At 16:48 on the afternoon of 17 September 1894, the armored cruiser Jingyuan lurched to starboard and burst into flames. She had been taking concentrated fire from the Japanese flying squadron for over an hour, and her two-inch lacquered teak deck, the design flaw her builders in Stettin had never adequately addressed, had finally ignited beyond control. A large explosion followed, and Jingyuan rolled over and sank in the Yellow Sea near the mouth of the Yalu River. Of her 270 crewmen, only seven escaped.
Jingyuan existed because of one man's determination to give China a modern navy. Viceroy Li Hongzhang, stung by China's poor showing in the Sino-French War, turned to the Vulcan shipyards in Stettin, Germany, to build warships that could compete with Western and Japanese vessels. Jingyuan and her sister ship Laiyuan were classified as "gunboats" by their German designers but called "cruisers" by the Chinese, a difference in terminology that hinted at a deeper problem: the ships were compromises, mounting heavy Krupp guns in the manner of coastal defense monitors while lacking the speed or sustained firepower of the cruisers built by Britain's Armstrong Whitworth for Japan. They were second in displacement only to the Beiyang Fleet's two ironclad battleships, but they could not match the Japanese Elswick cruisers they would face in combat.
Jingyuan's steel hull was divided into 66 waterproof compartments filled with cork for buoyancy. Her belt armor measured 5.5 inches but did not extend above the waterline or to the hull's extremities, with 8 inches at the conning tower and barbettes. The main armament consisted of two breech-loading 8.2-inch Krupp cannon paired in the forward barbette, with only 50 rounds of ammunition per gun. Two 6-inch Krupp guns on sponsons provided secondary firepower, supplemented by lighter weapons and two torpedo tubes. The prow was reinforced for ramming, a feature common to warships of the era. Laid down on 1 January 1885 and completed on 1 January 1888, Jingyuan represented the best that Chinese purchasing power could acquire from European shipyards. But her lacquered teak deck, a material choice that enhanced the ship's appearance, made her dangerously flammable.
After arriving in China in 1888, Jingyuan and Laiyuan were assigned to the Beiyang Fleet under Admiral Ding Ruchang. In the summer of 1889, both ships participated in a flotilla visit to the Russian naval base at Vladivostok, a show-the-flag voyage that demonstrated the reach of China's new fleet. In early 1894, the two cruisers accompanied other Beiyang ships on a visit to Singapore, but the flotilla was recalled to Weihaiwei as tensions with Japan escalated over influence in Korea. The recall came too late for diplomatic solutions. By September, China and Japan were at war, and the Beiyang Fleet sailed north to contest Japanese control of the Yellow Sea.
At the Battle of the Yalu River on 17 September 1894, Jingyuan and Laiyuan fought together. Laiyuan's captain attacked aggressively, pursuing and damaging a slower Japanese gunboat, but his ship caught fire and was forced out of the battle. With Laiyuan apparently doomed, Admiral Tsuboi Kozo's flying squadron, led by the cruisers Yoshino, Takachiho, Naniwa, and Akitsushima, concentrated their fire on Jingyuan. For more than an hour, their quick-firing guns hammered the German-built cruiser. Briefly, Jingyuan appeared to be closing on Yoshino in an attempt to ram, but at 16:48 she veered to starboard and erupted in flames. The teak deck that had made her elegant in port had made her a death trap in battle. The explosion that followed left only seven survivors from a crew of 270, each one pulled from waters choked with wreckage and smoke.
Located at 39.21N, 123.13E in the Yellow Sea near the mouth of the Yalu River. The wreck site is in the same area as the Battle of the Yalu River battlefield, between the Liaodong Peninsula and the Yalu estuary. The city of Dandong is visible on the Chinese bank of the Yalu. Nearest airports include Dandong Langtou (ZYDD). The waters are relatively shallow and the Yalu's discharge plume may be visible from altitude depending on season and conditions.