The Opium Wars - Part 1: Foreign Mud

[Music] you are listening to the opium wars britain's wars in china part one foreign mud written and narrated by mark felton this episode is audio only one hot and humid summer's evening in 2010 i was attending a function at the seed cathedral britain's extraordinary contribution to the shanghai world expo the vast expo site was crowded with hundreds of thousands of people all enjoying the fascinating exhibits in the air of international friendship and cooperation a large union jack flew proudly above britain's landmark building itself an award-winning and dazzling profusion of light and color the special guests then marched in to everyone's amazement in came the band of the royal marines immaculately turned out in white tropical service tunics medals proudly pinned to their chests it was not lost on me the significance of this event for the first time since 1949 uniformed british soldiers stood under their own flag on communist chinese soil the royal marines probably more than any other british military unit had played an integral role in britain's military campaigns in china from the first opium war in 1839 to the yangtze incident in 1949 i wondered as i stood listening to the music whether the other guests realized how significant a moment this was in anglo-chinese relations such a thing would have been unthinkable even 10 years before and i wondered how many guests considered the enormous impact that had been made on modern china by not just the royal marines but by the royal navy and the british army shanghai itself was a product of british military adventurism and it seemed rather poetic to me that it should have been the royal marines whose unofficial motto is the first to land we're representing britain before the chinese public one last time britain's involvement with china is truly epic we launched huge naval and military campaigns on three occasions during the 19th and early 20th centuries we invaded tibet we patrol china's rivers for over four decades fought a glorious last stand battle in hong kong in 1941 helped china to fight japanese aggression and got caught up in the chinese civil war we gave millions of chinese a fresh start in hong kong while defending the terratrader in the cold war and we fought the chinese in set-piece battles in korea in the 1950s for over a hundred and fifty years britain maintained a military presence in china in both peace and war and millions of british service personnel passed through their barracks containments and campaigns the bones of many of these soldiers and sailors lie buried today beneath chinese soil as i listened to the royal marines playing god save the queen at the shanghai expo in 2010 i couldn't help but wonder how it came about that britain became a military force in china it is an incredible story that began with an illicit drugs trade in 1839 and ended with the skyscrapers and financial markets of hong kong in 1997. the first shots in britain's most infamous conflict the first opium war were not fired by a british warship at the chinese but somewhat ironically by a royal navy warship at a british merchant vessel on the 27th of october 1839 a british merchant ship named royal saxon attempted to run a royal navy blockade into what was then britain's biggest trading post in china canton now guangzhou located nearly a hundred miles up the pearl river in the south of the country hms volage a fully rigged frigate fired a warning shot across royal saxon's boughs a shot that was to bring out a large chinese fleet under orders to protect the british merchantmen that this confused situation even occurred had its roots in a pernicious drug that the british were then in the process of foisting upon the chinese literally by the tongue the british government in a move of breathtaking immorality launched the nation into a war against china to protect ruthless drug traffickers and in so doing ushered in over a hundred years of british military activity in china and dragged china unwillingly from feudalism into the modern world the opium wars are generally agreed by historians to have been one of the less proud chapters in the history of britain's ascent to great imperial power for the first and only time in history one nation used narcotics to dominate another and for good reason today the opium wars are remembered in china as a national humiliation although morally difficult to justify britain's success in the first opium war would eventually lead to china becoming a modern power in her own right and it can be argued that china's prosperity today has its roots in its forcible opening to the world economic system in the 1840s forced by the sort of gunboat diplomacy that the british used so successfully to usher in the first globalization of trade and finance although britain's relationship with china had always been firmly rooted in trade and profit it actually began quite differently china a vast underdeveloped empire and the oldest nation-state on earth with its teeming hundreds of millions and self-satisfied contempt for all things foreign was about to collide with a grasping heavily armed and belligerent nation of free trading buccaneers busily adding ports and territories to its ever expanding empire with a determination unmatched even by the romans the first ship from the british isles had visited the south china coast in 1635. they were relative latecomers for the portuguese had already established a small colony at macau a century before soon there were british traders in small communities at joshan and xiamen but the