Several foreign nations have taken an aggressive part in this movement. In the north, Russia, not satisfied with a terminus at cold Vladivostok where ice closes the harbour nearly half the year, steadily demanded concessions which would enable her Trans-Siberian Railway to reach an ice-free winter port, and thus give her a commanding position in the Pacific and a channel through which the trade of northern Asia might reach and enrich Russia's vast possessions in Siberia and Europe. So Russian diplomacy rested not till it had secured the right to extend the Trans-Siberian Railway southward from Sungari through Manchuria to Tachi-chao near Mukden. From there one branch runs southward to Port Arthur and Dalny and another southwestward to Shan-hai Kwan, where the great Wall of China touches the sea. As connection is made at that point with the Imperial Railway to Taku, Tien-tsin and Peking, Moscow 5,746 miles away, is brought within seventeen days of Peking. Thus, Russian influence had an almost unrestricted entrance to China on the North, while a third branch from Mukden to Wiju, on the Korean frontier, will connect with a projected line running from that point southward to Seoul, the capital of Korea. A St. Petersburg dispatch, dated November 26, 1903, states that a survey has just been completed from Kiakhta, Siberia, to Peking by way of Gugon, a distance of about a thousand miles. This road, if built, will give the Russians a short cut direct to the capital. In the populous province of Shantung, a German railroad, opened April 8, 1901, runs from Tsing-tau on Kiao-chou Bay into the heart of the populous Shantung Province via Weihsien. The line already reaches the capital, Chinan-fu, while ulterior plans include a line from Tsing-tau via Ichou-fu to Chinan-fu, so that German lines will ere long completely encircle this mighty Province. At Chinan-fu, this road will meet another great trunk line, partly German and partly English, which is being pushed southward from Tien-tsin to Chin-kiang. An English sydicate, known as the British-Chinese Corporation, is to control a route from Shanghai via Soochow and Chin-kiang to Nanking and Soochow via Hangchow to Ningpo, while the Anglo-Chinese Railway Syndicate of London is said to be planning a railway from Canton to Cheng-tu-fu, the provincial capital of Sze-chuen. Meanwhile, the original line from Shanghai to Wu-sung has been reconstructed by the English. One of the most valuable concessions in China has been obtained by the Anglo-Italian Syndicate in the Provinces of Shan-si and Shen-si for it gives the right to construct railways and to operate coal mines in a region where some of the most extensive anthracite deposits in the world are located. A beginning has already been made, and when the lines are completed, the industrial revolution in China will be mightily advanced.