/kloc-in the 0/9th century, western capitalism developed rapidly and expanded overseas, and the claws of colonialism extended to every corner of the world. Japan, which was originally under feudal rule like us, rose rapidly through the Meiji Restoration. And the land of China is still sleeping in the feudal night. China's poor farmers are still waving whips, following the exhausted bulls and slowly plowing the ancient land as they were a thousand years ago. Women are still stumbling on the rugged country road of three-inch golden lotus. Young or old scholars, with long braids and yellow curly hair, are trying to find out the stylized eight-part essay, hoping to be lucky to be the first one one day. In the court of the Qing dynasty, ministers wore bloated auxiliary clothes embroidered with birds and animals, and heavy coats like inverted funnels. Every year, every month, every day, they prostrated themselves in the forbidden but boring hall, wishing the emperor "a long life." The Forbidden City is like an impenetrable castle, and most people inside know nothing about the outside world. However, history cannot stand still, it will force people to move forward catastrophically. The western powers finally opened the door of this ancient empire with fierce shelling, and the Qing Dynasty, which had long called itself "China", suddenly panicked. Where is China going? This matter of life and death is ruthlessly spread in front of people. What do people who control the destiny of the country and the nation think? How to act? -In the 1950s and 1960s, our history textbooks and all kinds of voluminous propaganda media always gave people the impression that the late Qing society was dark anyway. Everyone in the ruling group was summed up by a reactionary posthumous title, while those who once made Weah as fierce as Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang were labeled as "executioners" and "traitors". Even if we give some affirmation to some special people, we still have to expose their "class stance" and criticize their "safeguarding reactionary rule", as if history suddenly began one day, and there is no doubt that the previous era will be wiped out. It was not until the end of the Cultural Revolution that the ideological imprisonment of the Gang of Four was liberated to a certain extent, and people gradually realized that history always advances step by step. Even in the closed society of the late Qing Dynasty, there were many "lonely pioneers of thought", people who worked hard for the country and the nation, and Jie Jun who made great contributions to every step of historical development. In the 30 years of reform and opening up, some scientific works that conform to historical dialectics have gradually appeared in our publications. Zhang Zhidong and China Iron and Steel Industry, which is about to be published by my senior Mr. Zhang Shishaoxian, is a wonderful book, which provides a profound example for studying the history and historical figures in the late Qing Dynasty.

Zhang Zhidong was born in the 17th year of Daoguang (1837). In the second year of Tongzhi (1863), a 26-year-old scholar personally explored flowers at the order of Empress Dowager Cixi. Then it was twenty-six years, edited by the Hanlin Academy, and left school for politics. After returning to Beijing as imperial academy, he was promoted to a bachelor's degree in cabinet, and served as governor of Shanxi and governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. Twenty-six years' experience has fully demonstrated his rich experience, talent and foresight, and he has done many outstanding things. Especially in the tenth year of Guangxu (1884), he won the war of resistance against France when he was the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. This was the only victory after the Qing Dynasty was defeated by foreign enemies in the past 40 years since the Opium War, which was particularly brilliant. However, what made Zhang Zhidong a giant in the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty and achieved the most outstanding achievements in his life was that he developed Daye Iron Mine and opened Hanyang Iron Works here after being transferred to the governor of Huguang in the 15th year of Guangxu (1889), making it the cradle of China's modern iron and steel industry. Mr. Shao Shao's masterpiece studies the history of Zhang Zhidong.

In order to explain the background of Zhang Zhidong's iron and steel business, the author deliberately described the situation of the Qing Empire before and after the book's "early stage" with the "fifteen years of Guangxu" as the time coordinate. In the 15th year of Guangxu (1889), it was nearly 50 years since the Opium War, during which a series of major changes took place, such as the Sino-French War, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the domestic repression of the Nian Army, and the Qing Empire was already in turmoil. However, the imperialist artillery fire did not completely awaken the dream of the feudal center. On the one hand, the imperial court was impressed by the "strong guns" of western powers, launched the Westernization Movement, established facilities such as machinery bureau and shipping bureau, and introduced some western science and technology and social and humanistic knowledge; On the other hand, many ruling bureaucrats still stubbornly adhere to feudal orthodoxy, repeating stale and moldy arguments: "read the books of Confucius and Mencius, learn the way of Yao and Shun", "consolidate law and discipline, understand criminal law and politics", "the way to build a country, respect courtesy and righteousness without seeking power; The fundamental situation is that people are not skilled. " They still think that the Qing Dynasty is the "celestial dynasty", the western powers are barbarians, and science and technology are the last science and technology. When western trains galloped in Europe, even the construction of railways in China was strongly opposed by these feudal die-hards. They are like quails in cages, thinking that the world is so big, and they have no idea that fierce kites are hovering in the sky. As a result, Li Hongzhang, the leader of the Westernization School, lamented: "Scholar-officials are confined to the study of chapters and sentences, but they don't know a great change in thousands of years. They are so happy at present that they have forgotten why the first two or three decades were so great and painful, and why they were locked in and shut out in the next thousand years! " This is the environment in which Zhang Zhidong came out to start his steel career.

