Between 1875 and 1880 China purchased 13 flat-iron gunboats from Britain and built another ("Tiong Sing") at Shanghai. After the two "Jiansheng" class, the British-built boats were given names from the Greek alphabet, from "Alpha" through to "Lambda", thus becoming known as the "alphabetical" gunboats. Although quickly given Chinese names, the class names seem to have stuck. A further pseudo-Rendel gunboat ("Hoi Tung Hung") was built locally to the lines of the "alphabetical" flat-irons, but constructed from wood sheathed in iron. "Fusheng" and "Jiansheng" were lost in the Battle of Fuzhou in 1884 at the beginning of the Sino-French War. Four Chinese Rendel gunboats also took part in the Battle of the Yalu River against the Japanese in 1894. Eight Chinese flat-iron gunboats were sunk or captured by Japan at the battle of Weihaiwei in 1895.