Japanese gunboat Un'yō

Un'yō (雲揚^?) was an iron-ribbed, wooden-hulled sail-and-steam gunboat with of the early Meiji period, serving with the fledgling Imperial Japanese Navy. She was a two-masted brig with an auxiliary coal-fired steam engine driving a single screw.

Background

Un'yō was ordered in the United Kingdom by Chōshū Domain in 1868. It was built by A. Hall & Co., Aberdeen, Scotland, and was turned over to the Domain in February 1870 as the Un'yō Maru. On July 25, 1871, she was transferred to the Meiji government and assigned to the newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy, as the Un'yō .

Service under the Imperial Japanese Navy

Un'yō was one of the ships dispatched to Kyūshū in 1874 during the Saga Rebellion. In May 1875, she carried Japanese diplomats to Busan in Korea in an attempt by the Japanese government to open diplomatic relations with the Joseon dynasty government. After being rebuffed in these negotiations, Japanese government again dispatched Un'yō in September 1875 under the command of Inoue Yoshika to provoke a military response, in what was later termed the Ganghwa Island incident, which eventually led to the Treaty of Ganghwa, which opened the Korean Peninsula to Japanese trade.^[1] In 1876, Un'yō was assigned to assist in the suppression of the Hagi Rebellion, another uprising of disaffected former samurai. Un'yō was severely damaged by grounding off of Kii Peninsula, and was scrapped the following year.

References

• Jane, Frederick Thomas. The Imperial Japanese Navy. Nabu Press (2010 POD reprint of 1923 edition) ISBN 1142916936
• Jentsura, Hansgeorg (1976). Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 087021893X. 
• The Unyo Maru Incident
• Materials of the IJN

Notes