As an essential celebrity who contributed to the development of Yongjia Learning in Wenzhou’s modern history, Xu Dingchao’s Yongjia Learning thought has not been comprehensively recognized by the academic circles. Adopting the combination and interpretation of Xu Dingchao’s life and writings, it can be concluded that Xu Dingchao’s practice and proposition of saving the nation from subjugation and survival reflected the distinct spirit of Yongjia Learning, which enriched the ideological connotation of Yongjia Learning and injected a powerful core strength into the revival of Yongjia Learning in the late Qing Dynasty.