¹ Weber, M., The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, (trans.) H. H. Gerth (Glencoe, IL, 1951), pp. 119–21Google Scholar.

² See e.g. Bennett, A. A., John Fryer: The Introduction of Western Science and Technology into Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge, MA, 1967)Google Scholar; Lackner, M., Amelung, I., and Kurtz, J. (eds.), New Terms for New Ideas: Western Knowledge and Lexical Change in Late Imperial China (Leiden, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Elman, B. A., On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900 (Cambridge, MA, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Bray, F., Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, V., and Métailié, G. (eds.), Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp and the Weft (Leiden, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Schäfer, D. (ed.), Cultures of Knowledge: Technology in Chinese History (Leiden, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ See e.g. Will, P.-E., Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth-Century China, (trans.) E. Forster (Stanford, 1990)Google Scholar; Dodgen, R. A., Controlling the Dragon: Confucian Engineers and the Yellow River in the Late Imperial China (Honolulu, 2001)Google Scholar; Leonard, J. K., Stretching the Qing Bureaucracy in the 1826 Sea-Transport Experiment (Leiden, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. Moll-Murata, J. Song, and V. H. Ulrich (eds.), Chinese Handicraft Regulations of the Qing Dynasty: Theory and Application (München, 2005); C. Moll-Murata, State and Crafts in the Qing Dynasty (Amsterdam, 2018); and M. Siebert, K. Jun Chen, and D. Ko (eds.), Making the Palace Machine Work: Mobilizing People, Objects, and Nature in the Qing Empire (Amsterdam, 2021).

⁵ For a comparative perspective on the history of vocational and technical education between China and Europe before 1850, see Davids, K., Religion, Technology, and the Great and Little Divergences: China and Europe Compared, c. 700–1800 (Leiden, 2012), pp. 91–98Google Scholar. The term ‘technical education’ became common after 1880 in English literature. An equivalent Chinese term for ‘technical education’ could hardly be found—if it existed at all—in the late Qing documents. A transitional term shiye jiaoju 實業教育 for specialised education in industries, agriculture, and commerce was commonly used after 1895. See Chen, H., ‘Technology for re-engineering the Qing empire: the concept of “arts” and the emergence of modern technical education in China, 1840–1895’, ICON: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology 26.1 (2021), p. 13Google Scholar. This article uses ‘engineering education’ to refer to the higher technical education, i.e. educational institutions specialised for training engineers.

⁶ For studies on the history of classical academies and Confucian education, see e.g. B. A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA, 1984); and S. B. Miles, The Sea of Learning: Mobility and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Guangzhou (Cambridge, MA, 2006). On missionary and military schools, see e.g. J. G. Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges, 1850–1950 (Ithaca, NY, 1971); Smith, R. J., ‘The reform of military education in late Ch'ing China, 1842–1895’, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 18 (1978), pp. 15–40Google Scholar.

⁷ See Biggerstaff, K., The Earliest Modern Government Schools in China (Ithaca, NY, 1961)Google Scholar; Wright, D., ‘John Fryer and the Shanghai Polytechnic: making space for science in nineteenth-century China’, British Journal for the History of Science 29.1 (1996), pp. 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meng, Y., ‘Hybrid science versus modernity: the practice of the Jiangnan Arsenal, 1864–1897’, East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, 16 (1999), pp. 13–52Google Scholar.

⁸ See e.g. Harrell, P., Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895–1905 (Stanford, CA, 1992)Google Scholar; Ye, W., Seeking Modernity in China's Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900–1927 (Stanford, 2001)Google Scholar; Xu, X., Chinese Professionals and the Republican State: The Rise of Professional Associations in Shanghai, 1912–1937 (Cambridge, 2001)Google Scholar; Rhoads, E. J. M., Stepping Forth into the World: The Chinese Educational Mission to the United States, 1872–81 (Hong Kong, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and R. Culp, E. U, and W. Yeh (eds.), Knowledge Acts in Modern China: Ideas, Institutions, and Identities (Berkeley, 2016).

