As early as after coming into contact with Liang Qichao, Shandong has actually reserved for Yang Chao, who has been an official here for many years, although he dare not say that he has a deep foundation, at least he has a wide range of contacts, and both the Chinese and foreign worlds have a deep background. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

When Yang Shixiang went to Zhili, smart people had long seen that Yang Chao was the most suitable person to take over as governor of Shandong.

Of course, Yang Chao will not only be the governor of Shandong, but he will also be responsible for the construction of the national railway.

This was Sheng Xuanhuai's business, but now it has been robbed by Yang Chao, obviously Kangliang Group has pulled back a game and grabbed this power from the Westerners, and their strength should not be underestimated.

Yang Chao's second title is the Minister of Railways, and Yang Chao's last lesson to Zaifeng still had a certain effect, at least to make these people accept the plan of building railways as a national strategy.

Yang Chao became the Minister of Railways, and the former Ministry of Mail and Shipping was equivalent to being cut off, Sheng Xuanhuai was very unhappy and resigned angrily.

Kangliang Group couldn't wait for it, so they immediately recommended their own people, and Liang Qichao was immediately promoted to the secretary of the Mail and Shipping Department.

Yang Chao became the Minister of Railways, got the power to manage the national railways, and immediately took action to reorganize the railway forces in the hands of the Qing government, whether it was the various railway bureaus established in the past or the empty shelves of the China Railway Corporation, all of them were merged, and the signboard of the China Railway Corporation was used, but this was a real company, not an official organization, and the leader was not the original assistant, but the manager.

Manager candidate, Yang Chao recommended Zhan Tianyou, of course Zhan Tianyou, who else is more suitable than him.

Zhan Tianyou, with the backbone cultivated by the Yanji Railway Company over the years, immediately merged with other organs, redivided the functions of the organs, and carried out a modern transformation.

Then began to negotiate with the railways controlled by various foreigners, and the first choice was naturally the Luhan Railway, which was renamed the Jinghan Railway after it was opened to traffic last year, and it was the Belgians who controlled the operation of the Jinghan Railway.

The reason why they negotiated with the Belgians first was because the Belgians were only seeking commercial interests, and the railroad was built with a loan from them, and the materials used were basically Belgian steel, so their general interests had been completed, and their steel mills were full of oil.

As for the right to operate after that, it was nothing more than a guarantee for the Belgians to recover their loans.

Yang Chao demanded that the Jinghan Railway be handed over to the China Railway Corporation for unified management, and that the Belgians be given the condition that the Railway Corporation would bear their loans, which would ensure the greatest interests of the Belgians, and at the same time promised that the Belgians could continue to work on the Jinghan Railway if they wished.

Finally, he told Belgium that the Jinghan Railway would be built within five years, and if the Belgians agreed to Yang Chao's request, then the double line would continue to use the steel of the Belgian company.

The Belgians had no reason to object, and all their interests were assured, so they immediately agreed.

Then came the British of the Jinpu Railway.

The Jinpu Railway has created a miracle, starting construction in 1903 and opening to traffic in 1906, it took only 38 months, this is not a short-distance railway, but a large railway more than 1,000 kilometers long, compared to the Germans who built the Jiaoji Railway for nearly five years, it is definitely a miracle.

The reason for this miracle is the change in the concept of the Chinese, ten years ago, to build a railway, most of the people would still block it, the train wants to pass through the people's farmland and villages, it is basically difficult, want the people to move the cemetery, that will cause bloodshed.

However, when the Tianjin-Pudong railway was built, there were more than 200,000 civilians to help build it for free, in addition to the labor mobilized by the government along the way, many ordinary people were actually consciously voluntary, obviously the mentality of the Chinese people has changed, in the thinking of the people in Hubei and other places to protect the road, Sichuan people's road protection movement, the Chinese people are no longer so closed in the past, they all know that the railway will bring development and opportunities.

But it was much more difficult to negotiate with the British.

In fact, the loan contract of the Jinpu Railway can be said to be the most beautiful thing that the Westernists have done, they have won more power, this railway was originally operated by itself, and the profits are determined independently, rather than being operated by the Belgians like the Jinghan Railway.

The reason why the British would accept such lenient conditions is, firstly, because the customs are under their control and can fully guarantee that they can recover their debts, and secondly, the British build this railway, and the most important thing is probably that they hope to penetrate from the Shangjiang Valley to the Central Plains, after all, in the face of competition from Germany, Russia and Japan in the north, the British urgently need to strengthen their influence in northern China, not only in the Yangtze River Valley.

It is precisely because of other interests that it is more difficult for the British to speak, and they are to stop for the sake of stopping.

