Japanese ironclad Fusō

Fusō (扶桑) was an ironclad warship of the early Imperial Japanese Navy. She was built by the Samuda Brothers at Cubitt Town, London, England, and commissioned in January 1878. Tōgō Heihachirō, later a prominent Japanese admiral, supervised its construction.

Background
Fusō was ordered in 1875, as part of Japan's first steps towards building a modern navy. As Japan lacked the expertise and the industrial infrastructure to construct such a vessel, the order was placed with a shipyard in England, and a number of promising young Japanese junior officers were sent to England to supervise the construction, and to receive training in operations and engineering.

The design of Fusō was based on a scaled-down version of HMS Iron Duke, an Audacious-class central battery ironclad, familiar to the Japanese as the flagship of the Royal Navy China Station from 1871–75.

Operational history
Fusō arrived in Yokohama on 11 June 1878, via the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean and was classed as a second-class warship due to her small size. Fusō hosted Emperor Meiji for one of the first naval reviews of the Imperial Japanese Navy on 11 July 1878 in Tokyo Bay. Emperor Meiji later made use of Fusō on a visit to Kyoto in July 1880, and on a tour of Hokkaidō in August 1881.

Fusō collided with the new cruiser Takachiho on 18 December 1889, but suffered little damage. Originally scheduled for retirement in 1891, Fusō went into dry dock at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal from November 1891 – July 1894 for repairs and upgrades.

With the start of the First Sino-Japanese War, Fusō saw front-line combat at the Battle of the Yalu River of 17 September 1894, during which it took eight direct hits, with two crewmen killed and 12 wounded, and at the Battle of Weihaiwei.

On 29 October 1897, Fusō collided with the cruiser Matsushima in rough weather off the coast of Iyo (Shikoku) and sank. Captain Uryū Sotokichi was confined to the brig for three months over the incident. Refloated the following year, Fusō was repaired at Kure Naval Arsenal and re-classed as a second-class battleship on 21 March 1898, and refitted with new Krupp cannon; repairs continued through April 1900.

Fusō again saw combat service during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, where it was assigned to the blockade of Port Arthur, and patrol of the sea lanes around the Strait of Tsushima and the coast of Korea. It served as flagship of Rear Admiral Sukeuji Hosoya, Seventh Division, Third Squadron, and was held in reserve independent of the Combined Fleet until the crucial Battle of Tsushima.

Already extremely obsolete, Fusō was re-classed as a second-class coast defence ship on 11 December 1905, and officially retired on 1 April 1908. It was broken up for scrap in Yokohama in 1910.