He achieved this ambition in March 1898 when Russia signed a 25-year lease for Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula with China.

Japan had previously forced China to sign over the port and its surrounding territory as part of the treaty that concluded the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, but the Triple Intervention of France, Russia, and Germany forced them to return the port in exchange for a sizeable increase in the indemnity paid by the Chinese.

Japan invested much of the indemnity money in expanding its fleet, while Russia began a major building programme ("For the Needs of the Far East") to defend its newly acquired port that included the Borodino-class battleships.

The basic problem facing the navy was that the Borodinos would have heavier engines and larger turrets which would require a designer to build a ship which had the same speed, draft, guns and armor as Tsesarevich, but a greater displacement.

[3] The centreline bulkhead between the engine and boiler rooms caused a danger of capsizing if one side flooded and the narrow belt armor became submerged when overloaded.

They were designed for a crew of 28 officers and 754 enlisted men,[5] although Knyaz Suvorov carried 928 crewmen during the Battle of Tsushima.

The lead ship, Borodino, was fitted with a copy of the La Seyne machinery installed in Tsesarvich and built by the Franco-Russian Works.

At deep load they carried 1,350 long tons (1,372 t) of coal that provided them a range of 2,590 nautical miles (4,800 km; 2,980 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

[7] The main armament of the Borodino class consisted of two pairs of 40-caliber 12-inch guns mounted in French-style, electrically powered, twin-gun turrets fore and aft.

[11]` The secondary armament of the ships consisted of a dozen 45-caliber Canet Model 1891 6-inch (152 mm) (QF) guns mounted in six electrically powered twin-gun turrets on the upper deck.

[8] The Borodino class were originally fitted with Liuzhol stadiametric rangefinders that used the angle between two vertical points on an enemy ship, usually the waterline and the crow's nest, to estimate the range.

The gunnery officer consulted his references to get the range and calculated the proper elevation and deflection required to hit the target.

[24] Rozhestvensky had received numerous reports of Japanese agents and torpedo boats disguised as fishing vessels before sailing and he ordered maximum alertness after coaling at Skagen, Denmark on 7 October.

Early on the evening of the following day, when the squadron was near the Dogger Bank, the auxiliary repair ship Kamchatka reported that she was under attack by torpedo boats in the rain.

About four hours later, the squadron encountered British fishing trawlers working the Dogger Bank in the fog and opened fire on them at very short range.

Knyaz Suvorov was the lead ship in the Russian battle line and she opened fire at the Japanese battleship Mikasa, flagship of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō at 14:05.

Their high-explosive shells quickly set all four of the Borodinos on fire; at 14:35, Rozhestvensky and the Knyaz Suvorov's captain were wounded by splinters that entered the ship's conning tower.

[31] By this time Knyaz Suvorov's aft 12-inch gun turret had been destroyed by an explosion that blew its roof off onto the quarterdeck, her forward funnel had fallen down and her mainmast had been shot away.

Around 16:00 the captain of Imperator Alexandr III, Nikolai Bukhvostov, decided to duplicate Retvizan's maneuver at the Battle of the Yellow Sea by charging straight for the Japanese battleline in an attempt to focus their attention on his ship rather than Knyaz Suvorov.

Borodino now assumed the lead position and turned the fleet to the south where they temporarily managed to disengage in the mist and fog.

[32] Knyaz Suvorov was badly damaged by repeated attacks after she separated from the main body although she was initially in no danger of sinking.

[34][35] Oryol took the lead after Borodino was sunk; she was joined by Nebogatov's Second Division after Tōgō ordered the Japanese battleships to disengage in the gathering darkness.

[41] During the Battle of Moon Sound in 1917, Slava was badly damaged by the German dreadnought SMS König and the flooding significantly increased her draft.