Research On Yang Changjun’s Coastal Defense Thought And Practice Of Coastal Defense Construction In Late Qing Dynasty

When the Qing Dynasty developed to the late Qing Dynasty,the foreign powers invaded from the sea one after another.With their ships and guns,they had a great impact on China’s traditional maritime defense.After the Opium War,enlightened literati represented by Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan realized the disparity between China and Western countries in maritime power and put forward the strategy of "subduing the enemy by utilizing the skills of the enemy".After the defeat of the Second Opium War,the Westernization Movement began,and Western culture spread rapidly in China,followed by the Japanese invasion of Taiwan and the Sino-French War.Due to the increasingly serious crisis of maritime defense,modern maritime defense thought of the late Qing Dynasty gradually formed and developed in the imperial court and academy-official class,and Yang Changjun’s coastal defense thought was one of the most important representatives.This paper mainly studies the formation of Yang Changjun’s coastal defense thought,its main content and its construction practice,and puts Yang Changjun’s coastal defense thought on the background of late Qing Dynasty’s coastal defense strategy.It believed that the reasons for this theory were internal and external troubles of Qing Government and Yang Changjun’s personal study and political experience.Based on detailed data,this paper discusses Yang Changjun’s coastal defense strategic thought and coastal defense construction with two chapters.It mainly analyzes and discusses his self-strengthening strategy of forcing-forcing-forcingZhejiang and integrated defense strategy of Fujian and Taiwan.Meanwhile,this study explored coastal defense construction activities guided by Yang Changjun’s coastal defense thought from five aspects including introducing Western advanced equipment and attaching importance to talents.This paper appraises Yang Changjun’s coastal defense thought appropriately,affirming its progressive significance in the coastal defense construction of the late Qing Dynasty,points out its limitations,and provides historical enlightenment.