Cixi's reforms were quickly met with impediments. The Chinese military institutions were in desperate need of reform. Cixi's solution, under the advice of officials at court, was to purchase seven British warships. But wary of threats to imperial power, she ultimately rejected the new British warships when they arrived manned with British sailors. Scholars sometimes attribute the failure of Cixi's attempts at reforms to her conservative attitude and old methods of thinking, and contend that Cixi would learn only so much from the foreigners, provided it did not infringe upon her own power. Under the pretext that a railway was too loud and would "disturb the emperors' tombs", Cixi forbade its construction. When construction went ahead anyway in 1877 on Li Hongzhang's recommendation, Cixi asked that they be pulled by horse-drawn carts. Cixi was especially alarmed at the liberal thinking of people who had studied abroad, and noted that it posed a new threat to her power. In 1881, Cixi put a halt to the policy of sending children abroad to study and withdrew her formerly open attitude towards foreigners.