Destruction Cause Of Beiyang Navy

China have mostly lost each war against invasion since the first Opium War in 1840. but Jiawu War differed from other wars. China was defeated not only by western powerful countries but also by Japan whose culture once belonged to China's. Jiawu War leaded us to think, so we focus on the reason why the Beiyang Fleet of warship were complete failure. There were many reasons why Beiyang Navy was defeated. Looking at the Hard Strength,both sides of war had their own advantages of level of weapons equipment, such as cannon's amount and capability, warship's flexibility and defensive ability, dimension of warship. The features of Japanese warship was flexible, while the advantage of Beiyang Navy was the armor warship, however, weapons equipment were not the factors to decide the victory or defeat of war. If comparing the capability of weapons, we could get the data that opposite the result of war.Dingyuan and Zhenyuan of Beiyang Fleet,the main cannon's calibers were about 305mm, they were powerful, but they did not shoot down one of Japanese fleet. So we will discuss the Soft Power of military affaires which affected naval battle. So-called Soft Power of military affaires refers to the strategy ability depended on country army's quality, thought, cultural tradition, image. It usually included political factor, cultural factor, spirit factor, mechanism factor and army's power of unity, power of attraction, power of innovation, power of reorganization. It revealed many disadvantages and weak point of Beiyang Fleet according to the Soft Strength of military affaires. The process of setting up the Beiyang Fleet showed that traditional political bondage caused the flaw of authority of coast defense. There were some arguments that if buy the armor warship or not. According to the buildup of warship, it was recognized that the transition form fast ship to the armor warship. The Beiyang Fleet had the inherent deficiency because of the thought and reorganization bondage. The Beiyang Fleet's theory of naval battle was not mature, system of command and organization fell behind, the art of fight lack of innovation. All of these disadvantage leaded to the miserable end of Beiyang Fleet.