Volta
Politics1888

Establishment of the Beiyang Fleet

Also called: Beiyang Navy, Peiyang Fleet

In 1888 the Beiyang Fleet that Li Hongzhang had built up became a regular navy. Led by the German-built ironclads Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, it was counted the strongest in Asia, but afterwards it bought almost no new ships.

Dingyuan, flagship of the Beiyang Fleet — an ironclad built in Germany
Dingyuan, flagship of the Beiyang Fleet — an ironclad built in Germany

Unknown author · Public domain · Source

The Opium Wars and the Sino-French War had taught China how weak it was at sea. From the 1870s Li Hongzhang bought warships from Britain and Germany to build the Beiyang (Northern Seas) Fleet, and in 1885 the German-built 7,000-ton ironclads Dingyuan and Zhenyuan arrived. In 1888 the fleet became a regular navy under Admiral Ding Ruchang, based at Liugong Island off Weihaiwei with its repair yard at Lüshun.

The visit of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan to Nagasaki in 1886 badly alarmed Japan. But after 1888 China, citing its finances, bought almost no new warships, and part of the navy’s money is said to have gone into rebuilding Cixi’s Summer Palace. Meanwhile Japan acquired one faster new cruiser after another.

Show on the map

The map in 1888

Open the full map

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

States and rulers at the time
Qing — Guangxu Emperor
Places
Liugong Island (Weihaiwei), Lüshun (Port Arthur)

People

  • Li Hongzhang1823 – 1901

    key figure · Qing viceroy who steered policy toward Korea after 1882 and signed the Tianjin Convention and the Treaty of Shimonoseki with Itō Hirobumi

  • Ding Ruchang1836 – 1895

    commander · Admiral of the Beiyang Fleet who fought the Japanese at the Yalu in 1894 and, besieged at Weihaiwei in 1895, accepted surrender and took his own life

Before and after

Earlier
1885 Convention of Tianjin
Later
1894 First Sino-Japanese War

Themes that include this event

  • The Last Half-Century of the Qing1861 – 1901

    From the Self-Strengthening Movement to the Boxer Protocol — forty years in which a Qing China trying to learn Western technology lost to France and Japan, was carved up by the powers and saddled with indemnities it could not pay