Yang Chao directly took out a check for 10 million pounds and told the British that if they did not agree, Yang Chao would have to repay the loan directly, and in the contract signed by Zhang Zhidong and others, there was an entry for early repayment, and Yang Chao would repay the loan directly, and the Chinese railway had nothing to do with the British, so it would be even more difficult for them to exert influence.

The British agreed.

After the management of the Jinghan and Jinpu railways was recovered, only a small section of the coal transportation railway built by the British in Henan remained, as well as the Dongqing Railway in the northeast and the Jiaoji Railway in Shandong.

The railway built by the British in Henan was built by the British Fu Company in order to transport coal, but after building more than half of it, their coal mine has not yet produced coal, and they are worried that they will not be able to recover the investment, so the Fu Company itself asked the Qing government to take back the railway, and only needs to give them the cost of investment of 600,000 pounds, and the Qing government has not yet agreed to it, and this time Yang Chao immediately took over.

After negotiating the resumption of almost all of China's railways, Yang Chao immediately released a press conference with great fanfare.

It was announced that China will build 100,000 kilometers of railways in the next 10 years to connect all of China's provincial capitals.

And with the national railway plan as the theme, I want to explain the situation to the people of the whole country and tell everyone about the opportunities that the railway will bring to them.

Unsurprisingly, the railway project attracted worldwide attention, and foreign newspapers published various comments, mostly positive, expressing their admiration for the Chinese government's determination.

At the same time, the British, who had just given up the influence of the Tianjin-Pudong railway, regretted that they had lost the influence of this huge railway project, and began to actively engage in diplomatic efforts in the hope that in the future railway bonds could be issued in London.

The Germans, on the other hand, wanted to use their locomotive equipment, etc.

The Americans directly communicated with Yang Chao privately, and no one knew what they communicated, anyway, the Americans immediately began to invest in the construction of the second phase of the steel plant in Yantai, which was even more ambitious than the first phase, and they planned to expand the production scale of the steel plant to 500,000 tons per year.

Of course, the railway plan has aroused a stronger response in China, and it is also much more positive, and the intellectuals who have seen the world are rejoicing, but as for the ordinary people who have not seen the world, their voices are not heard.

Especially foreign students, Yang Chao has long been regarded as an idol, following the recovery of the Northeast, Yang Chao's influence among international students has skyrocketed again, has developed into the largest organization among international students in the Qiangguo Fumin Society to take advantage of this east wind, once again to move, absorbing a larger group of members, Wang Qiu and others recently sent back a report that ninety percent of European students have joined the Qiangguo Fumin Society, Pan Xun sent back news from the United States that eighty percent of American students are also members of the Qiangguo Fumin Society.

Yang Chao asked them to continue to encourage students to study hard and come back to serve the motherland in the future, in fact, Yang Chao does not have to worry, the international students of this era still have a very strong sense of mission and a very strong sense of patriotism, which is no way, as soon as they go abroad, they will be discriminated against, and they will not be able to integrate into Western society, so they will naturally rise up with a strong sense of national identity and patriotic enthusiasm, and there is a phenomenon of patriotism as soon as they go abroad.

As for the Japanese students, there is no branch of the Qiangguo Fumin Society, and the students in this country are mainly non-governmental students, most of whom are sent to Japan by the wealthy class in the Jiangnan area to study. But even this group of people was thrilled by Yang Chao's railway plan.

Yang Chao's railway plan can be said to have won the support of the whole world and positive voices, which is a good start.

But the industrialization plan is not satisfactory.

After Yang Chao announced the introduction of nearly 10 Western industrial projects in Shandong, such as machine building, shipbuilding, and cables, the comments were immediately divided into two factions.

This time, those revolutionaries in Japan found an opportunity to scold Yang Chao for betraying the country, saying that this was to give up all the rights and interests to foreigners, but not to say that China did not have the ability to run those industries on its own, so they didn't care about this, it was just a strong scolding, which affected the perception of Yang Chao among Japanese students, and most of them began to change their attitudes and began to express a certain degree of disappointment with Yang Chao.

But this did not affect Yang Chao.

Yang Chao also has larger-scale plans, these big projects, just to let the foreigners give themselves a guarantee, allowing the Shandong pilot to terminate the cooperation at any time, Yang Chao's real industrialization plan, is to attract real investment on a large scale.

Soon, after Yang Chao's careful screening, the investment promotion plan of more than 100 projects was sent to Europe, and Wang Qiu organized students to study in Germany and invited German enterprises of all sizes to participate in the giant investment promotion conference in Germany.

"Europe has missed out on the United States, China's industrialization, and Europe must not miss it!"

Wang Qiu is constantly touring in Germany, Li Sidi translates for him, Li Sidi understands English, French and German Chinese, as early as Shandong can communicate with foreigners, he is the most relaxed of international students, has basically completed his studies, just one diploma away.