Why did Beiyang Navy decline, and how did beiyang fleet finally decline?

Beiyang Navy was once the glory of China people. Today, many film and television works are still recalling the smoke of the Yellow Sea. Or is it because Deng Shichang, the "Zhiyuan" conductor, said, "Play Yoshino!" My blood is boiling. Then, as the fifth largest fleet in the world at that time, why did Beiyang Navy, the first fleet in the Far East, quickly perish? Many people are used to blaming the failure of foreign wars and diplomacy on the corruption and backwardness of the Qing government or the incompetence of the rulers. However, the author believes that it is impossible to generalize, so I have the impulse to analyze the reasons for the collapse of Beiyang Navy from other angles. First, the differences between China and Japan 1. The Eight Banners soldiers of the Manchu Empire on land are warriors riding on horseback to explore the territory, just like their in-laws-Mongolian nobles. They knew from an early age that they were galloping on the endless grassland, and the ocean was so remote and mysterious to them. The harsh living environment makes them yearn for and worship the land since childhood. When they face the ocean that is wider than the grassland, they will inevitably feel at a loss and confused. But at the same time, an American named Mahan on the other side of the ocean put forward the "sea power doctrine" which still has an important influence on the world, and put forward a series of related theories, such as attaching importance to coastal defense, developing marine resources, protecting territorial waters, building a new navy, and seeking maritime hegemony, which were quickly accepted by coastal or island countries such as the United States, Britain, Japan and so on, resulting in a modern view of the ocean. Through this comparison, it is not difficult to see that China (here can't just refer to the Qing government) has attached importance to sea power and ocean since ancient times, and has a congenital gap compared with western countries. For 5,000 years, our understanding of the ocean is so superficial that we even hate it, so there is a "moving" legend of Jingwei filling the sea; Zheng He's seven voyages to the West can be regarded as a milestone in the history of world navigation, but his mission is to "proclaim the joy of dragons" and "show off China's prosperity and strength to the outside world" (Ming history? In other words, it was a political voyage, not a military conquest and commodity promotion. And even the voyage in this sense has become a swan song because of the harassment of the Japanese. In order to deal with Zheng's harassment, Emperor Kangxi did not build a powerful navy, but imposed a "sea ban" and was isolated from the sea ... Qin and Han Dynasties laid a centralized feudal social regime in ancient China, and all dynasties followed the political model designed by Qin and Han Dynasties, and integrated the factors of mainland civilization into it forcefully and orderly. China gradually formed a cultural type with mainland civilization as the mainstream. Although marine civilization has not been banned, it has even developed greatly at some time, but it has always been in a non-mainstream cultural state. The keynote of China's marine civilization has always been "the benefit of fishing and salt", not the colonial expansion of overseas trade. Compared with Columbus' voyage to the Western Ocean, Gamma's self-sufficiency, attachment and closeness to China's ancient marine activities constitute the basic color of China's ancient marine civilization, which has obvious characteristics of small-scale peasant economy. Because of this, China's ancient navigation activities, which were attached to agricultural civilization and characterized by "fishing for salt", were not predatory and colonial, adventurous and competitive like the Mediterranean maritime peoples. When the last powerful fleet in China's history passed away with Zheng He, China, which experienced the prosperity of Han and Tang Dynasties, really went into decline (although the turning point of China's decline was in the Song Dynasty). At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Zheng Chenggong recovered Taiwan Province Province, and Shi Lang led the Qing army to capture Taiwan Province Province and unify China. At this time, although China's navy lags far behind Europe in terms of tonnage, quantity and power of artillery, it still has certain fighting capacity. It's a pity that the rulers of China feudal dynasty only paid attention to fortress defense, not coastal defense, only the army, not the navy. After fighting with Japan for hundreds of years, no ruler has ever thought of completely destroying Japan and eliminating future troubles forever. This is the sorrow of the Chinese nation! In modern times, China's navy was very weak, and even there was no navy for a long time. There was basically no maritime defense, so that the door of China was opened by invaders from the sea. Fundamentally speaking, the reason for these phenomena is: "China's mature agricultural civilization and traditional political and cultural concepts have blocked China from marching into the blue ocean with strong historical inertia." Under such a historical and cultural background, it is difficult for us to ask Manchu, a nation riding on horseback, to pay more attention to the ocean and coastal defense. Therefore, it is unfair to simply attribute the downfall of Beiyang Navy to the decadent and backward political system or the merits and demerits of some historical figures. China's backward concept of ocean and coastal defense theory left over for thousands of years was obviously the chief culprit that led to the collapse of Beiyang Navy, the First Navy of the Far East at that time! 2. Japan's view of the ocean because of its narrow terrain, the defense depth of the island country Japan is very shallow. Historically, Japan has been striving to establish an island defense system outside its four main islands to ensure its maritime and local security. After Japan became an economic power, this desire to strengthen military defense by seizing the island became stronger. The ownership of islands is the core of Japan's concept of maritime territory. Japan is an island country surrounded by the sea, consisting of more than 3000 islands. The Japanese archipelago extends northward to connect with the Thousand Islands, and the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan Province Islands and Philippine Islands are arranged southward in turn, just like an island chain, which spans the east side of the Asian continent and separates Asia from the Pacific Ocean. This is the so-called "first island chain" in geography. The geographical position of this island chain that separates the mainland from the ocean is unique in the world. If Taiwan Province Island is the center, the Japanese archipelago is located in the northern half of the "First Island Chain", which just surrounds the East Asian continent. East of the "first island chain" is the "second island chain", and Japan has sovereignty over Iwo Jima and Ogasawara Islands, which constitute the second island chain. Because the Japanese archipelago is located at the junction of China, Russia and the United States, this geographical position makes Japan have an extremely important strategic position. Japan's own "first island chain" and "second island chain" islands are like two gates, guarding the passage from China to the Pacific Ocean eastward and the United States to East Asia westward. At the same time, the Kuril Islands, at the northern end of its "first island chain", is still an outpost to guard and stop the Russian fleet from going south. This natural geographical advantage enables Japan to control the international waterway through the islands it has mastered, realize the influence on the behavior of big countries, and seize huge economic benefits. Therefore, in Japan's territorial concept, the core is the ownership of islands. With an island, there is a vast ocean; With the ocean, the ocean contains huge resource treasures and the strategic value of the island itself; Japan is rich in resources and strategic value and has a strategic position. This concept of maritime territory doomed Japan to pay more attention to islands and oceans than other countries.