The Island Where the Navy Ended

Liugong Island stands about four kilometres from the city of Weihai at the mouth of Weihai Bay, where the harbour is the gate to the Bohai, and it can only be reached by boat. The island covers 3.15 square kilometres, has a maximum length of 4.08 kilometres and a maximum width of 1.5 kilometres, and its coastline runs 14.93 kilometres. The terrain slopes down from the north, whose cliffs are steep, to a gentler southern side, and the highest point is Qiding Mountain at 153 metres. Black pine covers more than half the island, which was made a national forest park in 1985. Archaeology shows habitation from the Warring States period onward, and in the Han the island was settled by members of the Liu family, whose name became the island's.

Weihaiwei was set up as a garrison against pirates in 1398, and from 1887 the coastal defences of the bay were built out in earnest. On Liugong Island the works of that time included six batteries, an iron dock, the Majingzi dockyard, a naval academy, an engineering bureau, a machinery bureau, a telegraph bureau and an ammunition depot. On December 17, 1888 the Beiyang Fleet was formally mustered there with Ding Ruchang as admiral: warships large and small numbering 25, of more than 40,000 tons in total, placing it fourth in the world and first in Asia. Eight of fifteen modern warships bought from the United Kingdom and Germany had gone to the fleet, and more than a hundred cannons were set up from 1887 around the harbour of Weihai and on the islands of Liugong and Ri. Ding Ruchang made the island his official residence.

The Battle of Weihaiwei was a siege of 23 days, with the major land and naval engagements running from January 20 to February 12, 1895, and the fall of the town gave Japan the approaches to Beijing. On February 17 Japanese troops boarded Liugong Island, took over its military facilities and stores and captured the ten warships left in the harbour, and a fleet run for nearly twenty years ended there; Ding Ruchang committed suicide. The Japanese occupation lasted about three years. Under the lease of July 1, 1898 Weihaiwei, including the island, passed to the British, who built a Royal Navy base on it; Weihaiwei returned to China on October 1, 1930 with Liugong Island leased back, and the British withdrew on November 1, 1940. On the island today are the First Sino-Japanese War museum, the Beiyang Fleet loyal-soul stele, and the old batteries and iron dock.