On this day, 144 years ago, on June 9, 1881 (May 13, 1881 in the lunar calendar), the Tangxu Railway, the first self-built railway in China, was laid. In the 1860s, the "Westernization faction" represented by Li Hongzhang, Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, etc. appeared within the Qing government. Under the slogan of "self-reliance on wealth", they advocated learning Western science and technology and establishing modern military industries. At the same time, they also established some modern industrial, mining and transportation industries. It was under this situation that my country's earliest railways were built. In 1877, in order to solve the problem of coal consumption by the Shipbuilding Investment Bureau and the Beiyang Fleet, Li Hongzhang, Governor of Zhili, sent Tang Tingshu, General Office of the Shipbuilding Investment Bureau, to prepare for the Kaiping Coal Mine. After Tang Tingshu selected the mine site in Tangshan, southwest of Kaiping, after on-site exploration, he began to consider the issue of coal transportation. In addition to its own use and local sales by the Mining Bureau, Kaiping Coal mainly sells coal to Tianjin. Tangshan is 120 kilometers away from Tianjin. Coal must be transported from land to Lutai, and then changed to waterway, from Dagu mouth to the sea to Tianjin. Such transportation is troublesome and the freight rate is high. If a railway is built from Tangshan to Lutai and trains are used to transport coal, it can not only reduce transportation troubles, but also reduce costs. Therefore, Tang Tingshu believes that the real difficulty lies not in mining, but in transportation. Therefore, he wrote to Li Hongzhang requesting to build a railway from Tangshan to Lutai; but due to insufficient funds, he planned to build the section from Tangshan to Xugezhuang first. Li Hongzhang agreed to this plan, submitted approval to the Qing court in 1879, and sent British engineer Jin Da to supervise the repair. But at this time, the diehards strongly opposed it on the pretext that Tangshan was close to Dongling and that the railway would "shake the mausoleum." Under such circumstances, the Qing government withdrew its approval and the first attempt to build a road failed. After that, Tang Tingshu planned to dig a canal between Tangshan and Lutai, connecting it with the Ji Canal from Lutai to Tianjin, trying to replace land transportation with water transportation, but only dug a 35-kilometer-long section from Xugezhuang to Lutai. Later, due to the steep terrain, it was impossible to open the river. In this dilemma, Li Hongzhang, the governor of Zhili, instructed Tang Tingshu to once again request the construction of a light railway for coal transportation, stating that in order to avoid shaking the Dongling Mountains, locomotives were not used, but mules and horses were used to pull it. Li Hongzhang actively mediated in the Qing court for this purpose. Finally, the Qing government allowed the road to be built despite extreme reluctance. Therefore, the road construction project started in early 1881, track laying began on June 9 of the same year, and the project was completed in November. This was my country's first self-built railway-Tangxu Railway. The Tangxu Railway starts from Tangshan in the east and ends in Xugezhuang in the southwest, with a length of 9.7 kilometers. Light rails of 30 pounds per yard imported from the United Kingdom were used, and the gauge also adopted British standards. At that time, the gauge gauges in various countries around the world were different, with some width and some width, with the British gauge being more moderate. At the end of 1881, the Tangxu Railway was put into use. At first, mules and horses could only be used as locomotives to drag coal carriages on the rails. At that time, it was called the "Carriage Railway". Later, due to the full production of Kaiping Coal Mine, the carriage railway with small traction and slow speed could not meet the needs of transportation. In order to solve this problem, China workers successfully trial-produced a 0-3-0 light steam locomotive according to Jinda's design and using the old materials of the mine. Workers carved dragons on both sides of the locomotive and called it the "Dragon". Although this first locomotive built by China has a traction force of only a hundred tons and a relatively simple structure, it fully demonstrates the creativity of China workers. Although the Tangxu Railway is only 9.7 kilometers long, it is the first self-built railway in China. It runs the first locomotive made by China and determines the standard gauge of China's railways.