Why did ocean shipping become more important to Tianjin around 1900?

By 1900, ocean shipping became essential to Tianjin primarily due to the decline of the city's traditional inland waterway transport. In the early 1850s, the Huang He shifted its course, which caused the Grand Canal to become silted up and restricted inland traffic.1

As a result of these environmental changes, shipping operations were forced to shift eastward toward the banks of the Hai River. To accommodate this transition, new maritime facilities were developed at Dagu and Tanggu, located at the mouth of the Hai River, establishing Tianjin as a significant ocean shipping center by the turn of the century.1