他曾任教于北洋武备学堂,北洋军阀中的很多将领都是他的学生;甲午战争前,他多次呼吁加强战备,面对中国的惨败又写成著名的《东方兵事纪略》;他曾经在李鸿章、李秉衡、张之洞等晚清名臣手下任职,又到日本考察教育,为清末的教育“新政”提出过建议;他 He taught at the Beiyang Martial Arts School and many of the generals in the Beiyang warlords were his students. Prior to the Sino-Japanese War, he repeatedly called for stepping up combat readiness and wrote the famous “Eastern Military Discipline” in the face of China’s fiasco. He once worked under the late Ming dynasty such as Li Hung-chang, Li Bing-heng and Chang Chih-tung, went to Japan for inspection and education, and put forward proposals for education in the late Qing Dynasty.