vice president.

The establishment of the Sichuan Baolu Comrades Association meant that the dispute between the central and local authorities, which should have been limited to the governor of Sichuan and the minister of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, became a dispute between the interests of the Qing government and the people of Sichuan.

In less than 20 days after its establishment, there were more than 200,000 registered members, all over Sichuan, and branches in various industries were developed, such as the Academic Baolu Comrades Association, the Groceries Gang Baolu Comrades Association, the Dried Vegetables Gang Baolu Comrades Association, the Musical Instrument Shop Baolu Comrades Association, the Women's Baolu Comrades Association, and even the Beggars Baolu Comrades Association, the Deaf and Dumb Baolu Comrades Association, etc., and the social mobilization was extremely extensive and deep.

Many of these people involved in the Baolu movement did not know what was going on with the Sichuan-Han Railway, but because under the ** political system at that time, there was suddenly an opportunity to attack the imperial court secretly supported and instigated by the local political axe, so those people from all walks of life who had been suppressed for a long time suddenly entered a certain kind of emancipatory euphoria. The situation is spiraling out of control.

Sheng Xuanhuai, who was far away in Yanjing, was not aware of this at all, he thought that Wang Wenwen's constant telegrams were just deliberately exaggerated sensationalism, not only ignored them, but continued to follow his original form of thinking.

At the beginning of August 1911, under the repeated urging of Sheng Xuanhuai and Duan Fang, Zhao Erfeng, the acting governor of Sichuan, who was supervising border affairs on the front line, returned to Chengdu, and Wang Wenwen was dismissed.

However, the moment that will change the fate of Chinese history is finally coming!

The vigorous era has begun!