most important trading town was canton the mouth of the mighty pearl river a city of over a million souls it was ringed as was the chinese style by a massive town wall to protect it from the depredations of pirates and was at the time one of the largest cities in the world between 1700 and 1842 canton dominated the china trade and it was the british who quickly became the masters of their trade the british and other foreigners traded in china with the permission of the seldom seen divine emperor in p king now beijing under chinese laws and at the behest of chinese officials known collectively as mandarins the ruling qing dynasty themselves foreigners from manchuria who would seize power from the elegant ming dynasty in 1644 held an ambivalent attitude towards overseas trade and a confucian disdain for merchants and traders chinese officials believe that trade incited unrest and disorder in the empire caused piracy and compromised the nation's defenses in the case of the british they were to be proved right on all of these scores the chinese were not particularly interested in foreign manufactures and technologies seeing no practical use for them and they erected high tariffs and created rigid laws governing such imports also inadvertently fostering widespread corruption among junior officials and provincial governors the chinese trading system with foreigners had operated for centuries on an elaborate system of tribute the chinese emperor was the son of heaven mandated ruler of the entire earth so all foreign rulers were expected to present tribute to him and acknowledge his superiority western nations were happy to play along as the emperor's gifts in order to demonstrate his munificence was superior to the tribute given and the emperor bestowed titles upon foreign emissaries and permitted them to trade trade for the foreigners was always lucrative but by the early 19th century european traders demanded more access to chinese markets as their trade and wealth grew at this juncture the emperor tried to turn back the clock with disastrous results the history of china in the mid to late 19th century is of successive leaders trying vainly to close the door to the foreigners but finding that their former guests were not averse to kicking in the door to get what they wanted the honorable east india company carried out british far east trade under royal charter it was a vast firm with a huge private army and navy that had conquered and administered great swathes of india there was low demand among the chinese for european goods but huge demand in europe for chinese tea silk and porcelain the problem for the europeans was the chinese demand to be paid in hard currency and the only currency that they accepted was silver the figures were astounding for example from the mid 16th to the mid-19th centuries the chinese received 28 million kilograms of silver from europe and america the british especially did not like this arrangement because since the mid 18th century they had used the gold standard and in order to purchase the required silver they were forced to purchase it from other european nations and mexico thereby incurring fees that lowered their profits the east india company first imported small quantities of the indian narcotic opium derisively called foreign mud by the chinese following the annexation of bengal in india by robert clive in 1757 the company needed a product that they could trade with the chinese in return for tea initially they tried european clothes but the chinese preferred homespun silk then despite moral objections raised at the time the british chose to fix the trade imbalance by means of indian opium widespread addiction among all classes of chinese soon reversed the flow of silver back into british coffers the chinese government banned the importation of opium when they realized the damage the drug was inflicting on their society and perhaps more importantly on their silver reserves the east india company circumvented the ban by establishing an elaborate trading system using both legal and illegal markets in china british merchants would buy tea on credit at canton they would then buy opium at auction in calcutta the chests of opium would be sent on british merchant ships to the china coast smuggled inland by local chinese merchants and the debts would be settled then as now the profits from drug smuggling were enormous and the trade boomed in 1730 the british sold 15 tons of opium in china by 1773 this figure was up to 75 tons and by the 1820s it had reached 900 tons annually at the same time the british government attempted to persuade the emperor to ease the ban on opium imports in return for certain concessions in 1793 ol mccartney was granted an audience with the chen long emperor in the yellow roofed forbidden city but he was soon politely shown the door in 1799 and 1810 the emperor issued imperial edicts forbidding opium importation or smoking but because of endemic corruption the emperor was unable to effectively govern his southern provinces and between 1821 and 1837 there was a five-fold increase in opium sales in china vastly increasing british traders power over the region and its population the turning point came in 1834 when free trade reform in britain ended the east india company's monopoly in the far east ushering in hundreds of practical and independent operators and freebooters the americans also began importing cheaper lower quality turkish opium into china in 1839 the 56 year old daogwang emperor would reign for 19 years appointed a manchu nobleman named lin zushu as