俯视中国近代化历程,知识分子总在社会变革中发挥着先锋作用,技术官僚于晚清一则沦为统治者的工具,另则早于普通群众最先接触西方文明,是具时代特色的产物。晚清西北历经数次回乱与人民起义,社会生产和秩序遭到毁灭性破坏;受近代化思想熏陶的知识分子如郑观应、林则徐、李鸿章、曾国藩等曾对西北国防、经济、农田、水利、交通等方面提出过中肯的建设意见,未引起统治者关注;左宗棠平回乱后西北恢复方始,单从其治理西北之观念变化,不难窥出技术官僚群体开始挣脱政府束缚的痕迹,抛开各自一方的政治因素不谈,就其治理手段和为政思想而言:技术官僚是当时最具近代化的知识分子群体,于西北,无论从经济、文化,亦或是人民的衣食住行都在潜移默化中演绎着近代气息。 Looking down at the course of China’s modernization, the intellectuals always played a vanguard role in social changes. When technical bureaucrats became instruments of rulers in the late Qing dynasty, the earliest contact with the Western civilizations earlier than the ordinary people was an epoch-making product . In the late Qing Dynasty, Northwest China experienced numerous chaos and people’s revolt and the social production and order were devastated. Intellectuals such as Zheng Guanying, Lin Zexu, Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan who were influenced by the modernized thought had criticized Northwest China for their national defense, economy, farmland, water conservancy and transportation Etc. Zuo Zongtang did not start to pay any attention to the rulers. After Zuo Zongtang returned to the northwest and began to regain their rights, the concept of governing the Northwest alone was not changed. It is not hard to see how the technical bureaucracy began to break free from the bondage of the government. As for the political means and the political thought of each side, the technical bureaucrats were the most modernized groups of intellectuals at that time. In the northwest, no matter from the economic, cultural, or the people’s basic necessities of life Subtle in the interpretation of the modern atmosphere.