ROCS Jiankang

hypilot · May 4, 2024, 2:35am

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Jiankang

History

Even though the title says Jiankang I’ll also be mentioning her sisters as there’s not many information or pictures about these ships.

These class of German torpedo-destroyers were ordered by Qing dynasty navy from Schichau shipyard in 1909 however after the fall of the Qing empire they were delivered on October 31, 1912 to the newly founded Republic of China. They were initially named Changfeng, Feiyun, and Fubo but were renamed to Yuzhang, Tong’an, and Jiankang respectively by then president Yuan Shikai.

Their turbulent careers mainly consisted of serving with multiple factions in China and switching sides multiple times throughout their service.

In 1917 Yuzhang and Tong’an fled to China’s southern waters as part of the constitutional protection fleet led by Navy chief Chen Biguang. There Sun Yat Sen would set up a government in China’s southern Provence of Guangzhou to resist Duan Qiri’s Beiyang government. JianKang stayed behind and would stay there until 1927 when she reunited with the Nationalist navy.

On January 3, 1918 Sun Yat Sen led Yuzhang and Tong’an to bombard the Guangdong governors mansion. He had apparently shot at the governors mansion himself at first since the gunners didn’t follow his orders (they needed the admiral’s approval). This act raised tensions within Sun Yat Sen’s circle and the neighboring southern provinces.

In November 1921 Wen Shude (former captain of Tong’an) led most of the Constitutional Protection Fleet north to join the Bohai fleet of the Beiyang government. This included Yuzhang and Tong’an however Yuzhang was intercepted by the cruiser Yingrui and rejoined the nationalist (KMT) navy.

After the northern expedition (where the KMT put down the warlords across China and overthrew the Beiyang government) Yuzhang, Jiankang, and Tong’an would be united under one government again. However Tong’an would remain up north as part of the 3rd fleet (Northeast fleet).

On January 21, 1932 Yuzhang sank at Qingjiang reef near the mouth of the Yangtze River while sailing through thick fog. She was then scrapped and only her guns and torpedos were saved.

In early 1933 Jiankang participated in naval exercises with Ninghai and Yingrui. The main exercise the three focused on was torpedo launching.

During the 2nd Sino Japanese war Jiankang and Tongan did not see much action and would be destroyed shortly after the start of the war as with many warships of the Chinese navy at the time. In the early stages of the 2nd sino Japanese war Jiankang and other ships came to the warship Yat Sen’s aid after she was attacked by Japanese aircraft.

On September 5 Jiankang was attacked by Japanese aircraft while guarding the Jiangyin shipwreck line and sunk. Nine crew were killed and 28 wounded. She would later be salvaged and repaired by the Japanese and given to Wang Jingwei’s puppet navy as “Hai Sui”.

On December 18th Tong’An and other warships of the third fleet were scuttled near Qingdao as part of a shipwreck line to stop the Japanese advance towards inward waters.