Early coastal maritime endeavours The
Han dynasty established the first
independent naval force in China, the
Tower Ship Navy. Although naval battles took place before the 12th century, such as the large-scale
Three Kingdoms Battle of Chibi in the year 208, it was during the
Song dynasty (960–1279) that the Chinese established a permanent, standing navy in 1132. At its height by the late 12th century there were 20
squadrons of some 52,000 marines, with the admiral's headquarters at
Dinghai, while the main base remained closer to modern
Shanghai. came out of the need to defend against the
Jin dynasty, who had overrun the northern China, and to escort merchant fleets entering the Southeast Pacific and
Indian Ocean on long trade missions abroad to the
Hindu,
Islamic, and
East African spheres of the world. However, considering various
Central Plain polities were for a long time menaced by land-based nomadic tribes such as the
Xiongnu,
Göktürks,
Khitans and
Mongols, the navy was seen as an adjunct rather than an important military force. By the 1516th centuries
China's canal system and internal economy were sufficiently developed to nullify the need for the Pacific fleet, which was scuttled when conservative
Confucianists gained power in the court and began a policy of introspection. After the
First and
Second Opium Wars, which shook up the generals of the
Qing dynasty, the government attached greater importance to the navy. ship, 13th century; Chinese ships of the Song period featured
hulls with
watertight compartments. When the British
Royal Navy encountered the Chinese during the
First Opium War, their officers noted the appearance of
paddle-wheel boats among the Chinese fleet, which they took to be copies of a Western design. They also discovered a nearly-complete 30-gun
man-of-war in
Xiamen, along with new paddle-boats and brass guns under construction in
Wusong and
Shanghai. Paddle-wheel boats were actually developed by the Chinese independently in the 5th–6th centuries, only a century after their first surviving mention in
Roman sources (see
Paddle steamer), though that method of propulsion had been abandoned for many centuries and only recently reintroduced before the war. Numerous other innovations were present in Chinese vessels during the
Middle Ages that had not yet been adopted by the
Western and
Islamic worlds, some of which were documented by
Marco Polo but were not adopted by other navies until the 18th century, when the British successfully incorporated them into ship designs. For example, medieval Chinese hulls were split into
bulkhead sections so that a hull rupture only flooded a fraction of the ship and did not necessarily sink it (see
Ship floodability). This was described in the book of the Song dynasty maritime author
Zhu Yu, the
Pingzhou Table Talks of 1119 AD. Along with the innovations described in Zhu's book, there were many other improvements to nautical technology in the medieval Song period. These included crossbeams bracing the ribs of ships to strengthen them, rudders that could be raised or lowered to allow ships to travel in a wider range of water depths, and the teeth of
anchors arranged circularly instead of in one direction, "making them more reliable".
Junks also had their sails staggered by wooden poles so that the crew could raise and lower them with ropes from the deck, like window blinds, without having to climb around and tie or untie various ropes every time the ship needed to turn or adjust speed. A significant naval battle was the
Battle of Lake Poyang from August 30 to October 4 of the year 1363 AD during the
Red Turban Rebellion, a battle which cemented the success of
Zhu Yuanzhang in founding the
Ming dynasty.
Ming expeditions and decline After the period of maritime activity during the
treasure voyages under the
Yongle Emperor, the official policy towards naval expansion swayed between active restriction to ambivalence. Despite Ming ambivalence towards naval affairs, the
Chinese treasure fleet was still able to dominate other Asian navies, which enabled the Ming to send governors to rule in Luzon and Palembang as well as depose and enthrone puppet rulers in Sri Lanka and the Bataks. However, the Chinese fleet shrank tremendously after its military/tributary/exploratory functions in the early 15th century were deemed too expensive and it became primarily a police force on routes like the
Grand Canal. Ships like the juggernauts of
Zheng He's "
treasure fleet," which dwarfed the largest
Portuguese ships of the era by several times, were discontinued, and the
junk became the predominant Chinese vessel until the country's relatively recent (in terms of Chinese sailing history) naval revival In 1521, at the
Battle of Tunmen a squadron of Ming naval junks defeated a
Portuguese caravel fleet, which was followed by another Ming victory against a Portuguese fleet at the
Battle of Xicaowan in 1522. In 1633, a Ming navy defeated a Dutch and Chinese pirate fleet during the
Battle of Liaoluo Bay. A large number of military treatises, including extensive discussions of naval warfare, were written during the Ming period, including the
Wubei Zhi and
Jixiao Xinshu. Additionally, shipwrecks have been excavated in the
South China Sea, including wrecks of Chinese trade and war ships that sank around 1377 and 1645. The continuing "
sea ban" policy during the early Qing dynasty meant that the development of naval power stagnated. River and coastal naval defence was the responsibility of the waterborne units of the
Green Standard Army, which were based at Jingkou (now
Zhenjiang) and
Hangzhou. In 1661, a naval unit was established at
Jilin to defend against Russian incursions into
Manchuria. Naval units were also added to various
Banner garrisons subsequently, referred to collectively as the "Eight Banners Navy". In 1677, the Qing court re-established the Fujian Fleet in order to combat the Ming-loyalist
Kingdom of Tungning based on
Taiwan. This conflict culminated in the Qing victory the
Battle of Penghu in 1683 and the surrender of the Tungning shortly after the battle. The
Second Opium War showed the complete futility of the pre-modern Chinese fleet when facing modern European navies, when 300 Chinese naval junks, armed with British-made guns, did almost no damage to 56 British and French
ironclads. In the 1860s, an attempt to establish a modern navy via the British-built
Osborn or "Vampire" Fleet to combat the
Taiping rebels' US-built gunboats. The so-called "Vampire Fleet" fitted out by the Chinese government for the suppression of
piracy on the coast of China, owing to the non-fulfilment of the condition that British commander Sherard Osborn should receive orders from the imperial government only, was scrapped.
