The fog was thick and the wind was biting.

"Boom―――――― Boom ――――――"

A train slowly pulled into the station, billowing black smoke and white steam diffuse, making visibility worse.

Before the train could come to a complete stop, the overseer on the platform scolded and shouted at the coolies who were huddled by the fire, whipping them with whips as they shouted.

"Lazy, get up for Lao Tzu! Unloaded! ”

The coolies stood up, rolled up their sleeves and waited on the platform, and once the train came to a standstill, the stuffy canister cars could be opened, and all kinds of goods could be unloaded from them, such as American oil, Japanese cloth, Indian medicine, and even German munitions, all of which were transported by this railway to Hankow, where they were loaded onto ships and transported to the neighboring provinces. Now that the country is wide open, all kinds of new gadgets are pouring into China, if you are knowledgeable, I am afraid that in addition to those students studying abroad, you will have to count the coolies on this railway station.

This is the Liujiamiao Railway Station in Hankou, which is now the terminus of the Beijing-Hankou Railway.

China's railway construction began in the Tongzhi period, the Taiping War has not ended, Britain, France and other countries businessmen have repeatedly proposed to the Qing court to build railways, but because of the concerns of the rights and interests of inland trade and the livelihood of the porters, coupled with the hostility of conservative forces, so China's first railway was not laid between Shanghai and Wusong until 1876 at the latest, that is, the so-called "Songhu Railway", this railway was in the hands of British merchants from the beginning, controlled by the British Jardine Matheson, Because the conservative forces of the Qing court were still opposed to the construction of the railway at this time, the right to build the railway was actually obtained by the British businessmen from the hands of the Shanghai Daotai by deception, and the construction was full of resistance from the beginning, and it was forced to sell to the Qing court soon after the opening of the railway, and after redeeming the railway, the Qing court immediately demolished all of it, but because it was Shen Baozhen, a Western-style cadre, who presided over the demolition of the matter, he used a golden cicada to get out of his shell, and transported the dismantled rails, locomotives and equipment to Taiwan to provide convenience for Ding Richang to build the railway.

But because of the obstruction of the conservative forces, Ding Richang's Taiwan railway was not built in the end, after a few years, the Westernists and the conservative forces had several confrontations, and finally because of the stimulation of the Sino-French War, the Qing court began to seriously consider the issue of railway construction, in 1886, under the auspices of Li Hongzhang, the Kaiping Railway officially started construction, China's railway industry has since staggered into the sight of the people, after the First Sino-Japanese War, with the further weakening of national strength, China has been unable to engage in railway construction alone, after the Gengzi National Revolution, China's railways officially became the new object of partition among the great powers.

As the main artery of north-south transportation, the Jinghan Railway has long been in the planning of the Westernists, but it was not until 1898 that the construction officially started, and due to the shortage of funds, the construction of the railway completely relied on the loan of the Belgian consortium, coupled with the defects in the engineering contract, which eventually led to the Jinghan right of way completely falling into the hands of foreigners, from the construction of the railway to transportation, employment, finance, scheduling, administration, all the operation and management were controlled by the Belgian company, which set a very bad precedent for the railway loan.

From the completion and opening to the present, the Jinghan Railway has been under the management of the Belgians, even the station masters, the management of the railway bridges are all employed by Belgians, although the Qing court has negotiated with the Belgian side on the issue of redeeming the control of the railway, but with the outbreak of the "Wushen Revolution", the matter has been shelved indefinitely.

After the news of the arrival of the revolutionary army in Hubei a few days ago, the locomotive and most of the wagons at the Hankou station were transferred to Xinyang, Henan Province by the Belgian stationmaster, in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of the revolutionary army.

The locomotive gasped and stopped, and the dozens of stuffy tank cars collapsed on the tracks like dead snakes, and what is surprising is that there are so many carriages in this train that they have almost reached the limit of the locomotive's power.

The coolies hurriedly walked up and opened the sliding door of the closed carriage, only to find that there was no lead seal on the sliding door.

