Underwater investigation launched for First Sino-Japanese War battleship

JINAN, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- An underwater archaeological investigation project has recently been launched at the site of the sunken warship Laiyuan, which fought in the First Sino-Japanese War as an armored cruiser of the Beiyang Fleet of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), according to the provincial underwater archaeological research center of Shandong.

This investigation, using sand-extraction excavation techniques, aims to provide initial insights into the preservation condition of the warship, thus offering archaeological materials for the study of the history of the First Sino-Japanese War, commonly known in China as the Jiawu War, as well as for global naval history.

The war started on July 25, 1894, when Japanese warships attacked two Chinese vessels off the Korean port of Asan. Its ending was marked by the signing of The Shimonoseki Treaty, which ceded the Liaodong Peninsula in northeast China, Taiwan, and the nearby Penghu Islands to Japan in April 1895.

Laiyuan was completed in 1887 and joined the Beiyang Fleet in December of the same year. In February 1895, the ship was ambushed by Japanese torpedo boats in Weihai Bay, causing it to capsize and sink in the waters south of the Liu Gong Island stone pier. All 30 people on board perished in the incident.

According to Gao Mingkui, director of the research center, about 300 square meters of seabed will be cleared to confirm the existence of the warship's body and assess its preservation condition within the sediment. Representative artifacts will be collected to identify the ship, and the researchers will comprehensively evaluate its historical significance.

The project will last 60 days. It is a collaborative effort involving several archaeological research centers, historical museums, underwater archaeologists from Shandong and Guangdong provinces, and personnel from the Guangzhou Salvage Bureau.