In the autumn of the fifteenth year of Guangxu, when Zhang Zhidong was transferred to the governor of Huguang, he was ordered to build the Luhan Railway and prepare to build a steel plant. There are probably only two things in his mind: first, China must have a railway, and building a railway must be self-defeating; Second, he heard that there are iron mines in Daye area. Besides, he stood on the bank of the great river and looked around, still at a loss! In front of him, there are no assistants with no scientific knowledge, no technical experts, no equipment and no machines, and every step will be met. Building railways, smelting steel, how to explore, how to mine, how to mine and how to smelt, everything depends on outsiders; Every machine and every part of the machine must be imported from a foreign country thousands of miles away. Such difficulties are not really important. What is more serious is the lack of funds and the lack of cooperation among colleagues. And at that time, the public was still in ignorance, and the slightest action was blocked everywhere. Maybe that's not the main thing. The most important thing is that the imperial court is still a feudal fortress, and there is no strategy to reform and strengthen the country like the Meiji dynasty in Japan. There is no general policy of developing science and technology and starting some modernization, and most of them are fragmented and contain each other. It is conceivable that it is difficult for Zhang Zhidong to start his own career in this atmosphere.

In a sense, the emergence and development of modern iron and steel industry marks a major leap in industrialization. The success of the British industrial revolution can illustrate this point. Can we understand Zhang Zhidong's founding of the iron and steel industry as an attempt of the industrial revolution that he may not even realize? The industrial revolution in Britain has experienced a hundred years' development from manual workshops to large factories using machines. Science and technology have been quite developed, and the political system has also improved accordingly, and the whole country has the same understanding. The sky of capitalism is completely clear, and their success naturally conforms to the logic of historical development. However, Zhang Zhidong's career was carried out in the dark night of feudalism, and the relations of production seriously restricted the development of productive forces, so his embarrassment was inevitable.

However, Zhang Zhidong faced up to difficulties, regardless of the constraints of conservative ruling ministers, the friction of his colleagues, the malicious attacks of shameless ronin, and even the difficulties of local feudal local tyrants and tyrants. In rare words, he "carried a heavy steel cross alone" and ran between Daye and Hanyang in the spirit of moving mountains, repairing railways, looking for coal mines, developing iron mines and building iron works. Where there is a will, there is a way. He finally built the Tieshan Transport Road, the first railway south of the Yellow River and Hanyang Iron Works, which was "ahead of Asia and shocked the world", so that "the blazing fire of China's modern metallurgical industry lit up the night sky of three towns in Wuhan", as if igniting the faint hope of China's industrial modernization! Zhang Zhidong succeeded!

However, this is the late Qing society, and the long night is far from over. After all, the fire in Hanyang can't last all night. When the iron works were just put into production and the red molten iron just erupted excitedly, the pace of history entered the twenty years of Guangxu with difficulty, that is, 1894. Therefore, the Chinese land trembled for it! This year, fireworks celebrating the 60th birthday of Galeries Lafayette in the Qing Dynasty rose brilliantly over the Forbidden City, while the Japanese invaders were strafing the coastal areas of China. Lafayette naturally wants to live forever, and the Beiyang Navy, which has been established for 30 years, is doomed to be completely annihilated! It may not be accidental that there is such a coincidence between the two. Just look at the expenses of a celebration in Lafayette, which is exactly equivalent to all the expenses of naval construction in 30 years. This is the master plan of the Qing empire, and the navy of the Qing empire can't be defeated! It was also at this time that Hanyang Iron Works had many accidents, the coal mine in Daye, Sanshi Wang was flooded, and Hanyang Artillery Factory was destroyed by fire. Iron works can't supply coke, so ironmaking has to be stopped, but millions of funds that need to be raised can't be raised. Treaty of shimonoseki, which humiliated the country, only compensated Japan for as much as twenty-two thousand pieces of silver, which was forty times the construction fund of Hanyang Iron Works. Who does Zhang Can want money from now? Zhang Zhidong suffered a failure!

