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On October 4, 1363, the Battle of Lake Poyang took place. It is one of the largest naval battles in history with approximately 850,000 taking part. From the article:

"LARGEST NAVAL BATTLE OCCURS
30 AUGUST 1363

On this day in 1363, the forces of two Chinese rebel leaders, Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang, were pitted against each other in what was one of history’s largest naval battles: the Battle of Lake Poyang. It was one of the final battles fought in the fall of China’s Yuan Dynasty, and determined which rebel group would assume leadership in the empire’s subsequent dynasty.

By the mid-14th century, the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty in China was disintegrating. Chinese had always considered it a foreign occupation army rather than a legitimate dynasty, and decadence had further weakened the Yuan administration. As the Yuan wound down, bands of rebel peasant groups struggled to topple the Yuan and claim control over the empire.

Two groups in particular became rivals: the Ming, led by Zhu Yuanzhang, and the Han, led by Chen Youliang. Each leader founded his own dynasty in different parts of China, but both knew they could not both lead the empire. To decide who would prevail, they engaged in what would become one of the largest naval battles in history, fought on China’s largest freshwater lake, Lake Poyang.

The battle began as an amphibious siege by the Han against the Ming-held town of Nanchang. The Han employed floating fortresses known as lou chuan, or “tower ships” to mount their formidable offense. These triple-decked vessels were tall and impressive, with high sterns and iron-armored turrets propelled by sails and oars, but they were still slow.

The Ming repelled the assault for a considerable length of the time before their fleets arrived to reinforce their town’s defense. As the reinforcements arrived, the Han decided turned their focus to the arriving Ming fleets, made up of smaller treadmill-powered paddle ships.

Despite the disparity of size between the formidable Han tower ships and the smaller Ming ships, the Ming ships put up a good fight. Their smaller size made them more manoeuvrable and better suited to the lake waters made shallow by late-summer evaporation. In fact, many of the Han’s floating fortresses ran aground on sandbanks.

On the second day of battle, the Yuangzhang’s Ming forces exploited a favourable wind to push fire ships—small boats packed with straw, gunpowder, and decoy “soldiers”—toward the fleet of Han ships, which had been chained together in formation. Due to the favourable wind and tight formation of the Han ships, the Ming’s fire ships were successful and many Han ships were either destroyed or suffered serious damage. After a day of repairs, the rivals engaged in battle. The small Ming ships penetrated the weakened Han formation and conquered many Han ships.

The battle ended in a month-long standoff, but in a skirmish on 4 October, Han leader Youliang was shot through the head with an arrow and killed. Without its leader, the Han collapsed. Ming leader Yuangzhang cemented his position as the leading rebel group. Some five years later, when the Yuan Dynasty fell, Yuangzhang—thanks to his decisive victory years earlier in the Battle of Lake Poyang—became the first emperor of one of China’s greatest dynasties, the Ming."