Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/41

Rh when Chang took office. At this time the political strife in Peking between the so-called Northern and Southern factions became acute. , head of the Southern Party, was then in control of the Board of Revenue and Actively opposed Chang who was a Northern man. Indeed many of Chang's pet projects would have been vetoed by Wêng, the national treasurer, if Prince Ch'un (see under ) had not intervened. But having left at Canton a sound treasury and a legacy of important reforms, Chang retrieved for his northern compatriots some of the prestige that had been lost by.

In 1889 Chang Chih-tung was transferred from Canton to Wuchang as governor-general of Hupeh and Hunan—an outcome of his own project for building the Peking-Hankow Railway. Railroad construction began in Chihli under Li Hung-chang, and in 1888 it was proposed to extend the existing line from Tientsin to Tungchow. Many censors and officials vigorously opposed the extension of this railroad on the ground that it would favor invaders, arouse the villagers to riot, and rob many couriers of their livelihood. When the provincial officials were asked to express their opinion, Chang Chih-tung memorialized in favor of the construction of trunk lines in the interior. In his memorial Chang cleverly used the very arguments of the censors who had opposed the Tientsin-Tungchow Railway. Conceding their objections, he proposed the construction of a great interior railroad from Lu-kou-ch'iao 蘆溝橋, southwest of Peking, to Hankow, and listed strategic and economic advantages which the conservative censors could not refute. His memorial being approved, he was named in August, 1889, governor-general of Hupeh and Hunan to carry out the scheme. It was estimated that the railway would cost thirty million dollars and the national treasury was to put aside two million dollars for that purpose. But in 1890, owing to the Sino-Japanese tension over Korea, this fund was used to finance the extension eastward of the Tientsin-Tangshan Railway. Thus the plan of the Lu-kou-ch'iao-Hankow Railway was temporarily shelved (see below).

Chang Chih-tung was as interested in the industrial development of China as he was in railway construction. His term as governor-general of Wuchang which lasted some eighteen years, except for two brief periods as acting governor-general at Nanking, was marked by ambitious plans and by considerable achievements in the economic realm. One of the chief enterprises with which his name is associated is the Han-Yeh-P'ing 漢冶萍 iron and steel works. Before he left Canton he ordered the machinery for an iron foundry and began operations at Hanyang in 1890 soon after he reached Wuchang. In 1894 the iron mine at Tayeh was opened in co-operation with the Hanyang foundry. Two years later, owing to shortage of funds, the ironworks were sold to stockholders and transferred to the management of Shêng Hsüan-huai 盛宣懷, the great industrialist. In 1908 the coal mine at P'ing-hsiang, Kiangsi, was merged with the ironworks into the Han-Yeh-P'ing Company. Thus, owing to lack of funds, Chang had to abandon hope of active management of the foundry which he started. Among his other enterprises were cotton mills, silk factories, and tanneries. He also directed an elaborate program of dyke construction to give employment in preference to other types of relief. Many of his industrial enterprises were riddled with graft and were conducted at a loss, but it is largely to his great initiative that the Wu-Han cities owe their subsequent position as the "Chicago" of China. His other innovations were similar to those he had initiated at Canton. He founded a mint, and formed the nucleus of a modern military force drilled by German instructors. He sponsored the formation of a considerable number of schools of all grades (see under ) and sent students abroad—especially to Japan whose westernization had taken place a few decades earlier. As in Canton his expenditures on new-fangled enterprises brought frequent accusations of extravagance and waste, but his financial reforms raised the annual income of Hupeh from about seven million taels in 1889 to fifteen million when he left Wuchang in 1907.

During the Sino-Japanese war, when was commanding troops in the north, Chang was shifted to Nanking (November 1894 to February 1896) as acting governor-general. There he demonstrated his energy in an effort to improve the defenses and to forward supplies and recruits to the north. Opposed to Li Hung-chang's peace negotiations, he urged war to the bitter end. After the conclusion of peace he again pressed for the construction of the Lu-kou-ch'iao-Hankow Railway. When the project was approved he was ordered back to Wuchang (1896) to supervise its execution. But his efforts to sell stock to Chinese investors were 29