governor of canton with orders to stop the opium trade commissioner lin banned the sale of opium ordered all opium stocks to be surrendered and destroyed and required foreign traders to sign a no opium bond before they could moor their ships in the city any foreigner found with opium in his holds was to be put to death lynn also closed the sea channel into canton up a myriad of tributaries and creeks of the pearl river in effect holding the city's british traders hostage the man who was responsible for opening up china to foreign trade at the point of a gun was 37 year old royal navy captain charles elliott british superintendent of trade elia to join the navy in 1815 and had served in the east and west indies and west africa before being sent to canton in 1833 importantly he was firmly and vocally against the opium trade though he followed his orders to the letter elliot held a meeting with the angry british traders he managed to persuade them to hand over their opium stocks to lynn in return for the british government promising to compensate them for their losses however the government had no intention of honoring this agreement because it rightly feared a backlash from the british public if it became known that her majesty's government was protecting drug traffickers the delighted chinese commenced burning 20 000 chests of opium each packed with 55 kilograms of the drug on the 3rd of june 1839 there was so much foreign mud that it took over 20 days to destroy lynn wrote a memorial to queen victoria asking her to stop the opium trade but this letter never reached buckingham palace and was conveniently ignored by the hawkish foreign secretary vicon palmerston the atmosphere all along the chinese coast was tensed in the summer of 1839. the spark that opened general hostilities between britain and china was an incident that occurred in the small fishing village of tsimcha today part of kowloon in hong kong in july 1839 at the end of june the skipper of the british tea clipper carnatic had been arrested by the chinese coast guard in kowloon on the 7th of july a large group of british and american sailors many of the carnatic had gone ashore in kowloon and discovered a supply of locally produced rice wine sufficiently liquored up the mob of sailors had started a small riot in simcha sway vandalized the local temple and murdered a chinese man at the time china lacked a jury trial system or evidentiary process britons were horrified at the medieval punishments that were dispensed by chinese magistrates the british government and commissioner eliot demanded the british subjects be granted extra territoriality for crimes committed in china meaning that britons would be tried by their own consular authorities and not subjected to local justice commissioner lin demanded that the sailors suspected of murder be handed over but elliot refused instead a british court in canton tried them found them guilty and transported them back to britain where they were promptly released on the issue of the no opium bond that the chinese demanded all foreign ship skippers sign elliot refused to agree and instead ordered that the british withdraw from canton and cease trading with the chinese in order to enforce this order elliot ordered two royal navy sloops hms volage and hyacinth to lie off the baka tigris a narrow channel that runs between islands and the pearl river delta to prevent british ships reaching canton the chinese called the channel the humen or tiger gate and it was well named for the chinese had fitted the islands with claws multiple forts well supplied with cannon not all of the british were drug smugglers some ship owners refused to allow their vessels to carry opium for religious or moral reasons and they saw no reason why their own profits should be damaged by elliot's drastic measures to protect the drug traffickers these owners and captains even agreed to sign the no opium bond that the chinese authorities demanded on the 3rd of november 1839 the royal saxon whose quaker owners refused to take part in the opium trade attempted to enter the baka tigris and make her way up river to canton elliott ordered captain henry smith aboard hms vollage to stop the ship the volage fired a shot across the royal saxon's boughs shortly afterwards a small fleet of chinese war junks and other craft emerged from the mouth of the river under the command of 58 year old admiral gwen tienpay who was later admiringly described by the british as an altogether fine specimen of a gallon soldier the chinese naval commander moved out to protect the royal saxon from further illegal interference from the royal navy triggering a full-scale naval battle between britain and the celestial empire the vollage and hyacinth the latter a 106 foot long 18 gun favorite class sloop constructed in 1829 that had previously surveyed the northeast coast of australia went lying ahead in battle formation and opened tremendous broadsides from starboard on the chinese vessels gunport stood open as british cannons mouth great iron balls at the chinese ships or lust off grapeshot that peppered the junks sails and crew the british ships were well armed and maneuverable and they completely outclassed and outgunned admiral gwen's junks the chinese were facing the world's most technologically advanced and best disciplined navy its ships officered by men who had fought under admiral nelson at trafalgar or in a myriad of other battles and landings from the west indies to the mediterranean from the cold north sea to the cape of good hope the royal navy bestowed the globe