Beiyang Fleet

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The flag of the Beiyang Navy.

The Beiyang Fleet (traditional Chinese: 北洋艦隊; simplified Chinese: 北洋舰队; pinyin: Běiyáng Jiànduì) was one of the four modernised Chinese navies in the late Qing Dynasty. The navies were heavily sponsored by Li Hongzhang, who was the Viceroy of Zhili. The Beiyang Fleet soon became the dominant navy in East Asia before the onset of First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 - 1895. The Beiyang Fleet was said to be the "Best in Asia" and "The 8th best in the world" during the late 1880s.

1 Creation
2 First Sino-Japanese War
3 Reaction in the West
4 Fleet[2]
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Creation

A badge commemorating the establishment of the Beiyang Fleet

The creation of the Beiyang Fleet dated back to 1871, when four ships from the southern provinces were shifted north to patrol the northern waters. In the beginning, this navy was considered to be the weakest when compared to the other three Chinese navies. This soon changed when Li Hongzhang allotted the majority of naval funds to the Beiyang Fleet. Unlike the other Chinese fleets, the Beiyang Fleet consisted mostly of battleships imported from Germany and Britain. When the flagships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were purchased from Germany, the superiority in strength of the Beiyang Fleet became evident, as Germany was the emerging world power, rivalling Britain (which dominated the ocean) in new naval construction.

The Qing Chinese navy at its peak consisted of 78 ships, with a total tonnage of 83,900 tons. However, construction of new ships almost completely stopped in 1888 due to high expenditures in other fields by the Qing Dynasty and the supposed naval expenditures were used to repair and build palaces by the Empress Dowager Cixi after she lost interest in naval construction. Due to missing expenditures, the training of the fleet and personnel essentially ran to a standstill, which eventually contributed to its defeat in the Battle of the Yalu River against Japan.

[edit] First Sino-Japanese War

Claiming her responsibilities on Choson affairs, in 1894, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched the First Sino-Japanese War against China. Due to the lack of government funding and the intensive Japanese naval program, Beiyang's once superior resources were becoming outdated. By the time of the Battle of Yalu River (1894), the Beiyang Fleet suffered heavy losses due to the surprise attack of the Japanese and the inferiority of its equipment, and was eventually annihilated in Weihaiwei.

Minor attempts to rebuild the fleet were made after the war, but the Beiyang Navy was never to reattain its former significance.

[edit] Reaction in the West

In the 1870s and 1880s, Chinese immigration to California was a national question. William T. Coleman, a Californian businessman and activist, spoke against further Chinese immigration, warning that the large numbers of Chinese migrants and the new fleet formed a modern horde of Gengis Khan against Anglo-Saxon civilization. [1]