Fujian Fleet
The Fujian Fleet, which would be the main target of the French attack in August 1884, was considerably weaker than the Beiyang Fleet and the Nanyang Fleet, though slightly stronger than the Guangdong Fleet. Nearly all of its ships were elderly products of the Foochow Navy Yard. Its flagship, the wooden corvette "Yangwu", was built in 1872. The other Chinese-built ships included the wooden gunboats "Fuxing" and "Zhenwei" (1870 and 1872), the wooden transports "Fupo", "Feiyun", "Ji'an", "Yongbao" and "Chenhang" (all built in 1874 or earlier), and the despatch vessel "Yixin". The fleet also included two British-built ships, the 256-ton Rendel 'flatiron' gunboats "Jiansheng" and "Fusheng", which had been ordered by the southern trade commissioner Shen Baozhen in the wake of the Japanese incursion into southern Taiwan in 1874 and were built at Laird's yard in Birkenhead in 1875.