History
Hiei was designed by the British naval architect Sir Edward James Reed and was launched at the Milford Haven shipyard at Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire, Wales on 11 June 1877. She was a three-masted bark-rigged sloop-of-war with a coal-fired double expansion reciprocating steam engine with six boilers, driving a single screw. Completed on 25 February 1878, she arrived in Yokosuka on 22 May 1878 after her shake-down cruise from England, by a British crew, with the future admiral Togo Heihachiro on board, who had just completed six years of study in the United Kingdom.
From 8 April 1880 to 17 September 1880, Hiei undertook one of Japan's first long distance navigational training voyages, visiting India, Persia and various ports in Southeast Asia. Further training missions, extending into the Mediterranean Sea were undertaken in 1889, 1890, 1891, 1897, and 1899.
With heightened tensions between Japan and Joseon dynasty Korea after the assassination of several members of the Japanese embassy in Seoul during the Imo Incident, Hiei was assigned to patrols off the Korean coast as a show of force in the summer of 1882.
Hiei saw combat service in the First Sino-Japanese war, and was damaged in the Battle of the Yalu River. Later, it took part in the invasion of Taiwan in 1895, and saw action on 13 October 1895 at the bombardment of the Chinese coastal forts at Takow (Kaohsiung). On 21 March 1898, Hiei was re-designated as a third-class gunboat, and was used for coastal survey and patrol duties.
During the Russo-Japanese War, Hiei was based as a guard ship at Maizuru, and was subsequently relocated to Port Arthur after that naval base had fallen to the Japanese.
After the end of the war, Hiei was assigned to surveying duties until 1 April 1911 when she was stricken from the navy list.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Corvette Hiei
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