Tone was designed and built in Japan by the Sasebo Naval Arsenal, under the 1904 Emergency Fleet Replenishment Program to recover from losses to the Japanese navy in the Russo-Japanese War.

Although dimensionally similar to the British-built Yoshino, Tone had the raked funnels and clipper bow that would be a feature of future Japanese warships.

[1] Her powerplant consisted of two Mitsubishi vertical 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines with 16 Miyabara boilers, driving two screws.

In World War I, Tone was assigned to the Japanese 2nd Fleet, and fought in the Battle of Tsingtao against the Imperial German Navy.

Afterwards, she was reassigned to the Japanese Third Fleet, and was based out of Singapore, from whence she patrolled the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean and also occasionally in the Dutch East Indies against German commerce raiders and U-boats, as part of Japan's contribution to the Allied war effort under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance .