He spent a large amount of money from the provincial treasury to build a coastal force and a string of outposts along the 2,000 li (1,000 km) long coast－comprising Yantai, Weihai and Dengzhou (today's Penglai).

When he was governor of Guizhou province, in 1885, the year before he died, the British and French imperialists were planning to invade Tibet and Yunnan.

Ding then sent troops there to deter them and forced them to give up their ambitions.

As for the kind of a person Ding Baochen was, let me recount what my father told me about what happened when Ding got his daughter married to my grandfather.

At that time Ding was the governor of Sichuan province.

He sent a convoy of eight boats from Chongqing to Yangzhou, which was our hometown.

Of the eight boats, three were loaded with bags of Sichuan rice, two with the famous Zigong rock salt, one with rolls of Sichuan silk, one with juicy Sichuan oranges and the last one carried my grandmother along with two beautiful Sichuan girls and other servants.