⁹ See e.g. Cong, X., Teachers’ Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State, 1897–1937 (Toronto, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zarrow, P. G., Educating China: Knowledge, Society and Textbooks in a Modernizing World, 1902–1937 (Cambridge, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ See e.g. Hayhoe, R., China's Universities 1895–1995: A Century of Cultural Conflict (New York, 1996)Google Scholar; Y. Lu and R. Hayhoe, ‘Chinese higher learning: the transition process from classical knowledge patterns to modern disciplines, 1860–1910’, in Transnational Intellectual Networks: Forms of Academic Knowledge and the Search for Cultural Identities, (eds.) C. Charle, J. Schriewer, and P. Wagner (Frankfurt and New York, 2004), pp. 269–306.

¹¹ For my earlier studies on the late Qing mining textbooks and the establishment of China's first engineering university in Tianjin, see Hailian Chen, ‘Creating intellectual space for West-East and East-East knowledge transfer: global mining literacy and the evolution of textbooks on mining in late Qing China, 1860–1911’, in Accessing Technical Education in Modern Japan, (eds.) E. Pauer and R. Mathias (Folkestone and Amsterdam, 2022), pp. 37–69; and H. Chen, ‘Daxuetang für die Institutionalisierung der Ingenieurwissenschaft: von der Bowen Akademie zur Beiyang Universität’, in Wissensort in China. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien 16, (eds.) H. Martin and K. Joachim (Wiesbaden, 2023), pp. 87–114. Several Chinese-language articles provide a sketchy chronological overview of mining education policy and training programmes of the overseas students, but focus mainly on university mining departments after 1895. See e.g. Y. Wu 吴玉伦, ‘Jindai kuangye gongcheng jiaoyu zhi yuanqi 近代矿业工程教育之缘起 [The origin of modern mining engineering education]’, Shanxi shida xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 山西师大学报（社会科学版） [Journal of Shanxi Normal University (Social Science Edition)], 33.2 (2006), pp. 89–93; Z. Xiong 熊宗武, ‘Shehui biange yu jindai gaodeng gongcheng jiaoyu de xingqi: yi gaodeng kuangye jiaoyu wei duixiang de kaocha 社会变革与近代高等工程教育的兴起——以高等矿业教育为对象的考察 [Social changes and the rise of higher engineering education: case study of mining education]’, Gaodeng gongcheng jiaoyu yanjiu 高等工程教育研究 [Journal of Higher Engineering Education], 6 (2013), pp. 128–32; G. Zhou 周谷平 and Z. Xiong 熊宗武, ‘Liuxuesheng yu jindai Zhongguo gaodeng kuangye jiaoyu 留学生与近代中国高等矿业教育 [Oversea students and higher mining education in modern China]’, Gaodeng jiaoyu yanjiu 高等教育研究 [Journal of Higher Education], 34.1 (2013), pp. 81–89.

¹² S. R. Brown and T. Wright, ‘Technology, economics, and politics in the modernization of China's coal-mining industry, 1850–1895’, Explorations in Economic History 18 (1981), pp. 62–65.

¹³ A. Reinhardt, Navigating Semi-Colonialism: Shipping, Sovereignty, and Nation-Building in China, 1860–1937 (Cambridge, MA, 2018), pp. 75–79.

¹⁴ Y. Xu 徐元基, Pingzi Ji 季平子, and Xi Wu 武曦 (eds.), Sheng Xuanhuai dang'an ziliao, di wu juan: Hubei kaicai meitie zongju, Jingmen kuangwu zongju 盛宣怀档案资料, 第五卷: 湖北开采煤铁总局, 荆门矿务总局 [Collected Materials of Sheng Xuanhuai, vol. 5: Hubei General Bureau of Coal and Iron Mining and Jingmen Mining Bureau] (Shanghai, 2016), pp. I–II.

