page_title: Beiyang Fleet
section_title: Composition, 1894
hierarchical_section_title: Beiyang Fleet / Composition, 1894
caption_attribution_description: English: Beiyang fleet at anchor in Weihaiwei
context_page_description: The Beiyang Fleet was one of the four modernized Chinese navies in the late Qing dynasty. Among the four, the Beiyang Fleet was particularly sponsored by Li Hongzhang, one of the most trusted vassals of Empress Dowager Cixi and the principal patron of the "self-strengthening movement" in northern China in his capacity as the Viceroy of Zhili and the Minister of Beiyang Commerce. Due to Li's influence in the imperial court, the Beiyang Fleet garnered much greater resources than the other Chinese fleets and soon became the dominant navy in Asia before the onset of First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 — it was the largest fleet in Asia and the 8th in the world during the late 1880s in terms of tonnage.
context_section_description: In 1894, on the eve of the war with Japan, the Beiyang Fleet was in theory the most powerful fleet in Asia.  It was only one of China's four regional fleets, but in numbers it equalled Japan's entire fleet.  The pride of the Beiyang Fleet were the German-built steel turret battleships Dingyuan 定遠 and Zhenyuan 鎮遠.
  Between 1881 and 1889 the Beiyang Fleet acquired a squadron of eight protected or armoured cruisers, most of which were built in either Britain or Germany.  The cruisers Chaoyong 超勇 and Yangwei 揚威, which joined the fleet in 1881 and which Li Hongzhang prudently kept far from the scene of action during the Sino-French War, were products of Laird's yard, Birkenhead.  Three German-built cruisers, Jiyuan, Jingyuan (normally romanised as Kingyuan or King Yuen 經遠 to distinguish her from another, British-built, cruiser whose name was pronounced identically) and Laiyuan 來遠, were completed in 1887 in the Vulcan yard at Stettin.  Another pair of protected cruisers, Chingyuan 靖遠 and Zhiyuan 致遠, were built by Armstrong Whitworth at its new Elswick yard in 1887.  The latter pair were a class loosely known as the "Elswick Cruisers", ships built for export under a generally similar design.  These cruisers were fast (25 knots) and heavily armed, but were not adopted by the Royal Navy because the Admiralty considered them to be "weak in structure". The Admiralty view proved correct when both Chinese ships were lost in the Sino-Japanese War. (So were the Japanese Elswick CruisersYoshino and Takasago during the 1904 Russo-Japanese War, though not for the design reasons - the first was accidentally rammed, and the second struck a mine and blew up.)  These foreign-built ships were joined in 1889 by the armoured cruiser Pingyuan, a product of the Foochow Navy Yard originally named Longwei (Lung-wei, 龍威).
  The Beiyang Fleet also included six steel but unarmoured British-built gunboats, delivered in 1879.  These gunboats, of identical specifications, were named respectively Zhenbei ("Guard the north"), Zhendong ("Guard the east"), Zhennan ("Guard the south"), Zhenxi ("Guard the west"), Zhenbian ("Guard the frontier") and Zhenzhong ("Guard the interior").  The first four ships were originally to have been allocated to the Nanyang Fleet, but Li Hongzhang was so impressed with their quality that he took them over for the Beiyang Fleet, compensating the Nanyang Fleet with four elderly gunboats that had served with the Beiyang Fleet since 1876.
  The Beiyang Fleet also possessed an array of small torpedo boats.  Exact numbers are uncertain, because these craft were not systematically listed, but some details are known.  Four 16-ton torpedo boats were built in 1883 at the Vulcan yard in Stettin for the use of the steel battleships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan.  These four craft, known respectively as Dingyuan No. 1 and No. 2 and Zhenyuan No. 1 and No. 2, were delayed in harbour by the Germans during the Sino-French War along with their mother ships, and joined the Beiyang Fleet in October 1885.
  Battleships
  Cruisers
  Gunboats
  Torpedo boats
  Torpedo boats
  Left Fleet 1 "左隊一號"
  Left Fleet 2 "左隊二號"
  Left Fleet 3 "左隊三號"
  Right Fleet 1 "右隊一號"
  Right Fleet 2 "右隊二號"
  Right Fleet 3 "右隊三號"
  Fulong "福龍"
  "捷順"
  Training ships
  Kangji "康濟"
  Weiyuan *"威遠"
  "敏捷"
  Auxiliary ships
  "泰安"
  Zhenhai "鎮海"
  Caojiang "操江"
  "湄云"
  Transport
  Liyun "利運"
caption: The Beiyang fleet at anchor in Weihaiwei
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