"Your uncle! This place is much colder than Tianjin Wei, don't go to the wrong place, to the northeast, right? ”

“**！ This is the south, and the winter is wet and cold, but it is not as dry and cold as our north. The fog is so thick that you can't see the platform. ”

……

The coolies were surprised to find that these stuffy jar carriages were not ordinary goods at all, but large living people, and they were all wearing military uniforms and carrying rifles in their hands, and many of them were leaning on their backs with a large backpack with blankets rolled on them, and the style was exactly the same as that of the Japanese soldiers in the concession.

"Beiyang Army! Beiyang Army! ”

"Yuan Gongbao's Beiyang Army!"

Some well-informed coolies immediately recognized the identity of this army from the trim on the military cap, and without being reminded, everyone flashed to the side, pulled up their sleeves and bit each other's ears to talk, speculating about why this army, which had been stationed in the north, had come to Hankow.

In fact, as long as the news is a little better-informed, we will know that a few days ago, the revolutionary army in Jiujiang had been killed from Jiangxi, and in the past few days, "fishy news" have spread to Wuchang one by one, Qizhou is "trapped as a thief", Huangzhou is "trapped as a thief", "a certain general soldier was martyred", "a certain Taoist was killed", "someone is attached to a thief...... The court officials in the lake were shocked, and they were restless. Seeing that those officials and old men were in a panic all day long, the mood of the people who had been suppressed for a long time suddenly became much better, although no one dared to say it, but they all hoped that the revolutionary army could be killed as soon as possible, and the splendid country of the Central Plains would be a bright future.

Due to the uprising of more than 10,000 new troops who participated in the Taihu Autumn Exercise, there are now less than 4,000 people left in the Hubei New Army, and according to the news from foreign gunboats, the Jiujiang Revolutionary Army, which calls itself the "republican army," has at least 50,000 people, and its morale is strong and its fighting spirit is high.

Fearing that the remnants of the Hubei New Army remaining in Wuchang would revolt again, the governor of Huguang had transferred this very unreliable force to the outside of the city, and broke up its formation, and changed it to a patrol battalion to defend the city.

Originally, there were many gunboats moored on the Wuchang River, but a few days ago the Anqing Mutiny, most of those gunboats were ordered to march eastward to reinforce the Anqing Qing army, and now on the Wuchang River, there are only two small barges left, temporarily equipped with cannons, used as gunboats, but no one has confidence in their combat effectiveness.

In the past few days, the price of grain has also soared a lot, the revolutionary army is approaching, the price of grain will be raised, the people of the three towns of Wuhan are panicked, rumors are spreading, many rich families have fled to the countryside and concessions to escape the war, only the bitter haha people are still struggling to survive here, whether they are fighting or not, this food money always has to rely on themselves to earn.

The coolies were stunned, and the overseer was dumbfounded, not knowing whether he should urge the coolies to move the "goods", and when he was rolling his eyes in a daze, his ears tightened, and he was dragged aside by an officer's ears.

"This, this, this, and this, these carriages are loaded with munitions, carefully unloaded, and placed on the platform. If there is a mistake, the law will be corrected before the army! The officer took the overseer's ear and pointed to the last few carriages.

"Yes, yes." Where did the overseer dare to say half a "no"? I had to nod my head. When the officer lost his ear, he waved his whip and directed the coolies to pull the wagons open and carry the goods.

While everyone was busy, the soldiers in the carriages had jumped out of the train, lined up on the platform, and then drove out of the station, and when the foreign stationmaster of the station arrived with two heads, only a few officers and some sentry soldiers were still standing on the platform.

The soldiers who walked out of the train station began to sing, and the lyrics were easy to understand and catchy.

"Erbing, listen carefully: the family is poor and filial sons, and it is difficult to see loyal ministers in the country. The imperial court borrowed foreign debts and did not hesitate to pay heavy salaries to raise elite soldiers. A soldier eats and wears more than 100 taels, and the seven-grade county order is not as good; If you don't contribute to the country, heaven, earth, ghosts and gods will not tolerate it. Since ancient times, he has been in the army, and he has returned to his hometown in fine clothes. ……”