Fujian Fleet

The Fujian Fleet (simplified Chinese: 福建水师; traditional Chinese: 福建水師; pinyin: Fújiàn shuǐshī or simplified Chinese: 福州舰队; traditional Chinese: 福州艦隊; pinyin: Fújiàn Jiànduì) was one of China's four regional fleets during the closing decades of the nineteenth century. The fleet was almost annihilated on 23 August 1884 by Admiral Amédée Courbet's Far East Squadron at the Battle of Fuzhou, the opening engagement of the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885).

The Fujian Fleet, which would be the main target of the French attack in August 1884, was considerably weaker than the Beiyang Fleet and the Nanyang Fleet, though slightly stronger than the Guangdong Fleet. Nearly all of its ships were elderly products of the Foochow Navy Yard. Its flagship, the wooden corvette Yangwu, was built in 1872. The other Chinese-built ships included the wooden gunboats Fuxing and Zhenwei (1870 and 1872), the wooden transports Fupo, Feiyun, Ji'an, Yongbao and Chenhang (all built in 1874 or earlier), and the despatch vessel Yixin. The fleet also included two British-built ships, the 256-ton Rendel ‘flatiron’ gunboats Jiansheng and Fusheng, which had been ordered by the southern trade commissioner Shen Baozhen in the wake of the Japanese incursion into southern Taiwan in 1874 and were built at Laird’s yard in Birkenhead in 1875.

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