like a massive octopus its men of war frigates and gunboats protecting the sea lanes for free trade inserting military forces like projectiles on the hostile shores when required and also mapping and exploring from australia to the arctic chinese naval warfare had scarcely evolved since the 15th century it was the equivalent today of an f-15 supersonic jet fighter going head-to-head with a sopwith camel within minutes one chinese fire raft had sunk and a war junk blew up in a great cloud of fire and black smoke after a british shell tore into its magazine it was a complete turkey shoot and a shocking display of british naval might the action took place off trenpy island which was heavily defended by dug-in chinese artillery and infantry in small forts and gun emplacements after an initial pass with all guns blazing the two british warships came about and made a second pass firing port broadsides massive clouds of gunsmoke obscured the carnage as each deafening broadside did its grim work another huge junk blew up three more sank their hulls torn to pieces by solid shot and several others were badly damaged and on fire what was left of the chinese fleet wisely retired upriver except for admiral gwen's flagship which bravely remained stationary and continued firing realizing that the small chinese guns were ineffective captain elliot ordered captain smith to cease firing and gwen's damaged vessel retreated to safety hms vollage had suffered some slight damage to her sails and rigging and the higher since misenmast had been holed by a chinese cannonball one british sailor was wounded while 15 chinese had been killed and four of their war junks sunk the royal saxon the original catalyst at this ugly little battle brazenly continued on her way to canton while elliot withdrew his ships to the nearby portuguese colony of macau as he knew that the chinese would send fireboats down the river this was the only real threat to the british wooden sailing vessels tied as they were to the vagaries of wind and tide the first round of the first opium war had decisively gone to britain china had revealed itself to be militarily obsolete and fundamentally weak what some were already calling the sick man of asia such an easy victory only encouraged the british to pressure the chinese further for the eventual goal of securing ports for their exclusive use the 17 battles that followed were as one-sided as those of the first the british would manage to defeat the massive chinese empire for the loss of just 74 men chinese casualties were to be conservatively estimated in the tens of thousands and the ramifications of defeat were to be long and deep foreign secretary lord palmerston began hostilities to obtain compensation for the opium smugglers whose stocks had been burned by commissioner lin in canton the year before opinion in britain was deeply divided concerning the morality of such a war the future prime minister william gladstone denounced the war in the house of commons as unjust and iniquitous adding that palmerston was too willing to protect an infamous centralized traffic there was also outrage in the british and american press but regardless of public opinion the government was determined to press ahead with its punitive campaign against china and protect the drug trade for it saw that as well as keeping the traders happy land could be added to the growing empire neil ferguson notes in his book empire that quote whenever the british were behaving despotically there was almost always a liberal critique of that behavior from within british society unquote this is what set the british empire apart from its european rivals and such criticism was both consistent and loud in britain against the opium war an important point that is often ignored today the 29 british merchant ships that had evacuated canton decided not to follow captain elliot's two warships to macau preferring the shelter of hong kong harbour then a largely uninhabited chinese appendage in early 1840 elliot asked the governor of macau for permission for british ships to load and unload their cargos in the portuguese colony offering to pay rents and duties the governor sensibly refused afraid that the emperor would cut off food supplies and other necessities to the enclave portugal had no desire to be dragged into a war with china on the 14th of january 1840 the emperor asked all foreigners to stop material aid to the british in china the british government and the east india company decided to take fast action by attacking the coast of guangdong province the ultimate target being the capture of its capital city canton in june 1840 an expedition was outfitted in singapore and sailed north for china it consisted of fifteen warships carrying four thousand royal marines and soldiers four brand new steam-powered gunboats and twenty-five smaller craft a portion of this force first struck at chusan now joshan island of zherjang province in the middle of china on the 5th of july in 1793 lord mccartney had asked the chenglong emperor for a small unfortified island near joshan for the residence of english traders storage of goods and outfitting of ships the emperor had frostily refused so now the british decided to take it anyway and by force if necessary four british warships arrived in the anchorage of chusan harbour on the 4th of july the largest vessel was hms wellesley a 1745 ton 74 gun third-rate ship of the line built in 1813. aboard her was the expedition commander captain john fletcher accompanying the wellesley was hms conway a 651 ton sixth rate armed with 20 