Sea Warfare, Coast Defense And Rise And Fall Of The Southern Song Dynasty

China is not only a land country, but a ocean country as well. However, in ancient China, dueto political, geographical, and many other reasons, the coast defense has always not great influenceon the rise and fall of the sate and in defense issues, fortress defense had been greatly emphasizedinstead of coast defense, which was not slightly changed until the Southern Song Dynasty. As theresult of geographical situation embracing river and connecting the sea as well as the rapidlyincreasing military power on water from the northern hostile regimes, the Southern Song Dynastyhas been faced with an unprecedented threat from the sea since it founded. At the beginning of thedynasty, the army of the Jin Dynasty invaded the State Ming from the south by water and madethe Song Dynasty almost collapse;in the middle of the dynasty, the army of the Jin Dynasty setout from the west of Jiaozhou and sailed south to attack the Song Dynasty so that the SouthernSong Dynasty became endangered; at the end of the dynasty, the Song Dynasty finally perishedbecause the army of the Yuan Dynasty gave a a fatal blow to the Song Dynasty at Mount Yashan.Rise and fall of the Southern Song Dynasty is always accompanied with sea warfare from thebeginning to the end, so to speak. After foreign invasion from the sea again and again, theSouthern Song Dynasty rulers increasingly realized the importance of coast defense, so they tookmeasures such as expanding navy,building warship, developing weapons, perfecting defense lay-out, unifying command etc. and after tens of year’s elaborate effort, they constructed strong navyand a set of relatively perfect and effective defense system on the water. A general view of therise and fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, it can be said that it is closely and important related tocoast defense building, and the Southern Song Dynasty came finally to an end due to overallcollapse of the defense system in the southeast coastal places as well as heavy defeated in the seawar at Mount Yashan. This paper consists of six chapters, which states in the vertical andhorizontal two aspects: the first chapter of introduction; the second chapter mainly discussing thecoast defense of the southern Song Dynasty according to national border defense and coastal placesecurity of that time, which place the foundation for the latter study of the paper. Chapter3,mainlytrack down the development of coast defense of the Southern Song Dynasty, and reveal theinteractive relation between coast defense, sea war and the rise and fall of the Southern SongDynasty, by discussing vertically the sea war at Ming State at the beginning of the dynasty, at the west of Jiaozhuo in the mid of the dynasty, at Mount. Yashang at the end of dynasty and theirinfluences study focused on the vertical through the sea of the Southern Song Dynasty.; Chapter4and chapter5focus on the analysis horizontally in4aspects,the firstly, including specialinstitute setting up of coast defense, the construction of coast defense power and facilities, thedevelopment of coast defense equipment and strategy making of coast defense etc., stating theachievement of Southern Song Dynasty, then summing up the significance of coast defense inthree aspects, finally revealing its weakness. Chapter6conclusion, revealing its position ofhistory in development of China’s coast defense, the relationship with the authorities of SouthernSong Dynasty and its limitations of that time. With the help of the history, the study of coastdefense and the rise and fall of Southern Song Dynasty,it can provide beneficial reference forcontemporary China’s coast defense construction.