Sunning railway, a "poem of machines" A visit to the resources of "boudoir" in Taishan.
In Taishan, Chen Yixi's name is a household name, and his name is always connected with sunning railway, as if it were an inseparable whole. Although it seems that Chen Yixi and sunning railway are somewhat tragic, their value is no longer a railway that no longer exists, but an epic poem, a unique culture of the hometown of overseas Chinese, and a spirit that will always encourage future generations.
Tragic railway poetry
"When we get to Tanjiang, the train stops. The wheels didn't move, but the scenery outside began to move slowly. This is not a miracle. This is the most beautiful project in sunning railway. There is no bridge here. When the train got on the ship, it stayed on the ship and let the ship carry it slowly across the river. I watched all this and felt a kind of poetry. I seem to have read a real poem. "
Ba Jin's prose "Poem of the Machine" describes the unique spectacle of China crossing the river by ship and train at that time, which made sunning railway remain in the treasure house of China literature and gain eternal life. However, the ship written by Ba Jin was sunk by the Japanese aggressors at 1: 3 pm on October 15th, 1937. After that, the Japanese aggressors bombed sunning railway dozens of times savagely, and many important facilities were destroyed. On December 12th, 1938, Xu Jingtang, director of Jiangmen Office of the Fourth Route Army of Kuomintang, ordered the governments of Xinhui and Taishan counties to completely destroy sunning railway. Since then, sunning railway has ceased to exist. On November 2th, 1959, sunning railway Company's Property Clearing Committee entrusted the Second Salvage Team of Guangdong Provincial Shipping Department's Navigation Engineering Bureau to pick it up in Niuwan, and removed more than 1, tons of steel.
Immortal devotion to the country
Xinning was the name before Taishan, and the sunning railway was built by Chen Yixi, an overseas Chinese who served the country and loved his hometown in Taishan.
Chen Yixi (1844-1929), a native of Langmei Village, Doushan, Xinning (Taishan), immigrated to the United States in 1864. He has been engaged in railway construction in the United States for 4 years and has accumulated rich experience in railway engineering and technology. The United States built the western railway, which led to urban construction and economic prosperity along the way, which inspired him deeply and set up his great ambition to build a railway for the motherland. At the beginning of the 2th century, when the Qing court was corrupt, people advocated "saving the country through industry". Chen Yixi strongly supported this idea. He changed his original plan to invest in establishing Huayang weaving factory in Hong Kong, decided to go back to his hometown to build a railway, and became the first person to run an overseas Chinese business.
sunning railway has a distinctive patriotic spirit since its establishment. Chen Yixi said: "I am angry with my country's road rights and hold the hands of outsiders, but I don't care about it and advocate building a peaceful road." With the call of "no foreign shares, no foreign loans and no foreign workers", he advocated the construction of the Jianning Railway, which was supported by county people and overseas Chinese. In the process of preparation, Chen Yixi encountered many obstacles and many contradictions. According to the 9 th issue of Xinning Magazine in Taishan in 191, "All the surnames and ethnic groups rarely rely on their dragons and tigers, and they are strictly limited by this boundary. Or superstitious geomantic omen, the rebels have it, or relying on power and the rebels have it. Wherever the project went, there were many waves, and there were dozens of plans before and after, and the line was forced to bend the track 29 times. " Despite the many obstacles in the future, sunning railway has been built after 14 years of construction, with a cost of 8 million yuan and a railway length of 138 kilometers, all planned and built by Chinese, which has written a glorious history page of China's independent railway construction.
In recognition of his achievements, the board of directors of Xinning erected a bronze statue for him at Taicheng Railway Station. At that time, Chen Yixi, a 76-year-old man, expressed his four wishes that he would continue to work hard: first, to build the Niuwan Railway Bridge; second, to build the Yangjiang Branch Line; third, to build hydroelectric lights for the whole city of Taishan; and fourth, to develop the Taishan Hot Spring Bath. He said emotionally: "This is all about the interests of local public, and the purpose of the four is to comfort the volunteers." Chen Yixi's four wishes, even today, are enough to make people moved. Of course, this ambition has been fully realized by the latecomers: hydropower, Sanhe hot spring development, the completion of the public welfare bridge, the opening of the western coastal expressway, etc., which have surpassed Chen Yixi's ideals in those years.
Once Prosperous
Saving the country by industry was once the dream of many overseas Chinese, and sunning railway was Chen Yixi's effort to turn this dream into reality, which had a very positive impact on the development of the hometown of overseas Chinese.
