Chinese cruiser Hai Chi

Hai Chi was the lead ship of a pair of protected cruisers that Armstrong Whitworth built at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1897 for the Imperial Chinese Navy, and she was for a time the largest warship in China, displacing 4,300 tons. She carried two 8-inch guns and could make 24 knots. In 1911 she travelled to Britain for the fleet review at the coronation of George V, refitted at Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle and then crossed to the United States, Cuba and Mexico, the first Imperial Chinese warship in American waters, and she came home to find the Qing replaced by the Republic of China. She then served several factions in the warlord years, among them the Constitutional Protection Movement of Sun Yat-sen and the Fengtian navy of Zhang Zuolin, and she became part of the Republic of China Navy fleet at Qingdao. She was scuttled as a blockship in the Yangtze on 11 August 1937 to hinder the Japanese advance, her main guns were moved to the river defences at Wuhan, and her hull was raised and broken up in 1960.