Miyako was an unprotected cruiser

Unprotected cruiser

An unprotected cruiser was a type of naval warship in use during the late Victorian or pre-dreadnought era . The name was meant to distinguish these ships from “protected cruisers” which had become accepted in the 1880s...

 of the Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

.

The Miyako was long but lightweight, a fast aviso

Aviso

An aviso , a kind of dispatch boat or advice boat, survives particularly in the French navy, they are considered equivalent to the modern sloop....

-type ship similar to the Yaeyama

Japanese cruiser Yaeyama

was a protected cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The name Yaeyama comes from the Yaeyama Islands, the southernmost of the three island groups making up current Okinawa prefecture.-Background:...

 by French designer Bertin, and both ships resembled the French unprotected cruiser Milan completed in 1885. The Miyako was the first warship built at Kure Naval Arsenal

Kure Naval Arsenal

was one of four principal naval shipyards owned and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy. -History:The Kure Naval District was established at Kure, Hiroshima in 1889, as the second of the naval districts responsible for the defense of the Japanese home islands along with the establishment of the...

, and was not completed in time for the First Sino-Japanese War

First Sino-Japanese War

The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...

. Her career during the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

 of 1904-1905 was short, as the Miyako struck a mine

Naval mine

A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...

 off Port Arthur on 14 May 1904.