Chinese cruiser Hai Yung

Hai Yung was a protected cruiser of the Chinese Navy. The Hai Yung was one of a class of three ships built in Germany for the Chinese after the losses of the First Sino-Japanese War. The ship was a small protected cruiser with quick-firing guns, a departure from the prewar Chinese navy’s emphasis on heavy but slow-firing weapons for its cruisers. The Hai Yung resembled the British protected cruisers of the Apollo class and Italian Liguria class, and may have been modeled on the similar Dutch Gelderland-class cruisers. Germany itself would increase the number of similar ships for its own navy starting with the Gazelle class and its faster successors up until World War I.

In 1906 the Hai Yung was sent on a six-month journey to survey the conditions of overseas Chinese communities in South-East Asia. Much of the navy switched loyalties to the rebellion that overthrew the Manchu dynasty in 1911.. On 24 April 1916, Hai Yung collided with the Chinese Army transport ship SS Hsin-Yu in the East China Sea south of the Chusan Islands. Hsin-Yu sank with the loss of about 1,000 lives.

The Hai Yung and its sister ships survived the revolution and were obsolete by the time of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Hai Yung along with her sister ships were designated to be scuttled as river blockships in 1937.