Hai Yung was a protected cruiser of the Imperial Chinese Navy. Hai Yung was one of a class of three ships built in Germany for the Chinese after the losses of the First Sino-Japanese War.[1] The ship was a small protected cruiser with quick-firing guns, a departure from the prewar Chinese navy's emphasis on heavy but slow-firing weapons for its cruisers. Hai Yung resembled the British protected cruisers of the and Italian, and may have been modeled on the similar Dutch cruisers.[2] Germany itself would increase the number of similar ships for its own navy starting with the and its faster successors up until World War I.
In 1906 Hai Yung was sent on a six-month journey to survey the conditions of overseas Chinese communities in South-East Asia.[3] Much of the navy switched loyalties to the rebellion that overthrew the Manchu dynasty in 1911.. On 24 April 1916, Hai Yung collided with the Chinese Army transport ship in the East China Sea south of the Chusan Islands. Hsin-Yu sank with the loss of about 1,000 lives.[4]
Hai Yung and her sister ships survived the revolution and were obsolete by 1935, when they were discarded.[5] They all were scuttled as blockships in the Yangtze on 11 August 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.[6]