Chinese gunboat Fuxing

In July 1884, Fuxing was located at the Foochow Arsenal along with the corvette Yangwu and two flat-iron gunboats.^[3] From the middle of the month, the French Navy started sending ships nearby as the governments of France and China held negotiations in order to prevent a war. The French forces became impatient, and bombarded Formosa (now Taiwan) in early August. Despite the presence of the French navy near Foochow, more reinforcements were not sent to bolster the Chinese squadron.^[4]

Negotiations ended on 21 August, and the French squadron began clearing for action each day. On 23 August, they gave notice that an attack was imminent, but the Chinese forces took no action.^[5] Just prior to 2pm, the French attack in the Battle of Fuzhou began, which marked the start of the active phase of the Sino-French War.^[6] The Chinese flagship Yangwu was destroyed 27 seconds later, as the French had already sent forward torpedo boats equipped with spar torpedoes.^[6][7] While boat No 46 had impacted the Yangwu, Fuxing was damaged by a spar torpedo from boat No 45. It was later sunk by another spar torpedo, this time from a pinnace launched from the French ^[5]