Chapter 1 investigates the introduction of knowledge about the conversion of river flows into electricity to China in the late Qing and early Republican periods. Despite the prominence of fossil fuel energy in the industrialized world, certain Chinese intellectuals advocated harnessing the country’s abundant river resources to produce electricity as a means of achieving full national independence. Local elites took the lead in constructing the first set of hydropower stations in southwest China, and afterwards an increasing number of Chinese elites recognized the potential of hydropower in the country. As a result, in the context of a long-term national crisis, hydropower came to be, for many people, synonymous with the strengthening of the Chinese nation.