The Lifecycle of Zhenyuan

Nagasaki Incident, 1886

Nagasaki, Japan. August 13-15, 1886.

British-trained Lin Taizeng (Tai-tseng) was the first commanding officer of the Zhenyuan and its 329 member crew. Zhenyuan, along with Dingyuan and smaller cruisers, made training cruises from its base in Port Arthur and arrived in Nagasaki on August 13, 1886, causing long-lasting friction between Qing China and Japan. The Qing naval maneuver also made the Meiji government realize the urgent need to expand their naval fleet from having only one capital ship.

Battle of the Yellow Sea, 1894

At the mouth Yalu River as it flows into the Yellow Sea, September 17, 1894

Li Hongzhang was not shy about hiring Western naval officers or specialists. A Royal Navy officer Captain William Lang gave fleet-level instructions. An Annapolis-educated American instructor Philo McGiffin served as an executive officer in 1894. Philo was severely injured in the Battle of Yalu River.

Neither Qing China nor Japan escaped from major casualties in this battle. The Zhenyuan damaged a Japanese cruiser, the Matsushima with two heavy shells before the Chinese ironclad ship returned to its naval base at Port Arthur. She was also injured, hit by 220 shells, but managed to keep the crew deaths to only thirteen.

First Image: Utagawa Kunitora II (?–1896). Great Victory for our Navy at Haiyang Island (October 1894), partial ōban hexaptych woodblock print.

The red ship in the top left corner is marked by a cartouche above it as the Zhenyuan.

Second Image: Anonymous. The victorious battle at the Yalu River (1894), Chinese woodblock print.

Third Image: W.H. Overend. The Battle of Yalu River [Dingyuan (center) and Zhenyuan (right)] (1895), from page 99 of the British book Illustrated Battles of the Nineteenth Century, volume 2.

Battle of Weihaiwei, 1895

Eastern end of the Shandong Peninsula, January 20 – February 12, 1895

"China’s defeat in the Battle of Weihaiwei (威海衛) marked the end of Qing naval supremacy, and by February 12, 1895, China’s second key port had succumbed to Japanese naval attacks. Admiral Ding Ruchang (丁汝昌) was ironically the same commander who had first taken the Zhenyuan to Nagasaki in 1886. Because of the defeat he would end up committing suicide by taking an overdose of opium, but the Japanese praised him for his “samurai”-like loyalty..." -Profesor Barak Kushner, University of Cambridge

Image: Zhenyuan (Chinese Battleship, 1882-1914). Detail view on the starboard side amidship, looking forward. The white markings show areas damaged during Sino-Japanese War action up until the ship's capture at Weihaiwei on 12 February 1895. Subsequently this ship served as the Japanese Chin’en (Chen Yen).

Captured by the Imperial Navy of Japan, 1895

Route to Japan: Weihaiwei to Port Arthur for temporary repair, then on to Nagasaki (July 10, 1895), Hiroshima, Kobe (July 24, 1895), and Yokosuka (July 28, 1895).

A committee, headed by Navy colonel Arima Shin’ichi, was formed to bring the Zhenyuan to Japan. Japanese press reported every move of the Zhenyuan. Nishiki-e artist Ogata Gekkō produced the above triptychs showing the crowded scene of Zhenyuan viewing in Yokosuka. They went on sale around August 27, 1895. The Zhenyuan, now called Chin’en (Chin Yen) and the only capital ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was repaired and officially entered service for the Japanese Imperial Navy on September 7, 1896.

First Image: Ogata Gekkō, 1859–1920. Popular Viewing of the Captured Chinese Warship Zhenyuan, 1895, ōban triptych woodblock print. Published by Takekawa Risaburō.

Second Image: Ogata Gekkō, 1859–1920. Popular Viewing of the Captured Chinese Warship Zhenyuan, 1895, ōban triptych woodblock print. Published by Sekiguchi Masajirō, 1866–1908.

Third Image: Detail view of spectators viewing the Zhenyuan (ship's bow with auxiliary anchor visible).

Reborn as a Japanese battleship Chin’en (Chen Yen), 1896

Minister of the Navy Saigo Judo declared Zhenyuan along with nine Qing naval ships be commissioned into the Japanese Imperial Navy.

As a piece of prized war booty, the Zhenyuan boosted Japanese national pride and its high profile commission into the Japanese navy even warranted a visit by the Meiji Emperor to see it in the Yokosuka port. The Chin’en began serving its new master as the flagship of the reserve fleet.

The Battle of Yellow Sea (Russo-Japanese War), 1904

By the time the Russo-Japanese War erupted, ten years of rapid technological advancement in naval shipbuilding meant the Chin’en was becoming obsolete. She was on her last legs, having been assigned to the Fifth Squadron of the Third Fleet with the Itsukushima, Hashidate, Yaeyama, and Matsushima—her former enemy battleship during the Sino-Japanese War. The Chin’en sailed from Sasebo in Japan to the Yellow Sea. Her former enemy commander, Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō led the Main Force.

The Battle of Tsushima, 1905

The Straits of Tsushima, May 27-28, 1905

A decisive naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War occurred when the Japanese Combined Fleet spotted and attacked the Russian Baltic Fleet, which had sailed from Liepāja (Libau), Latvia on May 27 to support the Russian Pacific Fleet. Admiral Tōgō commanded the Japanese Combined Fleet.

Admiral of the Russian Imperial Army Zinovy Rozhestvensky was injured. The Baltic Fleet surrendered to the Japanese the next day.

