The Pingyuan (Chinese:平远) was a Chinese armored coastal warship built by the Mawei Navy Yard

Foochow Arsenal

The Foochow Arsenal , also Mawei Arsenal was one of several shipyards in China built under orders of Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang, leaders of the Qing government's Self-Strengthening Movement of the mid to late 19th century...

, modelled on the French . The name is also spelled Ping Yuen, Ping Yuan or Ping-yüan.
The Pingyuan was firstly named Longwei (Chinese:龙威), and was the first Chinese-built ironclad, though some of its components were imported from abroad. The Pingyuan was part of the Beiyang Fleet

Beiyang Fleet

The Beiyang Fleet was one of the four modernised 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...

.

Career

The Pingyuan fought in the Battle of the Yalu River, damaging the Japanese flagship , and was later captured in the siege of Weihai

Weihai

Weihai is a city in eastern Shandong Province, People's Republic of China. It is the easternmost prefecture-level city of the province and a major seaport. Between 1898 and 1930, the town was a British colony known as Weihaiwei or the Weihai Garrison , and sometimes as Port Edward...

wei. She was then commissioned into 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...

, firstly as the Ping Yuen Go and later the .

External links

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