How many ships would it take to lift a PLA armoured or mechanised division?
That's an interesting question... But there's no open source mention of such capability or even an analysis attempt. So let me try.
PLA armored division was made out of two armored brigades worth of units. It's smaller than a US armored division, though each PLA brigade on its own may be bigger than the equivalent US armored brigade. PLA armored division was usually quoted at 10 to 11 thousand troops in late 90s. Since then there were various reorganizations but that's the last figure I know of. We know that later the PLA divisions were usually split to independent brigades and that 2 armored brigades would appear out of the previous 1 armored division.
To compare, we have an example of US 1st armored division being transported by ships in 2003, for the Invasion of Iraq. That was a large unit with 16 500 troops. 3 armored brigades, 1 combat aviation brigade, an artillery unit and a sustainment brigade. It had over 6000 pieces of large/heavy equipment. 9 large or medium ships were used to sealift all that stuff.
USNS Watking, a 63 000 ton ship
USNS Mendonca, a 62 000 ton ship
USNS Gilliland, a 65 000 ton ship
MV Catherine, a 21 000 ton ship
MV Asian Vision, a 55 000 ton ship
MV Jolly Turchese, a 39 000 ton ship
MV Skodsborg, a 15 000 ton ship
MV Thebeland, a 21 000 ton ship
MV Cape Diamond, a 29 000 ton ship
It took roughly 2 weeks from starting to load the first ship to finishing loading the last ship. The bigger ships were loaded over a period of 3 days. And since we're talking about huge ships, a single port was not sufficient (with all the commercial cargo as well), so it was done in two ports. (Rotterdam and Antwerp)
So 9 ships with overall tonnage of 370 000 tons for one large armored division.
As said, as PLA division equivalents are smaller, fewer ships would likely be needed. But likely still 5-7 ships, depending on their size, with total tonnage of 240 000 tons.
Going off topic even a little further, here are some quotes about PLA transport capabilities over time.
In 2006 Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense estimated that with mobilized civilian lift, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could transport five to six divisions of troops to Taiwan.
In early 2014 an Asian government source told IHS Jane's that with combined military-civil transport, the PLA could move eight to 12 divisions to Taiwan.