Imperial Chinese Navy , of the
Imperial Chinese Navy. There were four fleets of the
Imperial Chinese Navy: •
Beiyang Fleet - North Sea Fleet based from
Weihaiwei •
Nanyang Fleet - South Sea Fleet based from
Shanghai •
Guangdong Fleet - based from Canton (now
Guangzhou) •
Fujian Fleet - based from
Fuzhou, founded in 1678 as the
Fujian Marine Fleet In 1865, the
Jiangnan Shipyard was established. In 1874, a Japanese incursion into
Taiwan exposed the vulnerability of China at sea. A proposal was made to establish three modern coastal fleets: the Northern Sea or Beiyang Fleet, to defend the
Yellow Sea, the Southern Sea or Nanyang Fleet, to defend the
East China Sea, and the Canton Sea or Yueyang Fleet, to defend the
Taiwan Strait and the
South China Sea. The Beiyang Fleet, with a remit to defend the section of coastline closest to the capital
Beijing, was prioritised. A series of warships were ordered from Britain and Germany in the late 1870s, and naval bases were built at
Port Arthur and
Weihaiwei. The first British-built ships were delivered in 1881, and the Beiyang Fleet was formally established in 1888. Many children of Chinese military families were sent abroad to study in the
United States in order to modernize the Imperial Chinese Navy, although they were denied admission to the military academies of
West Point and
Annapolis and had to switch to other countries after the passage of the
Chinese Exclusion Act. The battle displayed once again that
the modernisation efforts of China were far inferior to the
Meiji Restoration. The Nanyang Fleet was also established in 1875, and grew with mostly domestically built warships and a small number of acquisitions from
Britain and
Germany. It fought in the
Sino-French War, performing somewhat poorly against the French in all engagements and resulting in allowing the
French colonization of Southeast Asia. The defeat of the Nanyang Fleet also emboldened the British to complete their
annexation of Burma in the
Third Anglo-Burmese War. The separate
Fujian and
Guangdong fleets became part of the Imperial navy after 1875. The
Fujian Fleet was almost annihilated during the Sino-French War, and was only able to acquire two new ships thereafter. By 1891, due to budget cuts, the Fujian Fleet was barely a viable fleet. Due to corruption much of the funds needed by the navy was taken by the
Dowager Empress Cixi to renovate the
Summer Palace and build her
Marble Boat.
Modern The
Republic of China Navy is the navy of the
Republic of China, which was established after the
overthrow of the Qing dynasty.
Liu Guanxiong, a former Qing dynasty admiral, became the first Minister of Navy of the Republic of China. During the
Warlord Era that scarred China in the 1920s and 1930s the ROCN remained loyal to the
Kuomintang government of
Sun Yat-sen instead of the
Beiyang government in
Beijing which fell to the
Nationalist government in the 1928
Northern Expedition and between the civil war with the
Communist Party and
1937 Japanese invasion of Northeast China. During that time and throughout
World War II, the ROCN concentrated mainly on riverine warfare as the poorly equipped ROCN was not a match to
Imperial Japanese Navy over ocean or coast. The ROCN is currently the naval forces on the island of
Taiwan. ,
North Sea Fleet headquarters parading with
Type-56 carbines in 2000 for a visiting U.S. Navy delegation. The
People's Liberation Army Navy was established in 1950 for the
People's Republic of China. The PLAN can trace its lineage to naval units fighting during the
Chinese Civil War and was established in September 1950. The PLAN was initially dedicated to coastal defense, defending against commando raids on the
Fujian coast from
Taiwan. It also played a role in the
First and
Second Taiwan Strait Crises. This assistance ended after the
Sino-Soviet split. Before the 1990s the PLAN had traditionally played a subordinate role to the
People's Liberation Army Ground Force. In 2020 the PLAN surpassed the
U.S. Navy as the largest navy in the world in numbers of ships, although the U.S. Navy continued to have technological advantages. This development occurred amid
increasing tensions between China and the United States and as China was becoming involved in
territorial disputes in the South China Sea. ==Literature==