The yard was established as part of a program to strengthen China in the wake of the country's disastrous defeat in the Second Opium War (1856–60). Most talented students nonetheless continued to pursue a traditional Confucian education, and by the mid-1870s the government began to lose interest in the shipyard, which had trouble securing funds and declined in importance. Fuzhou remained essentially a commercial center and a port until World War II; it had relatively little industry. The port was occupied by the Japanese during 1940–45.