First Image: The Naval Battle at the Sea of Japan on the 27th May.

Second Image: Our Torpedo-Boat Destroyers making repeated Attacks upon the Russian Squadron on the Night of the 27th May.

Journey North to Sakhalin, July 1905

After success at Tsushima, the Chin’en sailed north with the Japanese landing troops ready to take Sakhalin in July.

Escort Duty, Port Arthur to Japan, 1905

With some basic repairs to ensure seaworthiness, the captured Russian cruiser Bayan was escorted by the Chin’en from Port Arthur to Japan as newly acquired war booty—after the war had come to an end in September 1905.

Fleet Review, 1905

Tokyo Bay, Yokohama. October 23, 1905

Chin’en enjoyed her last glorious moment at the fleet review by the Meiji Emperor in Yokohama. She was flanked between Fusō and a war booty and former Russian coast defense ship Admiral Seniavin—now renamed the Mishima—and stood amongst the two rows of fleets where the Emperor circulated close by. 

The End of Chin’en as a Battleship, 1912

Scrapped in Yokohama, Japan, April 1912. Proceeds contribute to construction in Etajima (Hiroshima, Japan).

The Chin’en was reclassified as a first-class coastal defense ship on December 11, 1905 and served as a training ship for six years before being decommissioned in April 1911. The Ministry of Navy sold her in order to scrap the battleship, which had once been revered and feared in East Asia, in April 1912. Part of the funds raised were funneled into the construction of the grand hall of the Etajima Naval Academy in Hiroshima Bay.

Image: The granite Daikōdō (大講堂; Large Auditorium or Ceremonial Hall) at the Etajima Naval Academy in 2015. Its construction was completed in 1936 as part of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy campus.

Zhenyuan Anchors, Ueno Park, Tokyo, 1897

"Japan’s victory over the Qing was symbolized by the display of two colossal anchors on the edge of the Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park as a permanent display of war booty and regional dominance. The Zhenyuan’s anchors were four meters (13 feet) long, two meters (6.5 feet) wide at the base, and weighed four tons. Set on large stone foundations, the anchors were an impressive visual and public manifestation of a successful imperial campaign." -Professor Barak Kushner, University of Cambridge

First Image: Tōyōdō (publisher). Anchors on the Edge of the Shinobazu Pond, Ueno Park, page 24 of Fūzoku gahō magazine,1897.

Second Image: Baidō Kokunimasa (Utagawa Kunimasa V). Victory celebrations at Ueno, Tokyo (November 1894), ōban woodblock print.

Repatriation of Zhenyuan Anchors to China, 1947

"The Chinese Mission in Japan, part of the occupation authorities but a force with few teeth since it had no power to dispatch any significant military to back its opinions, requested the anchors and leftover artillery shells, part of the war booty taken by the Japanese after the Sino-Japanese War fifty years earlier. “It is the belief of the Chinese Mission,” KMT officials wrote, “that public display of such objects should be at once discontinued and that the objects should be dismantled and brought back to China.” Initially, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), which oversaw the occupation of Japan essentially under American authority, cared little for this maneuver. SCAP indicated that incidents before 1937 were not in its purview.

However, it seems that by suggesting in subsequent letters that the objects glorified war and militarism, and were in contravention of “educating the Japanese people in the fundamental principles of peace,” the Chinese Mission appears to have worn down American recalcitrance. Ultimately, the KMT was able to procure the anchors and return the booty in a sort of reverse repatriation ceremony that attempted to publicly expunge the humiliation of the Qing Empire’s loss. The Japanese celebration of the spoils of war from the Qing Empire in the late nineteenth century had encouraged naval officer Zhong to call for the return of those same “victory relics.”

On May 31,1947, a small article in the Chinese Foreign Ministry Weekly noted that Japan had returned two anchors from the Zhenyuan and ten cannonballs to Shanghai. The article interestingly termed the weapons as part of “our navy” and the materials as having been “stolen” by Japan and put on display in Ueno Park for the previous fifty years. But the Chinese massage of the historical narrative was not yet complete. A few years later in 1949, when mainland China switched to rule under the Chinese Communist Party, the anchors once again became an important part of national history under new management. The propaganda story that had originated in 1895 between Imperial Japan and the Qing Empire would continue long past its expiration date. Only this time, the story needed to be linked to the Communist version.

Today, the anchors are on display at the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution in Beijing (中国人民革命军事博物馆). This is not just any museum but one of the ten monumental buildings decreed by Premier Zhou Enlai to symbolize new China and completed in October 1959. The museum was expressly designed and constructed with the aim to “establish the hegemony of the interpretation of history by controlling both the retelling of the past and the means of representation.” Even though the history is seemingly unrelated, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall also houses a picture of the sunken Zhenyuan warship with the aim of promoting a historical thesis that the true start of Japanese violent imperialism began in 1895 and not solely with the 1937 massacre in Nanjing. Mainland Chinese government views of Japan often push the idea that there had been a single plan from that time, or earlier in the 1870s with the military expedition to Taiwan, of a Japanese imperial goal to colonize East Asia." -Professor Barak Kushner, University of Cambridge

Ueno Park Marker

After the anchors were removed to be returned to China, the stone inscription alone was left in place and still stands by the Shinobazu pond today (inside the Ueno Park Zoo, reportedly in an inconspicuous corner).

NOTE: Exact location is yet to be verified due to pandemic travel restrictions.