Guangdong Fleet
| Guangdong Fleet | |
|---|---|
.svg)
|
|
| Active | 1875–1912 |
| Country | Qing Dynasty |
| Allegiance | Qing Dynasty |
| Branch | Imperial Chinese Navy |
| Type | Navy |
| Garrison/HQ | Canton |
| Engagements |
Sino-French War First Sino-Japanese War |
The Guangdong Fleet (Chinese: 廣東水師) was the smallest of China's four regional fleets during the second half of the nineteenth century. The fleet played virtually no part in the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885), but several of its ships saw action in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–5).
In the summer of 1882, when China began to challenge French expansion in Tonkin, the Guangdong Fleet was commanded by Wu Quanmei (吳全美).
The composition of the Guangdong Fleet during the 1870s and early 1880s is difficult to establish. British sources record about fifteen small war vessels built and stationed at Canton between 1865 and 1885, and the fleet also contained at least seven vessels purchased from overseas.
Seven steamers built in Britain or France were purchased in 1867 and 1868 by Jui Lin (瑞麟), the governor-general of the Two Guangs, for use against pirates. Although the identity of these vessels is not entirely certain, they seem to have included the wooden steamships Feilong (飛龍), Tianjin (天津), Zhenhai (鎮海), Anlan (安瀾) and Zhentao (鎮濤), and the composite gunboats Guangdong (廣東) and Shandong (山東), completed at Dumbarton in 1868. Feilong was lost in a typhoon in 1874, and Zhenhai was condemned in the same year.
Several British gunboats of the Dapper/Gleaner/Albacore class, which had served in the Second Opium War, were sold off by the British in the late 1860s, and two of them seem to have been acquired by the Guangdong Fleet. One of them was probably Suiqing (綏靖, normally spelled Sui-ching or Sui-tsing), described as a former British gunboat. Suiqing was lost at sea in 1886.
Other vessels known to have served in Guangdong waters include the flatiron gunboat Haichangqing (海長清), completed at the Canton Dockyard in June 1877. Her machinery was taken from the steamer Zhenhai, condemned in 1874.
In 1881 the Guangdong fleet took delivery of Zhenhai (鎮海), a 440-ton steel Rendel gunboat built by Armstrong and Company along with six gunboats of similar design ordered by Li Hongzhang's Beiyang Fleet. She seems to have had the same name as the steamer Zhenhai, condemned in 1874.
Five composite 150-ton gunboats were completed at the Canton Dockyard in 1881 for the Guangdong fleet: Jing'an (靖安), Henghai (橫海), Xiangyun (祥云), Xuanwei (宣威) and Yangwu (揚武). These vessels appear to have had a speed of around 6 knots. Jing'an was armed with 12 Armstrong cannon and two Gatling guns. The armament of the other four gunboats is not certain.[1]
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