The Jiangnan Shipyard had recently successfully completed an order of six river gunboats for the United States Navy and an order, for a 418-ton gunboat based on the previously built American designs was placed with the Shanghai based shipyard.

'People's Rights') and the Minsheng (Chinese: 民生; pinyin: Mínshēng; Wade–Giles: Ming Sen; lit.

The two ships Minquan and Minsheng were based on the 1920s American Yangtze Patrol gunboat designs by Superintending Engineer Robert Buchanan Mauchan of Jiangnan Shipyards.

Yi Zaifu (叶在馥), who had helped work on the original US Navy designs and expanded on them.

Minsheng was built to a modified design of Minquan, with lessons learned from the construction of the light cruiser Yat Sen, which was built between the two ships in 1930, applied to the Minsheng and making her a semi-sister ship to Minquan rather than being an exact copy.

The draught was also increased slightly to 2.0 m (6 ft 7 in) which would still allow the Upper Yangtze up to Chongqing but not further to Yibin.

[8] By the time of the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937 Minsheng was located at Wuhan and Minquan at Chongqing.