114 years ago today, on May 14, 1911 (April 16, 1911), thousands of people in Changsha rallied to launch a road protection movement. The road protection movement launched at the end of the Qing Dynasty, also known as the "railway wave", was a mass movement of the people of Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and other provinces against the Qing government's selling of the privately run Sichuan-Han and Guangdong-Han railways to imperialism. In order to further enslave the Chinese people and plunder China's wealth, imperialism began to invest in railways in China from the end of the 19th century and competed for the right to build railways. The Guangdong-Han and Sichuan-Han railways were two important trunk lines connecting the north and south and penetrating deep into the mainland, so they became the targets of imperialist competition. In order to regain the right of self-management of these two railways, the people of Guangdong, Sichuan, Hunan and Hubei provinces adopted the method of collecting "private shares", and the local governments added rental shares, rice donation shares, salt donation shares, and housing donation shares under the tax item to raise funds for road construction. After several years of fundraising, not only the gentry merchants and landlords in the four provinces became shareholders, but even some farmers also held shares. The Guangdong-Han railway has begun to be built, and the section of the Sichuan-Han railway from Yichang to Wanxian has also been started. Judging from the situation at that time, these two railways can be built by themselves. However, the imperialists refused to allow China to build its own railways, so they took advantage of the financial difficulties of the Qing government to blackmail them, forcing the Qing government to sign a railway loan contract and announce the state-owned policy of the railway trunk lines. According to the loan contract, the British, American, French, and German imperialists not only controlled the railway rights, but also used the salt tax and lijin in Hunan and Hubei provinces as collateral. Therefore, the so-called "state-owned" railway not only deprived the Chinese of their own sovereignty to run the railway, but actually auctioned off the Sichuan-Han, Guangdong-Han railways to imperialism. The people suffered a lot during the period of preparation for the two railways. When they saw the Qing government openly selling the right of way, they became even more resentful. Many gentry businesspeople were also very dissatisfied because the state-owned railway had harmed their interests. Therefore, a vigorous road protection movement with a broad mass base broke out. The first to rise up was the people of Hunan. On May 14, 1911, a mass rally of 10,000 people was held in Changsha. Then there was a demonstration by more than 10,000 railway workers from Changsha to Zhuzhou, and they called on businesspeople to strike the market, students to strike classes, and refused to pay taxes in protest. Led by the people of Hunan, the people of Hubei, Guangdong, and Sichuan also took active actions, and the road protection movement soon developed into a massive armed uprising. This road protection movement not only dealt a heavy blow to the rule of imperialism and the Qing government, but also created the conditions for the victory of the Wuchang Uprising and opened the way for the development of the revolutionary situation in the whole country at that time. Therefore, it has great historical significance.