¹⁵ See e.g. H. Liang 梁华平, ‘Lun Sheng Xuanhuai zaoqi chuangban Hubei meitie kuangwu yaozhe de zhuguan yuanyin 论盛宣怀早期创办湖北煤铁矿务夭折的主观原因 [On the subjective reason for Sheng Xuanhuai's failure in the early coal and iron mining practices in Hubei]’, Jianghan luntan 江汉论坛 [Jianghan Forum] 4 (1981), pp. 55–60; J. Zou 邹俊杰 and Yingchun Jiang 姜迎春, ‘Jindai yangwupai dui Hubei meitie kaicai de tansuo yu shijian: yi Li Hongzhang, Sheng Xuanhuai de huodong wei zhongxin 近代洋务派对湖北煤铁开采的探索与实践—以李鸿章、盛宣怀的活动为中心 [Modern practices in coal and iron mining in Hubei during the Foreign Affair Movement: centring around the activities of Li Hongzhang and Sheng Xuanhuai]’, Zhongguo kuangye daxue xuebao (Shehui kexueban) 中国矿业大学学报 (社会科学版) [Journal of China University of Mining and Technology (Social Sciences)] 3 (2017), pp. 90–95.

¹⁶ E. C. Carlson, The Kaiping Mines (1877–1912) (Cambridge, MA, 1957); Hansheng Quan 全漢昇, Hanyeping gongsi shilue 漢冶萍公司史略 [A Brief History of the Hanyeping Company] (Hongkong, 1972); T. Wright, Coal Mining in China's Economy and Society, 1895–1937 (Cambridge, 1984); Y. Fang 方一兵, Hanyeping gongsi yu Zhongguo jindai gangtie jishu yizhi 汉冶萍公司与中国近代钢铁技术移植 [Hanyeping Company and Transfer of Modern Iron and Steel Technology to China] (Beijing, 2010); and J. Hornibrook, A Great Undertaking: Mechanization and Social Change in a Late Imperial Chinese Coalmining Community (Albany, 2015).

¹⁷ See e.g. G. Y. Shen, Unearthing the Nation: Modern Geology and Nationalism in Republican China (Chicago, 2014); S. X. Wu, Empires of Coal: Fueling China's Entry into the Modern World Order, 1860–1920 (Stanford, CA, 2015); V. Seow, Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia (Chicago, 2022). For Chinese literature, see the major works by Fang Yibing and her collaborators: Y. Fang 方一兵 and W. Qian 潜伟, ‘Zhongguo jindai gangtie gongyehua jinchengzhong de shoupi bentu gongchengshi (1894–1925 nian) 中国近代钢铁工业化进程中的首批本土工程师 (1894–1925 年) [The earliest Western trained engineers in China's industrialisation of iron and steel production, 1894–1925]’, Zhongguo kejishi zazhi 中国科技史杂志 [The Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology] 29.2 (2008), pp. 117–33; and L. Lei 雷丽芳, Wei Qian 潜伟, and Yibing Fang 方一兵, ‘Jindai Zhongguo kuangye gongchengshi qunti de xingcheng 中国近代矿业工程师群体的形成 (1875–1929) [The formation of the community of mining and metallurgy engineers in modern China, 1875–1929]’, Ziran kexueshi yanjiu 自然科学史研究 [Studies in the History of Natural Sciences] 37.1 (2018), pp. 55–70.

¹⁸ See e.g. P. Lundgreen, ‘Engineering education in Europe and the U.S.A., 1750–1930: the rise to dominance of school culture and the engineering professions’, Annals of Science, 47.1 (1990), pp. 33–75; R. Fox and A. Guagnini, ‘Introduction’, in Education, Technology and Industrial Performance in Europe, 1850–1939, (eds.) R. Fox and A. Guagnini (Cambridge and Paris, 1993), pp. 1–9; A. Guagnini, ‘Technology’, in A History of the University in Europe, Volume III: Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800–1945), (ed.) Walter Rüegg (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 593–635.

¹⁹ See e.g. P. O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Baltimore, 2001), pp. 175–91.

²⁰ D. Brianta, ‘Education and training in the mining industry, 1750–1860: European models and the Italian case’, Annals of Science 57 (2000), pp. 271–74, 278–79. For a detailed examination of the teaching process by incorporating mathematics into mining education, see T. Morel, Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, New York, Port Melbourne, New Delhi, and Singapore, 2023), pp. 183–212.

²¹ Brianta, ‘Education and training’, pp. 271–74, 278–79; Guagnini, ‘Technology’, pp. 597–600.

²² E. Schatzberg, Technology: Critical History of a Concept (Chicago, 2018), pp. 79–90. As I have argued elsewhere, technology was not a static concept in nineteenth-century China either; see Chen, ‘Technology for re-engineering’, pp. 10–43.

²³ H. Chen, Zinc for Coin and Brass: Bureaucrats, Merchants, Artisans, and Mining Laborers in Qing China, ca. 1680s–1830s (Leiden, 2019), pp. 167–207, 238–40.

²⁴ T. Ch’ü, Local Government in China under the Ch'ing, 4th print edn (Cambridge, MA, 1988).

²⁵ Chen, Zinc for Coin and Brass, pp. 133–43. For a comprehensive examination of fengshui in relation to mining industries in the nineteenth century, especially during the early 1870s, see T. G. Brown, Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China (Princeton and Oxford, 2023), pp. 158–92.

²⁶ Chen, Zinc for Coin and Brass, pp. 238–40.

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 395–406. For a comparative analysis of traditional mining literature between China and Europe, see H. U. Vogel, ‘The mining industry in traditional China: intra- and intercultural comparisons’, in Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation, (ed.) H. Nowotny (New York, 2006), pp. 173–74.

²⁸ Some Western mining knowledge was already introduced to China through missionaries in the early seventeenth century, especially through translating Georgius Agricola's renowned De Re Metallica (1556) into Chinese Kunyu gezhi 坤輿格致. However, the Chinese edition of this text was not widely circulated. See H. U. Vogel, ‘“Das wird gewiss die Staatskasse füllen!” Johann Adam Schall von Bells chinesische Übertragung von Agricolas De re metallica libri XII im Jahre 1640’, 27. Rundbrief: Agricola-Forschungszentrum Chemnitz (2019), pp. 55–82.

²⁹ Chen, ‘Creating intellectual space’, pp. 37–69.

³⁰ See Bennett, John Fryer, p. 42.

³¹ Gezhi huibian 格致彙編 [The Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine], located in Shanghai, was a continuation of the former Zhongxi wenjian lu 中西聞見錄 [Peking Magazine], 1872–76.

³² See question No. 31 in Gezhi huibian (May 1876).

³³ See question No. 62 in Gezhi huibian (September 1876).

³⁴ See e.g. J. Fryer, ‘Xiguo kaimei lüefa 西國開煤畧法 [Simplified methods of mining coal in Western countries]’, Gezhi huibian (October 1876); and J. Fryer, ‘Qishui jiqi 起水機器 [Water-lifting machine]’, Gezhi huibian (June 1876).

³⁵ See the news in Shenbao 申報 [Shanghai News], 6 April 1875.

³⁶ Xu, Ji, and Wu (eds.), Sheng Xuanhuai dang'an ziliao, di wu juan, pp. 14–15, 29.

³⁷ Ibid., pp. 15–17.

³⁸ A. Feuerwerker, China's Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai (1844–1916) and Mandarin Enterprise (Cambridge, MA, 1958), pp. 2–5. For an in-depth examination of mechanisation of coalmines in Pingxiang County, Jiangxi Province at the turn of the twentieth century, see Hornibrook, Great Undertaking, pp. 125–62.

³⁹ Xu, Ji, and Wu (eds.), Sheng Xuanhuai dang'an ziliao, di wu juan, p. 4. The Qing emperors and their governors were well aware of one fact: some kind of ‘harm’ to the fengshui was, at times, a pretence, because local strongmen often controlled the mineral ores for illegal mining. See Chen, Zinc for Coin and Brass, pp. 199–200; and Brown, Laws of the Land, pp. 152–96.

⁴⁰ Xu, Ji, and Wu (eds.), Sheng Xuanhuai dang'an ziliao, di wu juan, p. 29.

⁴¹ According to his Chinese working contract signed in February 1876, Samuel J. Morris was then aged 36. See ibid., p. 56. Morris died on 9 February 1896 in Yokohama. See his obituary published in ‘Latest intelligence’, The North-China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette 56.1489 (Shanghai, 12 February 1896), p. 235.

⁴² Morris's salary could be categorised as above the average salaries of foreign experts. For example, in the Fuzhou Navy Shipyard, the monthly salaries for foreign instructors varied between 200 and 250 taels, and was about 100 taels for foreign artisans in the 1870s. See Q. Lin 林慶元, Fujian chuanzhengju shigao (zengding ben) 福建船政局史稿 (增訂本) [History of Fuzhou Navy Shipyard, enlarged and revised edn] (Fuzhou, 1999), pp. 297–98.

⁴³ Xu, Ji, and Wu (eds.), Sheng Xuanhuai dang'an ziliao, di wu juan, pp. 34–35, 55–57.

⁴⁴ Ibid., pp. 86–87.

⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 160. As a consequence, Andrew White Crookston (Guo Shidun) and two other assistants were employed. They did not find profitable coal deposits at Guangji County either. Rather, they found iron in Daye, which became the important iron-producing centre for supplying the later famous Hanyeping Company.

⁴⁶ See ‘Latest intelligence’, p. 235.

⁴⁷ For Morris's activities in Japan, see A. Cobbing, ‘Irei no O-Yatoi Gaikokujin: kōzan gishi Morisu no sokuseki o Tadoru 異例のお雇い外国人―鉱山技師モリスの足跡を辿る [An exceptional Oyatoi: tracing the footsteps of mining engineer Samuel John Morris]’, Nishi Nihon Bunka 西日本文化 [Culture of Western Japan] 339 (1998), pp. 24–27. See also A. Cobbing, The Japanese Discovery of Victorian Britain: Early Travel Encounters in the Far West (London and New York, 1998), p. 167. The author would like to acknowledge great thanks to Prof. Andrew Cobbing from the University of Nottingham for kindly sharing the Japanese article.

⁴⁸ See J. Himeno 姫野順一, ‘Shoki Takashima tankō no nichi ei gōben kaisha to o yatoi gaikokujin no yakuwari sairon: Sekai isan “Meiji Nippon no sangyō kakumei” no bunseki shikaku 初期高島炭坑の日英合弁会社とお雇い外国人の役割再論―世界遺産「明治日本の産業革命」の分析視角 [Reconsidering the role of “employed foreigners” in the joint venture between Japan and Britain in Early Takashima Colliery: an analytical view into the world heritage of “Japan's Meiji industrial revolution”]’, Nagasaki gaidai ronsō 長崎外大論叢 [The Journal of Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies] 21 (2017), pp. 1–17. The author would like to thank Prof. Naofumi Nakamura from Tokyo University for drawing my attention to this reference.

⁴⁹ There were a number of letters written and signed by Morris in English and attached with Chinese translations that are kept in the collections of Sheng Dang 盛檔 (Sheng Xuanhuai Archive) in Shanghai tushuguan 上海圖書館 (Shanghai Library). For example, he signed a working contract with the Jinzhou kuangwu ju; see Sheng Dang, file number: STSD002622, date of 25 October 1883 (GX9/9/25). He was hired by the China Merchants Steamship Navigation Company during 1892–93; see Sheng Dang, file number: STSD043175, date of 29 September 1893 (GX19/8/20).

⁵⁰ See e.g. The Chronicle & Directory for China, Corea, Japan, The Philippines, Cochin-China, Annam, Tonguin, Siam, Borneo, Straits Settlements, Malay States, &c. (Hongkong, 1889), p. 448.

