Hai Lung-class destroyer

Uncommon card · No. 95779

The Hai Lung class was a series of four torpedo boat destroyers ordered by the Imperial Chinese Navy in 1896 to recover from the First Sino-Japanese War. Delivered in 1899, the four destroyers were captured by a Royal Navy detachment during the Battle of the Taku Forts, 17 June 1900, in the Boxer Rebellion. The ships were distributed among Eight-Nation Alliance navies involved in the battle, with one destroyer each going to the British, German, French, and Russian navies. Each ship was renamed either Taku or Takou, and they are sometimes referred to as the Taku-class destroyers. The Russian Taku was renamed Leytenant Burakov and was torpedoed during the Russian-Japanese War and sunk in 1904. The French Takou ran aground in 1911 and was condemned, the German Taku was scuttled during World War I in the Siege of Tsingtao, and the British Taku was decommissioned in 1916.

Read on Wikipedia · Image K. Hurlstone Jones, Public domain