Wreckage of Chinese warship Zhiyuan sunk during first Sino-Japanese War discovered

Wreckage of a Chinese warship that sank 120 years ago during the first Sino-Japanese War (1 August 1894 – 17 April 1895) was discovered in the first week of November 2014.

The wreckage, currently coded as Dandong No 1, was discovered during an underwater exploration for port construction in the Yellow Sea and is located 10 nautical miles southwest of the Dandong Port.

The 50-meter high hull of the warship is still intact but the inside tacks were badly damaged.

The discovered ship weighs 1600-tonne and was one of the four warships with the Qing Dynasty imperial forces Beiyang Fleet that was defeated by the Japanese navy in the Battle of Yellow Sea on 17 September 1894.
However, the captain of ship Deng Shichang refused to leave the ship, Zhiyuan, even when the ship was severely crippled on fire and sank. For this reason over the past 100 years, Deng Shichang is considered as a model of Patriotism in China.

First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War was fought from 1 August 1894 – 17 April 1895 between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea. The war marked emergence of Japan as a major world power. The war ended after the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on 17 April 1895.

Under Treaty of Shimonoseki, China recognised the total independence of Korea and ceded the Liaodong Peninsula (in the south of the present day Liaoning Province), Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Japan in perpetuity. The disputed islands known as Senkaku / Diaoyu islands were not named by this treaty, but Japan annexed these uninhabited islands to Okinawa prefecture in 1895.