Jagged Warlord

On May 1913, 5, with the participation of foreigners, Yantai officially established the first port management organization in history——Yantai Sea Dam Engineering Association.The main designer of the Yantai Port Construction Project was Reillyde of the Dutch Harbor Control Company. His design proposal was to build the east and west breakwaters in the waters west of Yantai Mountain. This proposal was quickly adopted by the Sea Dam Engineering Association. In February 15, the Beijing government and foreign missions in Beijing approved the design of Relid.Once the design plan is approved by Beijing, the sea dam project will immediately start inviting bids, and a total of four bidders bid.After bid evaluation, the Dutch Harbor Control Company won the bid with a bidding price of 1915 customs taels. On June 2, 2677000, Wang Qiangang formally signed the project contract with the representative of the Dutch Harbor Control Company, Ray Lide, and the financial prime minister, Guien.

On August 1915, 8, the port construction project that Yantai businessmen had been looking forward to for many years finally officially started. In September, Li Kaite was hired as the chief engineer by the Haiba Project.According to the contract, the entire construction period is 2 years.The main engineering structure of this project is divided into two parts, the east breakwater and the west breakwater (including the north pier).

The east breakwater is based on chaotic stones, and a stone wall is built on the pier. The lower part of the wall is made of large stones stacked in a certain order; the upper part is made of mixed stones.The entity of the east breakwater is 792.48 meters long, 15.7 meters high and 7.92 meters wide.

The bottom of the west breakwater is made of sand, and the part above the low tide line is made of large and small rocks.Stone battlements are built on the embankment, and light railways and sidewalks are laid in the middle.There is a platform on the south side of the embankment, which is convenient for loading and unloading goods.The total length of the west breakwater is 1791.27 meters, the narrowest part is 18 meters, and the top height is 5.45 meters.

At the north end of the west breakwater, a gravity wharf along the embankment is built, which is made of large stones and mixed stones, and is called the North Wharf.The North Wharf is 183 meters long and 44.89 meters wide.It can berth two thousand-ton ships at the same time.

In view of the fact that the Yantai breakwater has already started, Li Mohan does not plan to make any changes.But Li Mohan is very concerned about the railway from Yantai to Weixian.Because several ports in Shandong, such as Qingdao, are currently controlled by the Japanese, and Weihai is controlled by the British, Yantai is the only important port that I can use right now.Therefore, the first project of public bond issuance was the Yantai-Weixian railway bond.

Of course, in addition to this, there is another reason, that is, after the Japanese occupied Qingdao, they had secretly purchased road materials for the construction of the Longwei Railway, in an attempt to open up the passage from Dalian-Longkou-Weifang-Jinan, and further control Shandong. .

Japan's conspiracy made the British Consul in Yantai and Yantai's business community panic, and they sent letters to the government to inquire, because it was related to the rise and fall of Yantai and their common interests.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs instructed Lu Zongyu, the Chinese Minister to Japan: "Try to stop it, the most important thing is to maintain business in Yantai."

中日交涉收到一定成效,但日本贼心不死。“21条”就是明证。1915年1月。日本公使向袁世凯递交了早已炮制好的“21条”。全文共5号21条款。其中第1号的4条款全部要求中国出让青岛和山东权益。第三款就涉及烟潍铁路问题:“中国政府允准,日本国建造由烟台或龙口接连胶济路线之铁路。”

Fortunately, Yuan Shikai was not stupid. After negotiating hard, the content related to the Yanwei Railway was adjusted to: "The Chinese government promised to build a railway connecting Yantai or Longkou to the Jiaoji line by itself. For example, when Germany abandoned the right to borrow money for the Yantai Railway. , You can negotiate a loan with Japanese capitalists.”

According to this clause, Li Mohan decided to pay for the construction of the railway by the Chinese side.And the railway plan is divided into four sections, namely Yantai-Penglai, Penglai-Longkou-Laizhou-Weixian, Yantai-Laiyang-Jiaozhou, Yantai-Weihai.Li Mohan called this railway plan the "Jiaodong Railway Plan".

