After his death and the ship being destroyed at the end of the war, he was raised to national hero status in modern China.

In 1867, he passed the entry examinations and entered the Foochow Arsenal Naval School established by Shen Baozhen to study navigation.

In 1881, Viceroy Li Hongzhang, the Beiyang minister, sent a command with a German shipyard for the construction of two battleships (the Dingyuan and the Zhenyuan).

The fleet's chief training officer, Royal Navy captain and Englishman William Lang raised issue with this, and complained to Li Hongzhang.

In the years leading up to the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, Liu repeatedly pressed Li Hongzhang to develop the Beiyang Fleet.

He pointed out that Japan was enthusiastically expanding its navy, and to keep up the Beiyang Fleet must adopt an annual program to add new ships.

Shortly afterwards, on 4 February 1895, Japanese torpedo boats launched a surprise attack on the Beiyang Fleet's home base at Weihaiwei, during which the Dingyuan was hit and began taking on water.

Liu Buchan is argued to have lacked adequate experience before he was appointed as the captain of Dingyuan and training and command were very bad under him.