From 1895, therefore, began the most rapid advance in all directions of Japan's material power that has ever taken place in any period of the same length in her past history. In China, however, the clever diplomacy of Russia entered a new epoch after the intervention of 1895. The first definitely known understanding between the two powers concerned a Chinese loan of four hundred million francs, $80,000,000, guaranteed by Russia and raised mainly at Paris in July, 1895, which was intended for the payment of one-half of the indemnity due to Japan. Then, the Russo-Chinese Bank was organized by a syndicate of capitalists of Paris and St. Petersburg, with its headquarters in the latter city, where the intimate friend of the tsar, Prince Ukhtomsky, was made its president. An important agreement was entered upon on September 8, 1896, between this bank and the Chinese minister at St. Petersburg, which has since proved to be the basis of many another striking document. By this agreement and also by the Russian statutes based upon it, it was provided that the Russo-Chinese Bank should undertake to organize the Eastern Chinese Railway Company, which should construct a branch line of the great Siberian Railway through the Hei-lung and Kirin provinces of Manchuria and connect it with the South Ussuri branch railway. Only Russian and Chinese subjects could be its shareholders. The Chinese government was to take over the road after eighty years without payment, or with a due payment after thirty-six years. It was also agreed that both imports and exports between China and Russia carried by the new railway should pay only two-thirds of the regular tariff rates of China.