1876, the first railway, Wusong Railway, appeared in China. Five years later, under the auspices of the Westernization School of the Qing government, the Tangshan-Xugezhuang Railway was completed in 188 1, which opened the curtain for China to build the railway independently. However, due to the ignorance and closed-door policy of the Qing government, by 1894, only about 400 kilometers of railways had been built in twenty years. 1949 on the eve of the founding of new China, the railway mileage in China reached 2 1800 kilometers. By the end of 2003, the railway in China was only 73,000 kilometers. In 50 years, it has only increased by 50 thousand kilometers, with less than one cigarette per capita!

I. Entrepreneurial Period (1876- 1893)

Information and knowledge about railways began to be introduced into China around the Opium War. At that time, Lin Zexu, Wei Yuan, Xu Jishe and other patriotic people of insight in China wrote books and introduced railway knowledge.

1876, the first railway appeared on the land of China, which was the Wusong Railway built by the British capital group by deception. After more than a year of operation, the railway was redeemed and demolished by the Qing government.

Second, the imperialists compete for the right of way, and the development of China railway is slow (1894- 1948).

1894, after the Qing government was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, Eight-Nation Alliance seized the railway rights and interests of China. More than 10,000 kilometers of China road rights were embezzled and carved up, which formed the first climax of imperialism plundering China road rights. Subsequently, according to their own needs, they designed and built a number of railways, with different standards and messy equipment, which caused the confusion and backwardness of China railways. During the Qing government (1876 ~1911), about 9,400 kilometers of railways were built. Among them, about 465,438+0% was directly built and operated by imperialism; Loan-controlled imperialism accounts for about 39%; State-owned railways, including Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway and China's own commercial railways, as well as the redeemed Beijing-Han and Guangzhou-San Railways, account for only about 20%.

After the Revolution of 1911, Yuan Shikai announced "unified road administration" in 19 12, dissolved the provincial commercial railway companies, and nationalized all the railways built and under construction in the provinces to pay off the foreign debts, thus forming the second climax of imperialist plundering of China's road rights. From 19 12 to 19 16, countries have obtained the right of way of13,000 kilometers. During the period of Beiyang government (19 12~ 1927), about 2 100 km of railways were built in the pass.

From 65438 to 0928, after the Nanjing Kuomintang government came to power, the railway was mainly built in the form of "joint venture" between bureaucratic comprador capital and imperialist monopoly capital, which triggered the third climax of imperialist plunder of China's road rights. During the period of Nanjing National Government (1928~ 1948), about 13000 kilometers of railways were built on Chinese mainland.