JINAN, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) — Authorities in east China’s Shandong Province have designated a further 43,000 sq. meters of coastal waters as a part of an underwater cultural relics safety zone to safeguard the long-lost stays of three sunken warships from the First Sino-Japanese War.
The Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism has launched the exact coordinates of the protected waters on its official web site, informing the general public that the measures are supposed to strengthen the preservation of underwater cultural relics from the First Sino-Japanese War.
Under the brand new safety measures, actions comparable to fishing, blasting and building work that might jeopardize the protection of the underwater relics are prohibited.
Zhou Qiang, deputy director of the underwater archaeology analysis workplace on the Shandong Underwater Archaeological Research Center, stated the three shipwreck websites lie shut to at least one one other, resting 4 to six meters underwater close to Liugong Island in Weihai Bay.
The stays have been recognized as these of the Dingyuan, Laiyuan and Jingyuan, all battleships of the Beiyang Fleet through the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). No full hulls survive; solely scattered fragments of the ships stay.
The ships have been destroyed through the First Sino-Japanese War, generally identified in China because the Jiawu War, which started on July 25, 1894, when Japanese warships attacked two Chinese vessels off the Korean port of Asan.
This 12 months marks the a hundred and thirtieth anniversary of the top of the struggle lasting from 1894 to 1895.
According to the Shandong archaeological analysis middle, after the struggle, Japan carried out a number of damaging salvage operations on the sunken vessels of the Beiyang Fleet.
Chinese archaeological establishments performed joint underwater investigations from 2017 to 2023, confirming the identities of the three sunken warships and salvaging over 4,000 cultural relics. These findings present essential bodily proof for the examine of the struggle and the Beiyang Fleet. The artifacts are at present housed on the National Cultural Heritage Administration and the Chinese Museum of the Sino-Japanese War.
Zhou Chunshui, a researcher with the National Cultural Heritage Administration’s archaeological analysis middle, stated the archaeological mission associated to the sunken warships was the biggest, longest-running and best archaeological mission of a naval battlefield wherever on this planet.
The nationwide museum, devoted to the Beiyang Fleet and the First Sino-Japanese War, is situated on Liugong Island, which has been developed right into a patriotic schooling base, because the struggle is thought to be “a bitter lesson to learn” in Chinese historical past. In October alone, the museum acquired 198,562 guests.