The steel rails, sleepers, and stone materials for building railways are now self-produced in Shandong, and funding is not a problem. The only thing that is lacking is an excellent railway engineer.There is no doubt that foreign engineers will be hired for such a large railway project, but Chinese engineers are also indispensable.This person is Luo Guorui.

Luo Guorui, courtesy name Yuesheng, was born in Boluo, Huizhou, Guangdong. He went to study in the United States in 1872 and was one of the first batch of children studying abroad in my country.Luo Guorui was only 12 years old when he went abroad, the same age as Zhan Tianyou. In 1881, the Zongli Yamen submitted a memorial to Emperor Guangxu, "Returning all students who have gone abroad", which was approved by Emperor Guangxu.In this way, the first batch of overseas students ended their nine-year study abroad career. Except for Zhan Tianyou and Ouyang Geng who officially graduated from university, the other children were sent back to China without graduating.

Luo Guorui is also one of them.Immediately after they landed, they were sent to a school that had been closed for 10 years—Qiuzhi College.After coming out of Qiuzhi Academy, all these international students were sent to the Telegraph Bureau to study telegraph. In 1896, Luo Guorui applied to the Hanyang Iron Works, so he was able to contact Zhang Zhidong, Sheng Xuanhuai and other foreign affairs ministers, and showed his talent in the railway industry.In the 25th year of Guangxu (1899), Sheng Xuanhuai was in charge of supervising the Pingli Railway. The design of the road began on September 1899, 9. The designers were Li Zhi, the American chief engineer, Mark Lai, the deputy engineer, and Luo Guorui, who had become the deputy engineer.The Pingli Railway was completed and opened to traffic in August 8, but because the railway still failed to completely solve the purpose of direct coal mines to Hankou, the construction of the Pingtan Railway was started immediately, and Luo Guorui was still one of the main designers.

Luo Guorui is not only a road administrator appointed by the imperial court, but also a dedicated management talent.When he was the general office of the southern section of the Jinpu Railway, he strictly resisted the British chief engineer's request to exceed his authority, exposed the British chief engineer's indulging in his assistants, "taking the same day's prostitutes to escape the summer heat", delaying the construction period, and other bad deeds, and insisted on our side. The autonomy of borrowed road funds and project personnel arrangements.

Luo Guorui, who has a "combination of Chinese and Western personality", lacks the smooth ability to roll around in officialdom.As early as 1906, he resigned from the post of Zhejiang Railway Chief Engineering Department because of discord with his boss, which made Zhan Tianyou deeply regretful.When he was the general manager of the southern section of the Jinpu Railway, Luo Guorui still went his own way, and in the end he was forced to leave the Jinpu Railway construction project because he couldn't get along with foreign engineers.

After Luo Guorui left Jinpu Railway, it coincided with the second year of Xuantong (1910) that the Ministry of Post and Communications had another proposal to build the Yunnan-Guangxi Railway. Luo Guorui once again took on the important task of surveying the route.The Yunnan-Guizhou Railway was the last railway that Luo Guorui participated in the construction of. Unfortunately, the Yunnan-Guangzhou Railway had not yet entered the construction stage, and the Qing Dynasty came to the end of its destiny.

In the period of the Republic of China, Luo Guorui, who was over half a century old, was no longer as popular as before. Although the project of the Yunnan-Guangxi Railway was once restarted, Luo Guorui, as a minister of the former Qing Dynasty, was no longer valued.In the third year of the Republic of China (1914), the Ministry of Communications established the Road and Electric Materials Research Association, appointed Luo Guorui, who was then a technical supervisor, as the chairman, and instructed Luo to "get rid of sympathy, take improvement and rectification as the premise, and take hard work as his duty."Perhaps it was precisely because Luo Guorui was too "abandoning sensibilities" that in the fifth year of the Republic of China (1916), Luo Guorui was actually suspended by the Ministry of Communications.

It can be said that Luo Guorui is another railway talent in China besides Zhan Tianyou.Since you discarded it like grass, I will take it back and use it unceremoniously.Li Mohan immediately sent someone to Beijing to bring Luo Guorui to Jinan.