It is said that sunning railway operated by train and rail car. The construction of railway and the extension of railway operation later promoted the prosperity of Wuyi highway construction and water transportation at that time. In Taishan alone, 387 kilometers of roads were built from 1925 to 1937, and water transportation formed the water transportation network in Taishan, Jiangmen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Zhaoqing and Wuzhou. At the same time, it has promoted the prosperity of the polder towns along sunning railway, such as osawa, Si Qian, Gongyi, Dajiang, Taicheng and Doosan, which are all prospered due to sunning railway. Taishan, Xinhui and Jiangmen quickly built modern factories such as machinery, electric power, paper making and sugar making, and the cultural and educational undertakings developed unprecedentedly, making the economic development of Siyi County in Jiangmen at that time at the forefront of the county-level economy in China. It is not difficult to imagine that if sunning railway has been in operation so far, Taishan's lush fields will already be a modern city with many tall buildings.
Chen Yixi's spirit of patriotism and love for his hometown has always inspired and inspired thousands of overseas Chinese at home and abroad in Qian Qian to make unremitting efforts to build the motherland and hometown. According to the relevant personnel of Taishan Archives Bureau, in September last year, an overseas Chinese living in new york, USA, returned to China to contact, and decided to rebuild sunning railway. However, today's Taishan and even the whole of China are far from the situation at that time, among which Xintai Expressway runs through the north and south of Taishan City, and Guangdong Western Coastal Expressway runs through the east and west of Taishan City. Taishan City has convenient land, water and roads extending in all directions. People concerned believe that if sunning railway is rebuilt, its significance will be greater than its actual effect, and even it will face a long-term loss-making operation due to the limitations of historical, regional and economic development.
Searching in the rain
After decades of wind and rain, only a railway station located in the field of Sijiu Town, Taishan City and the former site of Jiangmen North Street Railway Station, which is now used as a library by Jiangmen Customs, are left in sunning railway. In order to preserve the cultural heritage of Taishan, Taishan City has made a lot of efforts. Now, Chen Yixi's former residence is listed as a key cultural relics protection unit in Guangdong Province, and the bronze statue and monument of Chen Yixi on the commercial pedestrian street square in Taicheng City are key cultural relics protection units in Jiangmen City. Taishan City has also made efforts to declare "Chen Yixi and sunning railway" as "China Archives and Literature Heritage". On this basis, if we further explore the cultural essence of sunning railway and the tourism effect of Chen Yixi's former residence, it will promote the construction of Taishan as a famous cultural city and provide valuable wealth for the city to build a cultural city with the characteristics of overseas Chinese.
Chen Yixi's former residence is in Meitang Village, Doushan Town. In the rain, I saw only two three-story big houses standing in the farmland in the countryside, with blue bricks and black tiles, ancient big house-style rafters and hardwood doors with Lingnan tradition. In the sudden heavy rain in July in the south, they were deep for a hundred years. Most of the villagers in Meitang Village are surnamed Chen, and they all moved here from Langmei Village with Chen Yixi in their early years. The two big houses in Chen Yixi's former residence have a history of more than 1 years, and his relatives have always lived in the former residence. Less than 5 meters away from his former residence, there is a building built by the pond, which is quite foreign. It is Chen Yixi's library and was later used as a school. It is said that Chen Yixi lived here in his later years. After seeing sunning railway, which he painstakingly managed, being taken over, he lost his mind after returning to his hometown, but he still kept talking nonsense about building railways and opening up commercial ports. In 1929, Chen Yixi left the world in grief and indignation, and as many as 1, people were sent to the funeral. At the time of the funeral, it rained heavily, as if God had shed tears and mourned.
The commemorative bronze statue of Chen Yixi standing at the railway station was demolished during the Cultural Revolution, but the history is notarized, and Chen Yixi's patriotism for the benefit of one party has been admired by people. In 1984, the Taishan County People's Government restored the memorial bronze statue of Chen Yixi according to its original appearance. Under the bronze statue, there was an inscription from the Taishan County People's Government that year: "A stone can be broken, but it cannot be seized; Dan can be grinded, and the collar will fade away; The bronze statue of Chen Yixi was destroyed during the 1-year catastrophe, and its glorious image of patriotism and love for the hometown could not be destroyed. In order to commemorate Chen Gong's achievements in developing hometown transportation and praise his indomitable spirit of struggle, it is to re-establish his bronze statue. "