Beiyang Fleet

The Beiyang Fleet (Pei-yang Fleet; simplified Chinese: 北洋舰队; traditional Chinese: 北洋艦隊; pinyin: Běiyáng Jiànduì; Wade–Giles: Pei³-yang² Chien⁴-tui⁴; lit. 'Northern Ocean Fleet', alternatively Northern Seas 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 (北洋通商大臣). 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 the 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War. It was the largest fleet in Asia and the 8th largest in the world during the late 1880s in terms of tonnage.^{[citation needed]}

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. The Beiyang fleet was initially considered to be the weakest of the four Chinese regional navies. This soon changed when Li Hongzhang allotted the majority of naval funds to the Beiyang Fleet. In 1884, on the eve of the Sino-French War, the Beiyang Fleet was the second-largest regional navy but was gradually closing the gap with the Nanyang Fleet, based at Shanghai. By 1890, it was the largest of China's four regional navies.^{[citation needed]}

Unlike the other Chinese fleets, the Beiyang Fleet consisted mostly of battleships imported from Germany and Great 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 owing to the Qing dynasty's high expenditures in other fields. Grand Tutor Weng Tonghe advised the Guangxu Emperor to cut all funding to the navy and army, because he did not see Japan as a true threat, and there were several natural disasters during the early 1890s which the emperor thought to be more pressing to expend funds on. Because of the lack of funding, the training of the fleet and personnel essentially came to a standstill, which eventually contributed to its defeat in the Battle of the Yalu River against Japan. Much of the diverted funding was re-directed to the renovation and repairs of the New Summer Palace and construction of a marble boat; a total of $12mil was diverted from the naval fund between 1889 and 1894.

Prior to 1888 the budget of the Beiyang fleet was two million taels. However, in 1888 the Beiyang fleet was formally subordinated to the Navy Yamen (the Qing equivalent to a naval ministry). This saw the budget reduced to 1.3 million taels and in 1891 the Hubu recommended against the purchasing of large guns for the navy and in favour of the reduction of naval personnel. This made any effort of modernisation or even maintenance extremely difficult and meant that many of the Chinese ships went into action in the first Sino-Japanese war in a state of disrepair and unmodernised. The state of disrepair was so acute that when the Dingyuan fired its 10-inch guns at the beginning of the battle of the Yellow Sea its flying bridge flew sending Admiral Ding and Tyler flying along with it.

The British naval officer Captain William Lang was recruited by Hart and Li Hongzhi in 1882 to advise the Chinese in naval matters.

Other foreign officers hired included:

The Fuzhou academy in the Fuzhou arsenal established in 1866 produced many naval officers which Li hired for the Beiyang navy. However, the academy also had to provide officers for the other three fleets, and with the academy producing only 630 cadets over a 14-year period, this was insufficient, and Li established the Beiyang naval college in 1880 which produced 300 cadets within the same 14-year period. However, Fuzhou graduates still composed the majority of the graduates in the fleet. Nonetheless, these two academies only provided basic and general naval training which was insufficient for a modern fleet, and so 35 cadets were sent to study in the Royal Naval College Greenwich, Royal Artillery academy Woolwich and others with a more practical assignment in the Royal Navy itself. When these students returned to China they were appointed captains. This meant a minimum of 636 trained cadets in a fleet numbering 4,000.