Hai Yung was one of a class of three ships built in Germany for the Chinese after the losses of the First Sino-Japanese War.

[2] Germany itself would increase the number of similar ships for its own navy starting with the Gazelle class and its faster successors up until World War I.

In 1906 Hai Yung was sent on a six-month journey to survey the conditions of overseas Chinese communities in South-East Asia.

On 24 April 1916, Hai Yung collided with the Chinese Army transport ship Hsin-Yu in the East China Sea south of the Chusan Islands.

[4] Hai Yung and her sister ships survived the revolution and were obsolete by 1935, when they were discarded.