Battle of Canton (1857)

The main battle began with a naval bombardment throughout the day and night of 28 December. The next day troops landed, taking a small fort, by Kupar Creek to the south-east of the city.^{[8][9]: 503} The Chinese had thought that the attacking forces would try to capture Magazine Hill before they moved on the city walls, but on the morning on 29 December after a naval bombardment ending at 9am French troops climbed the city walls with little resistance. They had arrived at the wall half an hour early and so faced fire from their own guns.^{[2][page needed]} The British also broke into the city through the East gate.^[9]: 504

Over 4,700 British and Indian troops and 950 French troops scaled the city walls^[6] The walls were occupied for a week, then the troops moved into the streets of the city that contained over 1,000,000 people, on the morning of 5 January.^[8] Sources put Chinese casualties at 450 soldiers and 200 civilians.^{[2][page needed][10]} British losses amounted to 10 sailors and three soldiers killed and 46 sailors, 19 marines and 18 soldiers wounded.^[3] French losses were two sailors killed and 30 wounded.^[3] (Some Chinese sources estimate tens of thousands of Chinese were killed or captured and nearly 30,000 homes were burned down, although in view of the very light casualties of the attackers, the number of killed or captured is most unlikely) The delay in entering the city might have been because of the fires started by the bombardment.^{[citation needed]}

Commissioner Ye Mingchen was captured and taken to Calcutta where he starved himself to death a year later.^[2] Once the British and French had occupied the city they established a joint governing commission.^[11] Partly due to the battle and subsequent occupation – the Chinese wanted to avoid a repeat of the battle in Beijing – the Treaty of Tientsin was signed on 26 June 1858, ending the Second Opium War.^[10][11]

During the Allied occupation, the local populace retained a massive degree of hostility to all foreigners in Canton, to the point where the Anglo-French forces contemplated then abandoned plans to conduct a second bombardment of the city. In the spring of 1858, a full-fledged resistance movement had formed against the occupation, and assassination attempts against Allied sentries and Western civilians were commonplace; in response, the French occupational forces carried out reprisals in quarters of the city and local villages where such attacks had occurred. In July, a Chinese force unsuccessfully attempted to recapture Canton by storming the city. By September, attacks on foreigners in Canton had mostly subsided.^[12]

The residencies, which had been burnt down in 1856, were not rebuilt, they were moved to a manmade island further up the river named Shamian. Shamian Island was entirely cut off from the local population, accessible only over two guarded bridges.^{[13][page needed]}

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