⁵¹ The advertisement ‘Ma Kuangshi gaobai 馬礦師告白 [Advertisement of Ma Kuangshi]’, first appeared in Shenbao [Shanghai News] no. 4609 (16 February 1886), p. 11; and was repeated in Shenbao no. 4658 (6 April 1886), p. 5; no. 4686 (4 May 1886), p. 5; no. 4693 (11 May 1886), p. 8; and no. 4707 (25 May 1886), p. 6.

⁵² See The Chronicle & Directory for China, p. 448; The Chronicle & Directory for China, Corea, Japan, The Philippines, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Siam, Borneo, Malay States, &c. (Hongkong, 1892), p. 127.

⁵³ See Sheng Dang, file number: STSD043173, date of 28 September 1893 (GX19/8/19).

⁵⁴ See G. Song 宋賡平, Kuangxue xinyao xinbian 礦學心要新編 [New Edition of the Core Essentials on Mining Studies], juanxia 卷下, vol. 3 (1902), pp. 10, 29–30.

⁵⁵ Xu, Ji, and Wu (eds.), Sheng Xuanhuai dang'an ziliao, di wu juan, pp. 107–8.

⁵⁶ Ibid., pp. 107–8.

⁵⁷ Ibid., pp. 66–67.

⁵⁸ See Li Hongzhang's letter addressed to Yung Wing on 24 February 1877 (GX3/1/22), G3–01–011, in T. Gu 顾廷龙 and Y. Dai 戴逸 (eds.), Li Hongzhang quanji 李鸿章全集 [Complete Works of Li Hongzhang], vol. 32 (Hefei, 2008), pp. 8–9.

⁵⁹ J. Yang 楊家駱 (ed.), Yangwu yundong wenxian huibian 洋務運動文獻彙編 [Collection of Materials on the Foreign Affair Movement], vol. 5 (Taibei, 1963), p. 253. See also Lin, Fujian chuanzhengju shigao, pp. 193–94.

⁶⁰ Lei, Qian, and Fang, ‘Jindai Zhongguo kuangye’, pp. 61–62.

⁶¹ Rhoads, Stepping Forth, pp. 190–94, 199–200; Lei, Qian, and Fang, ‘Jindai Zhongguo kuangye’, pp. 59–60.

⁶² D. Xia 夏東元, Sheng Xuanhuai nianpu changbian 盛宣懷年譜長編 [A Detailed Chronological Biography of Sheng Xuanhuai], vol. 1 (Shanghai, 2004), p. 156.

⁶³ Ibid., pp. 161–62.

⁶⁴ F. H. H. King, Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1845–1895 (Cambridge, MA, 1965), pp. 213–20; W. Burger, Ch'ing Cash, vol. 1 (Hong Kong, 2016), pp. 163–81.

⁶⁵ See the palace memorial G13–04–015, in Gu and Dai (eds.), Li Hongzhang quanji, vol. 12, pp. 90–91.

⁶⁶ Yang (ed.), Yangwu yundong wenxian huibian, vol. 7, pp. 31–33. For Tang Jiong's report on Guizhou zinc industries, see Chen, Zinc for Coin and Brass, pp. 184–85.

⁶⁷ The most influential work introducing Japan to Chinese readers in the post-1895 period was Riben guozhi 日本國志 [Monograph on Japan], completed by Huang Zunxian 黃遵憲 (1848–1905) in 1887, but published in 1895. For Huang's impression of Japanese technical education, see Chen, ‘Technology for re-engineering’, p. 26.

⁶⁸ For the date recorded in the Chinese lunar calendar, this article uses a three-number sequence that indicates the reign year, lunar month, and day, and the abbreviation GX stands for the Guangxu reign period. For example, the date ‘GX14/1/8’ means the fourteenth year of the Guangxu reign, first month, and eighth day.

