Beiyang Fleet [SEP] dissolved or abolished
Beiyang Fleet garnered much greater resources than the other Chinese fleets and soon became the dominant navy in Asia before the onset of First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 — it was the largest fleet in Asia and the 8th in the world during the late 1880s in terms of tonnage.
Creation.
The creation of the Beiyang Fleet dated back to 1871, when four ships from the southern provinces were shifted north to patrol the northern waters. The Beiyang fleet was initially considered to be the weakest of the four Chinese regional navies
to help the Beiyang Fleet.
Composition, 1894.
In 1894, on the eve of the war with Japan, the Beiyang Fleet was in theory the most powerful fleet in Asia. It was only one of China's four regional fleets, but in numbers it equalled Japan's entire fleet. The pride of the Beiyang Fleet were the German-built steel turret battleships "Dingyuan" 定遠 and "Zhenyuan" 鎮遠.
Between 1881 and 1889 the Beiyang Fleet acquired a squadron of eight protected or armoured cruisers, most