Since China’s pivot to the ocean over the past two centuries, some cities have had great geostrategic importance placed on them. Tianjin is one of these cities. If the Liaoning Peninsula serves as the gate to the capital of Beijing, then Tianjin is the door. This is why this city is considered one of the four most important cities in current-day China. Throughout Beijing’s history, the threat of invasion came from the other side of the Great Wall in the form of horseback riding barbarians galloping across the untamed countryside, but in the 19th and 20th centuries, this threat came through the sea, and the staging ground for such attacks was from Tianjin. The first time this happened was when British and French troops marched inland from Tianjin and burnt down the Imperial Summer Palace in 1860. Consequently, there was a focus on strengthening Tianjin both militarily and economically to act as a buffer to Beijing due to the presence of Westerners in the city during the 19th century. Therefore, Tianjin became a place for modern military instruction with the establishment of the Tianjin Military Academy in 1885. Instructed by German officers, the academy would help bring China up to scratch on Modern Warfare and would become the benchmark for military academies in China.
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