A Study Of Dockyards In The Military Ship Industry Of The Late Qing Dynasty

The important role of the dockyard as an infrastructure in the shipping industry cannot be overstated.Although China has the tradition of building docks in ancient times,but the development is relatively slow.After the First Opium War,the foreign shipbuilding industry was founded in China one after another,and many Western-style dry dockyards were built,which had a great impact on the construction and operation of traditional dockyards in China.Faced with the threat of economic and military aggression by the Western powers,the government of the Late Qing Dynasty carried out the self-improvement movement of "mastering the long skills of the barbarians to control the barbarians" and built a number of military ship factories,and dockyards also emerged,under the guidance of foreign staff and foreign craftsmen and the unremitting exploration of the Chinese,dockyards engineering technology has become more and more mature.This thesis takes the dockyards in the military ship industry of Late Qing Dynasty as the object of study.According to the changes of various factors such as the idea of building dockyards,construction technology and domestic and foreign situation,the development history of dockyards in the military ship industry of Late Qing Dynasty is roughly divided into three stages: starting—booming—declining,then after describing the development of each stage of the dockyard in turn,a historical evaluation of them is given.After the Westernization Movement,Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau,Fuzhou Ship-building Bureau,Tianjin Machinery Bureau and Guangdong Machinery Bureau have built or acquired dockyard,are equipped with machinery and equipment,the use of machine operations,showing the start of the new dockyard in the country.Along with the Qing government’s increasingly strong demand for naval defense construction,began to purchase ships,Dockyards for berthing and repairing ships gradually become necessary,the dockyard repair business gradually into the boom stage,the Westernization Faction built several dockyards in Dagu,followed by the construction of the Lvshun and Qingzhou stone dockyards.At this time,the material of the dockyards had changed,and wood and stone were used to build them.The size and scale of the two dockyards were also much larger than before.After the completion of the military shipbuilding industrial dockyard,it not only provides a certain guarantee for the maintenance of naval ships,but also engages in some shipbuilding businesses.At the same time,the dockyards will also be upgraded in scale and sludge removed to varying degrees.Overall,although military dockyards in the Late Qing Dynasty achieved good operating results,they gradually declined due to the limitations of the era and environment.By combing the history of the development of dockyards in the Late Qing Dynasty military shipbuilding industry and analyzing the construction process and business operation of dockyards,this thesis further reveals their historical value and positive significance in many aspects.On the one hand,the construction and operation of dockyards promoted the growth of the modern industrial workforce and injected new vitality into China’s industrialization process.On the other hand,the dockyard generates varying degrees of economic benefits and contributes to the factory’s sustainable development.In addition,the existence of the dockyard facilitated the learning of the country’s knowledge of modern Western-style dockyards and promoted the technological progress and modernization of the Chinese shipbuilding industry.