⁶⁹ See Sheng Xuanhuai Dang'an 盛宣懷檔案 [Sheng Xuanhuai Archive], date of 19 February 1888 (GX14/1/8), file number: 76-070B-2-071B-1 (https://repository.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/en/item/cuhk-1760813).

⁷⁰ Shanghai tushuguan 上海圖書館 (ed.), Sheng Xuanhuai wenhua jiaoyu dang'an xuanbian 盛宣懷文化教育檔案選編 [Selected Materials on Culture and Education from Sheng Xuanhuai Archive], vol. 7 (Shanghai, 2019), pp. 466–67.

⁷¹ See the two telegrams G14–03–033 and G14–03–034, in Gu and Dai (eds.), Li Hongzhang quanji, vol. 22, p. 329. About three months later, Liu Ruifen found an English engineer in London, but he was afraid that this person would be too young to be capable in practice. See Sheng Xuanhuai Dang'an, date of 19 August 1888 ([GX14]/7/12), file number: 72-028B-1-029A-2 (https://repository.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/ en/item/cuhk-1758532).

⁷² See ‘Lun Zhongguo xingban kuangwu xuetang shi 論中國興辦礦務學堂事 [On promoting mining schools in China]’, Shenbao, no. 5506 (18 August 1888), p. 1.

⁷³ Shanghai tushuguan (ed.), Sheng Xuanhuai wenhua jiaoyu dang'an xuanbian, vol. 7, pp. 482–96. The selected archival document on Sheng's proposal ended on p. 497. But p. 497 is actually a duplicate of p. 489.

⁷⁴ In Sheng's draft proposal dated 13 November 1888 (GX14/10/10), he planned to raise funds from three provinces (namely Shandong, Guangdong, and Zhili). See ibid., pp. 469, 473–74.

⁷⁵ Ibid., pp. 525–26.

⁷⁶ Chen, ‘Technology for re-engineering’, pp. 10–43.

⁷⁷ See the chronicle of Zhong Tianwei, in Y. Xue 薛毓良 and H. Liu 刘晖桢 (eds.), Zhong Tianwei ji 钟天纬集 [Collected Works of Zhong Tianwei] (Shanghai, 2018), pp. 205–20.

⁷⁸ Chen, ‘Creating intellectual space’, pp. 51–52.

⁷⁹ Xue and Liu (eds.), Zhong Tianwei ji, pp. 386, 397.

⁸⁰ Ibid., pp. 396, 399, 402, 406–8, 411, 428, 430–31.

⁸¹ Ibid., pp. 396, 399, 402, 405–6, 408, 410, 412–13, 418, 420, 425, 428, 431. See also a very brief telegram that Sheng Xuanhuai sent to Li Hongzhang, G14–12–030, in Gu and Dai (eds.), Li Hongzhang quanji, vol. 22, p. 429.

⁸² Shanghai tushuguan (ed.), Sheng Xuanhuai wenhua jiaoyu dang'an xuanbian, vol. 7, pp. 567–87. The date of Braive's proposal is written as the nineteenth of the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. Since Braive concentrated on mining surveys after the summer of 1889 and did not come back to the mining-school plan, that proposal must have been written in 1889 (GX15).

⁸³ M. Gorbel, ‘Consulat général à Shanghai, rapport no 13’, in Royaume de Belgique. Recueil Consulaire, publié en exécution de l'arrêté royal, du 13 Novembre 1855, vol. 72 (Bruxelles, 1891), pp. 200–4.

⁸⁴ Imperial University of Japan (Teikoku Daigaku): The Calendar for the Year 1886–87 (Tokyo, 1886), pp. 42–43. For the history of mining education in Japan, see Erich Pauer, ‘From student of Confucianism to hands-on engineer: the case of Ōhara Junnosuke, mining engineer’, in Accessing Technical Education in Modern Japan, (eds.) Pauer and Mathias, pp. 114–60; and R. Mathias, ‘The development of mining schools in Japan’, in Accessing Technical Education in Modern Japan, (eds.) Pauer and Mathias, pp. 303–46.

