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Dingyuan (zh-tsp|t=??????|s=??????|p=D??ngy??an) was a Qing Dynasty|Chinese battleship and the flagship of the Qing Dynasty|Imperial Beiyang Army|Beiyang Navy. Her sister ship was the Zhenyuan. Records show that the Dingyuan was recognized as the most advanced battleship of its time, better than any ship in the fleets of Great Britain and Germany. It measured 94.5 metres long (298ft, 5in) and 18.4 metres wide (60ft, 4in) and 5.94 metres in draft (19ft, 6in). with a 30-centimetre (1ft) thick body armour. Experts say the ship was resistant to any firepower available at the time. The ship, 7670 tons when loaded, had 6,000 horsepower and a speed of 14.5 nautical miles per hour, and a range of around 4,500 nautical miles at 10 knots. It carried ten cannons, including four 305-mm calibre Krupp cannons in two barbettes which boasted a range of 7.8 kilometres at 500 metres per second. Another two 150-mm calibre Krupp cannons installed at the bow and stern were able to lob shells as far as 11,000 metres with a preliminary speed of 580 metres per second. Other armaments included 6 37-mm guns and three torpedo tubes above the waterline. The crew was around 363 officers and men. Torpedo boats were also carried on board, enlarging the Dingyuan's striking distance and battle effectiveness. To meet the demands on ship, 20 desalinators were installed which could serve 300 people fresh water daily. After negotiations with both British and German governments, the Qing Dynasty in 1881 handed the contract to build the advanced warship to Germany's Stettiner Maschinenbau AG Vulcan shipyard, at a cost of 1.7 million taels of silver (6.2 million gold mark|marks). The hull was laid down on 31 March, 1881, the vessel launched on 28 December, 1881 and sea trials commenced on 2 May 1883. In 1885 the Dingyuan was sailed back to China, arriving the following year. Also in 1885, the Beiyang Fleet was founded in Weihai, and based at Liugong Island|Liugongdao Island, marking the establishment of Qing Dynasty's first modern fleet. By the middle of the 1890s, the waning Qing Dynasty lost its desire to keep ahead in the naval race, in contrast to the strengthening Japanese navy. Because of corruption, lack of funding and incompetence, by the time of the First Sino-Japanese War the Imperial Japanese Navy was able to outmaneuver the Beiyang Navy. Dingyuan served as Admiral Ting Ju ch'ang's flagship at the Battle of the Yalu River on September 17, 1894. On February 5, 1895, the Dingyuan was seriously damaged after being hit by a Japanese torpedo and later cannon fire. Captain Liu Buchan ordered the ship scuttled. To commemorate this period of history, the Weihai Port Bureau and local Weigao Group invested 50 million yuan (US$6 million) to construct a replica Dingyuan. The replica's construction began on a scale of 1:1 on December 20, 2003. The duplicate Dingyuan is now a floating museum. Inside are records of Dingyuan, the Beiyang Fleet, the First Sino-Japanese War and life-at-sea exhibits.
Category:Victorian era battleships Category:Chinese Navy ships This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dingyuan".
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