Attempts had been made to frighten the Government by urging that the extension to Tungchow would lay Peking open to invasion. He experienced no difficulty in controverting this ridiculous argument. "The real door of the capital," he wrote, "is the harbour of Tongku, and safety or peril will depend upon its maintenance or loss." He concluded by advocating strongly the advisability of continuing the line to Tungchow.

Chang Chih Tung, on the other hand, took a different view. He laid down the axiom that "at their initial stages foreign nations only constructed trunk lines," and on this he based his now celebrated railway scheme. Expressing himself as against the extension to Tungchow on strategic grounds, he urged the construction of a trunk from Hankow to Lukouchiao, where the trade route northwards crosses the Hun Ho, which is spanned at that point by a beautiful old stone bridge said to have been one of the bridges so enthusiastically remarked upon by Marco Polo, in the course` of his travels in the fifteenth century.

The star of the reactionary party continuing in the ascendant in Peking, it was decided to adopt Chang Chih Tung's scheme, and that official was forthwith transferred to the Viceroyalty of Hu Kuang, and commanded to take up his quarters at Hankow and straightway commence the work on the lines planned by himself.

The suddenness of the command must have caused Chang Chih Tung some surprise. We may certainly assume that it embarrassed him, for the scheme was not such as could be put into execution by Chinese engineers at the then stage of China's development. Something, however, had to be done, and he therefore founded the Hanyang Government Steel Works, and commenced preparations for turning out rails, in anticipation of the time when he should deem it advisable to attempt a start on the duty that had been assigned to him.

In other words, his scheme was shelved, but it had served its turn in checking the more practicable scheme of Li Hung Chang, and postponing its execution for several years.

It must be recorded that the reactionary party gained another success in connection with the Pei Ho Bridge. This structure was intended to connect the south side of Tientsin and the foreign settlements with the railway terminus on the north bank of the river.

In 1889 a clique headed by certain high officials, who detested

the railway, determined to foster trouble with the junk people, who were glad enough to seize the chance of a dispute with some show of right on their side. So great was the clamour raised that the Viceroy finally gave the order for the nearly completed bridge to be destroyed, although hundreds of the largest junks had already safely passed through on their way to the city. The railway company refused to remove it, and the opposing officials had to secure men and the necessary plant from the various arsenals.

"The stone abutments," wrote Mr. Kinder a few years later, now alone remain to mark the site, monuments of intrigue and jealousy which form the real barrier to China's advancement. No better instance could be given of the difficulties which beset the path of those who would improve this country even under the most liberal-minded and powerful Viceroy that China has ever seen, and at whose express desire the work was undertaken."

It only remains to be said that the railway company, having failed to overcome the opposition of the reactionary party in Peking, contented themselves for the present with the construction of the extension from Tongshan northward, a start being made in the spring of 1889 towards Kaiping. This section was completed in the autumn, and in the following year it was continued to Kuyeh, thus putting Linsi, in the north-east district of the Kaiping coalfield, where a shaft had already been sunk, into rail communication with the sea.

CHAPTER VI

THE IMPERIAL RAILWAYS OF NORTH CHINA AND THE CHINESE EASTERN RAILWAY. 1890-1900

THE

HE activity of the China Railway Company came to an end on the completion of the extension to Kuyeh. Their capital was exhausted, and though efforts to raise money would have been made had permission to construct the Tientsin-Tungchow line, which promised good financial results, not been withheld, there was no sound commercial reason for continuing the line beyond Linsi, the northernmost pit of the Kaiping coalfield.

The Imperial edict, however, which had been issued in reply to the Memorial of the Board of Admiralty, had authorised, or rather commanded, for strategic reasons, the extension of the line to Shanhaikwan, the great military camp of the North just inside the Great Wall. In 1891, therefore, Li Hung Chang undertook the construction of this section as a Government undertaking, and caused the Imperial Chinese Railway Administration to be formed to assume the management.1 The work was completed under the supervision of Mr. Kinder, who had become Engineerin-chief under the new administration, early in 1894.

Still running along the coastal plain, the country, like that farther south below Tongshan, presented no engineering difficulties, except the bridging of the Lan Ho. But the similarity goes no further. In striking contrast to the marshy Lutai-Tongku section, the line here traverses the eastern fringe of one of the most naturally fertile stretches of country in the world. The soil, of the rare loess formation, produces every variety of cereal in rich profusion, from the stately kaoliang, or tall millet, with its magnificent head of red brown grain, to the lowly

1 The China Railway Company retained control of their section of the line (Tientsin-Kuyeh), Mr. T. W. T. Tuckey becoming Engineer-in-chief on Mr. Kinder and Mr. Cox becoming attached to the newly formed administration.