⁸⁵ Shanghai tushuguan (ed.), Sheng Xuanhuai wenhua jiaoyu dang'an xuanbian, vol. 7, p. 581.

⁸⁶ Zhong Tianwei was in charge of organising the visit to Japan. See Xue and Liu (eds.), Zhong Tianwei ji, pp. 390–93, 402, 410.

⁸⁷ Ibid., p. 406.

⁸⁸ Ibid., p. 414.

⁸⁹ Shanghai tushuguan (ed.), Sheng Xuanhuai wenhua jiaoyu dang'an xuanbian, vol. 7, pp. 532–66.

⁹⁰ Xue and Liu (eds.), Zhong Tianwei ji, p. 435.

⁹¹ The founding of China's first engineering university by Sheng Xuanhuai in Tianjin in 1895 was not a singular event or an after effect of the Sino-Japanese War, but was part of broader efforts initiated by reform-minded officials in late Qing China to develop technical education; see Chen, ‘Daxuetang für die Institutionalisierung der Ingenieurwissenschaft’, pp. 87–114.

⁹² See the telegrams G15–10–037 and G15–10–042, in Gu and Dai (eds.), Li Hongzhang quanji, vol. 22, pp. 548–50.

⁹³ See the telegram G15–10–050, in ibid., p. 553.

⁹⁴ See the telegrams G15–10–053, G15–11–009, G15–11–039, and G15–12–016 in ibid., pp. 554, 557, 564, 569.

⁹⁵ Xue and Liu (eds.), Zhong Tianwei ji, pp. 452, 454.

⁹⁶ Biggerstaff, Earliest Modern Government Schools, pp. 69–70.

⁹⁷ D. Zhao 趙德馨 et al. (eds.), Zhang Zhidong quanji 張之洞全集 [Complete Works of Zhang Zhidong], vol. 5 (Wuhan, 2008), pp. 213–14.

⁹⁸ The original idea seems to have been raised by Zheng Guanying in late 1896 and the college regulations were proposed by Li Weige in early 1897. See Z. Zhu 朱子恩, X. Wu 武曦, and J. Zhu 朱金元 (eds.), Sheng Xuanhuai dang'an ziliao, di si juan: Hanyeping gongsi shang 盛宣怀档案资料, 第四卷: 汉冶萍公司上 [Collected Materials of Sheng Xuanhuai, vol. 4: Hanyeping Company, part one] (Shanghai, 2016), pp. 253–54, 453–57. Similarly, a mining college was built at Pingxiang in Jiangxi Province in 1907, which was led by a German engineer named Gustav Leinung, employed by the Hanyeping Company. See Wu, Empires of Coal, pp. 118–20.

⁹⁹ H. Chen, ‘China's paths to modern technology: from institutional innovations to Confucian scholarly learning of arts, 1860–1885’, Artefact 18 (2023), pp. 223–56. For recent comprehensive studies on Zuo Zongtang's engagements in profit-making projects (especially agriculture and mining) in Xinjiang, see J. Kinzley, Natural Resources and the New Frontier: Constructing Modern China's Borderlands (Chicago, 2018); and P. B. Lavelle, The Profits of Nature: Colonial Development and the Quest for Resources in Nineteenth-Century China (New York, 2020).

¹⁰⁰ The proposal is entitled ‘奏為請開中國礦務學堂 以握致富之源 而收自然之利’; see Sheng Dang, file number: STSD012201, drafted in November 1888 (GX14/10).

¹⁰¹ Ibid.

¹⁰² Sheng Xuanhuai Dang'an, date of 6 October 1899 (GX25/9/2), file number: 03-008B-013B (https://repository.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/en/item/cuhk-1719446).

¹⁰³ See Ayers, W., Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge, MA, 1971), pp. 3–5, 159–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ For technical education in European colonies such as India and Egypt, see D. R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940 (Oxford, 1988), pp. 309–51. See also Guagnini, ‘Technology’, pp. 611–17.