Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning

Liaoning (16) (Chinese: 辽宁舰; pinyin: Liáoníng Jiàn), is the first aircraft carrier commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy Surface Force. It is classified as a training ship, intended to allow the Navy to practice with carrier usage.

Originally laid down as the Admiral Kuznetsov class multirole aircraft carrier Riga for the Soviet Navy, she was launched on December 4, 1988, and renamed Varyag in 1990. The stripped hulk was purchased in 1998 by the People's Republic of China and towed to Dalian Shipyard in northeast China. After being completely rebuilt and undergoing sea trials, the ship was commissioned into the PLAN as Liaoning on September 25, 2012.

History

Origin

The ship was laid down as Riga at Shipyard 444 (now Mykolaiv South) in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, on December 6, 1985. Design work was undertaken by the Nevske Planning and Design Bureau. Launched on December 4, 1988, the carrier was renamed Varyag in late 1990, after the famous cruiser. Often referred to as an aircraft carrier, the vessel's design implied a mission different from carriers of the United States Navy, Royal Navy or French Navy. The Russian term used by her builders to describe the ships is "тяжёлый авианесущий крейсер" tyazholiy avianesushchiy kreyser (TAKR or TAVKR) "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser", intended to support strategic missile-carrying submarines, surface ships, and maritime missile-carrying aircraft of the Russian fleet. The Soviet Union and later Russia argued that the ships are not aircraft carriers under the Montreux Convention and not subject to the tonnage limits imposed on these ships in traveling through the Bosphorus.

Shi Lang

Shi Lang (Chinese: 施琅; pinyin: Shī Láng; 1621–1696) was a Chinese admiral who served under the Ming and Qing dynasties in the 17th century. He was the commander-in-chief of the Qing fleets which destroyed the power of Zheng Chenggong's descendants in the 1660s, and led the conquest of the Zheng family's Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan in 1683. Shi later governed part of Taiwan as a marquis.

Early life and career

Shi Lang was born to a distinguished lineage in Jinjiang, Fujian, in 1621. He studied military strategy in his youth, and became particularly proficient in naval warfare. After fighting a number of minor operations locally with his father, he joined Zheng Zhilong's naval fleet as captain of the left vanguard. Shi Lang served most of the early 1640s in the Zheng family's fleet, where he apparently saw some conflict with Zheng Zhilong's son Zheng Chenggong. When Shi defected to the Qing dynasty in 1646, Zheng Chenggong killed Shi's father, brother and son.

Campaign against the Zheng family