Shortly after launch, Pingyuan was armed with one 263 mm Krupp rifled breechloading main gun.

[2] It was a Chinese armored cruiser built by the Mawei Navy Yard, modelled on the French Acheron-class gunboat.

Pingyuan fought in the Battle of the Yalu River,[2] damaging the Japanese flagship Matsushima, and was later captured as a prize of war in the siege of Weihaiwei.

On 21 March 1898, she was re-designated as a first-class gunboat and was officially renamed Heien in 1900 based on the Japanese language pronunciation of its original Chinese name.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Heien was assigned to the 3rd Squadron and was part of the blockading force against the Imperial Russian Navy at the Battle of Port Arthur.