Campaigners › Naval Commanders
Ding Ruchang
Commander-in-chief of the Beiyang Fleet who led it at the Yalu River and, besieged at Weihaiwei, took poison rather than surrender
Mural of the event “First Sino-Japanese War”, which this person took part in.
By the late nineteenth century, Qing China and Japan increasingly competed for political and strategic influence on the Korean peninsula. After the Donghak Peasant Movement in 1894, both states sent troops to Korea; diplomacy broke down and war followed.
Also known as Zi Yuting
- Roles
- Naval Commanders
Ding Ruchang, courtesy name Yuting, came from Lujiang in Anhui; he first served in the Yangzi River flotilla and then fought the Nian rebels under Liu Mingchuan. Early in the Guangxu reign Li Hongzhang kept him in the north, and he went to Britain to bring back the cruisers Chaoyong and Yangwei. When the Beiyang Fleet was formally constituted in 1888 he became its admiral, and in 1891 he took it on a visit to Japan. At the Battle of the Yalu River in 1894 he was wounded directing the fight from the flagship Dingyuan. Early the next year Japanese troops took the forts on both shores of Weihaiwei, and Ding held out on Liugong Island with the remnant of the fleet, rejecting Admiral Ito Sukeyuki's call to surrender. In February 1895 he took poison, and his officers then surrendered the ships. The court held him to blame, and his rank was restored only in 1910, when former officers petitioned the new Navy Ministry.
Life and times
Dates 1836 CE–1895 CE
- 1894First Sino-Japanese WarTook partage 58