Rarely when writing this chapter, the tragic situation of national collapse and the plight of iron works are intertwined, forming a strong contrast. At the end of this chapter, it is rare to write in his usual seemingly calm style: "Look at Hanyang Iron Works against the background of the Sino-Japanese War", and people will find that "its fun of striking the iron, its achievements, its realistic situation and its future problems have all been submerged by the gunfire of the war. The cruel and insidious shock of the Japanese army, the consternation of the avalanche of the front-line Qing army and the grief and indignation of the corrupt and incompetent Qing government occupied the national sight. At this time, Zhang Zhidong kept shouting how untimely the financial difficulties of the iron works were and how helpless the situation was; At this critical moment, how urgently a country needs the support of the steel industry for arms production. It seems that I can see the frown when Guangxu reviewed Zhang Zhidong's memorial, and I saw his disappointment when he lifted the stone and put it down. " More than a hundred years have passed, and today we still regret reading this rare passage.

It is rare to write this complicated history with elegant and fresh brushstrokes. He can be said to have created a new style, which combines textual research, narration and comment in one furnace. In this paper, Zhang Zhidong's arduous and tortuous process of building Tieshan traffic road, developing Daye iron mine and establishing Hanyang iron works is deeply researched, clearly described, analyzed and commented. Cite more than 100. From these complicated, trivial, complex, virtual or real, true or false materials, we can sort out a clue. The author got involved in the endless debate about the Westernization Movement more than 100 years ago and gave them a right and wrong judgment. The author also participated in the confusion of evaluating the Westernization Movement for more than 100 years and corrected all kinds of wrong statements. Writing a profound textual research work that may involve readers in the fog into a fresh, readable, interesting and almost popular book fully shows the author's skill.

This is not a complete history of Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty, but we can fully understand the essence, process and success or failure of Westernization Movement through Zhang Zhidong's opening up of the steel industry. Although it is not just a "point", you can get a glimpse of the "whole leopard". In summing up the Westernization Movement, the author said: The so-called "Westernization School", "These people only generally agree with the tendency of introducing western material civilization to varying degrees, and there is neither a unified action plan nor a unified organizational connection. Among them, different political groups and factions, large and small, formed with local forces as the core, all have their own political purposes, interests, ideas and plans, and go their own way; Or strict barriers, external resistance; Or infighting and containing each other; In the extremely limited resources, it is unnecessarily consumed and wasted under the impact, tearing, squeezing and friction of various reaction forces, components and frictions; Nominally, they all acted according to the will of the imperial court, but in fact, the imperial court could not make overall planning and integration, and it was difficult to dispatch and coordinate. The so-called Westernization Movement limped forward in this basically disordered macro state. Hanyang Iron Works was born in this environment, and it is no accident that it is in trouble. " This passage vividly describes the nature, characteristics and fate of the Westernization Movement.

This is not a complete biography of Zhang Zhidong, but it is the most outstanding and difficult experience in Zhang Zhidong's life. Where is Zhang Zhidong's achievement, his reputation lies. The author did not write directly, nor did he answer them one by one, but with the development of objective historical facts, he skillfully staggered the narrative. Throughout this rare book, we can see that the author spent a lot of energy to excavate and sort out the original files, and tried his best to identify the later materials and comments with the original materials, and deliberately corrected many myths and misunderstandings about Zhang Zhidong, which can be said to be one of the important features of this book. The author takes pains to quote many telegrams, letters and various complicated records, often in order to analyze or clarify a problem. For example, Ye Jingkui lied about Zhang Zhidong's "big talk": "In view of the size of China, why not find coal and iron before buying a furnace? But buy one according to the users in the UK! " As a result, the wrong steelmaking furnace was bought, and the rails produced contained too much phosphorus, resulting in serious losses. In the last century, when commenting on Zhang Zhidong's works, all mistakes were considered as Zhang Zhidong's major mistakes. It is rare to conduct a thorough and meticulous investigation on this case from the source to the inflow place, and wash away the grievances that Zhang Zhidong has borne for a hundred years. Zhang Xianshao is undoubtedly a different generation confidant of Zhang Zhidong after a hundred years; This year happens to be the centenary of Zhang Zhidong's death. Will there be some kind of fate?

This is not a detailed local history of Huangshi, but it is the most important history of Huangshi. It was Zhang Zhidong's development of Daye Iron Mine and the establishment of Hanyang Iron Works that laid the initial foundation for Huangshi as a heavy industry city, making the magnificent lakes and mountains on the south bank of the Yangtze River the birthplace of China's modern iron and steel industry. 19, the Tieshan mine site in the 20th century can be compared with the Tonglushan ancient mine developed in Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and it is comparable to the glory of Huangshi Daye after 3,000 years. Few masterpieces are undoubtedly the most important works to understand the history of Huangshi. Zhang Zhidong will always be associated with the history of Huangshi, and Zhang Xianggong's heroism will always haunt this splendid city; For this reason, I hope that one day, a sculpture of Zhang Zhidong will stand in the center of the city as a symbol of this famous mining and metallurgy city.