They enlisted British and German assistance, and two s were ordered from Germany. Dingyuan was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced normally and up to at full load. She was powered by a pair of compound steam engines that each drove a screw propeller. Steam was provided by eight coal-burning fire-tube boilers that were ducted into a pair of funnels amidships. She was capable of a top speed of from . Her crew consisted of 350 officers and enlisted men. The ship carried a main battery of four 20-caliber breech-loading guns in two twin-gun turrets that were placed en echelon forward. These were supported by a secondary battery of two guns in a pair of single turrets, one at the bow and the other at the stern. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried a pair of Hotchkiss revolver cannon and eight Maxim-Nordenfelt quick-firing guns in casemates. Dingyuan was also equipped with three or torpedo tubes. She was protected by compound armor that was 14 in for the armor belt, which covered the central part of the ship were the ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces were located. An armor deck that was thick provided horizontal protection. Her conning tower was covered with of armor plate on the sides. The barbettes for the gun turrets were 12–14 in thick. A strake of armor that was 8 in thick protected the casemate guns. Service record Early career Dingyuan was ordered in 1880 and was laid down at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, Germany in March 1881; her name means "eternal peace" in Chinese. Work proceeded quickly and she was launched on 28 December 1881 to clear the slipway so work could begin on her sister ship . Fitting-out work continued into May 1883, when the vessel was completed, but delivery was to be delayed until Zhenyuan was finished in April 1884. The start of the outbreak of the Sino-French War in August prevented both Dingyuan-class ships from being delivered until 1885, since Germany would not transfer the vessels to a country at war. Both vessels were manned by German crews, sailing on 3 July 1885 under the German flag in company with the also German-built protected cruiser . The three ships arrived in Tianjin in November, where they were transferred to Chinese control. Li Hongzhang, the Viceroy of Zhili and director of China's