32 pounders and six 18 caronades referring to the weight of the shells these guns fired and two athol class 28 gun sixth rates the appropriately named hms alligator and rattlesnake negotiations were attempted on the fourth of july when captain fletcher boarded a chinese war junk accompanied by viking joslin secretary to major general lord soltun and a prussian missionary interpreter named karl gotzlaff fletcher delivered a written message from commodore sir james bremer 53 year old naval commander-in-chief and brigadier general george burrell who commanded the landing troops bremer was to figure prominently in the coming war a napoleonic wars veteran bremer had seen extensive service in english canadian mediterranean and east indies waters and had been involved in the colonisation of australia in 1836 bremer had been made a knight commander the royal hanoverian gelfic order and after the original naval commander in china rear admiral sir frederick maitland had died he had succeeded him to the post bremer alternated this position with captain elliot the local chinese governor of the chusan islands admiral chang was requested to surrender immediately quote if the inhabitants of the said islands do not oppose and resist our forces it is not the intention of the british government to do injury to their persons and property unquote the message further stated if you will not surrender we the commodore and commander shall be obliged to use war-like measures for obtaining possession the royal navy's scourge of pirates all over the world was now applying piratical methods with shameless inaccuracy after an hour of largely fruitless discussions admiral chung and some local officials from the capital city ting hai nao ding hai were invited aboard hms wellesley chang and the others told bremer and barrow that they were extremely annoyed with being held responsible for the actions of commissioner lin in canton stating quote those are the people you should make war upon and not upon us who have never injured you we see your strength and know that opposition will be madness but we must perform our duty if we fall in doing so unquote unimpressed bremer gave chang until daybreak on the 5th of july to surrender or military action would follow on the appointed day there was no sign of a chinese surrender indeed lookouts reported over a thousand chinese troops manning prepared positions on the beaches surrounding hills and dinghai city walls located one mile from the sea at 2 pm the briggs hms cruiser and algerine moved into position of chusan island and the scarlet coated landing troops began embarking in cutters the first division consisted of the 18th royal irish regiment royal marines 26th regiment of foot and two nine pounder guns the second division comprised the 49th regiment of foot madras sappers and miners and a unit of bengal volunteers at 2 30 pm the wellesley suddenly opened fire on the chinese beach defenses as the landing boats were road towards the shore the two gun decks blasting out broadsides for seven or eight minutes of concentrated firing the effect on the chinese was devastating after firing a few dissolvery shots in reply the chinese troops simply abandoned their positions and fled back towards the protection of the city walls judging by admiral chang's words spoken aboard the wellesley the day before yet probably given orders for a token defense only for the sake of his honor and his head and wished to save his men's lives at any rate the british troops landed unopposed and discovered an empty beach with abandoned gun pits littered with dead bodies and discarded weapons and equipment the british captured 91 chinese cannon next the british rolled their two 9-pounder naval guns to within 400 yards the dinghai city walls later adding another brace of nine pounders two howitzers and two mortars but bremer told the ad hoc battery to hold fire until the following day the damage that these guns could have done to a crowded city was not lost on the chinese they quietly retired and when a british reconnaissance party approached a city gate they founded barricaded with sandbags though undefended there was no desire among the british to inflict unnecessary casualties on the chinese a company of the 49th regiment captured the gate and hoisted the union jack above it quote the main street was nearly deserted except here and there where the frightened people were performing the cow tau as we passed recalled viking jocelyn on most of the houses was placarded spare our lives and on entering the joss houses or temples were seen men women and children on their knees burning incense to their gods unquote total british casualties amounted to one man wounded on the 7th of july the recently promoted rear admiral elliott aboard hms melville issued a proclamation that stated that the chinese on chusan would continue to be administered under chinese laws with ultimate executive authority invested in the british commander-in-chief eliot appointed brigadier general barrel governor and interpreter gutslov chief magistrate britain now had a safe anchorage of the chinese mainland for the forthcoming campaign to capture canton canton was located some miles up the pearl river the passage well protected by a series of heavily fortified islands as well as a myriad of waterways sandbars and other obstacles to navigation the british were forced to conduct over a dozen operations to capture or destroy in-place chinese forces before they could invest canton as well as striking at other places along the chinese coast one of the most invaluable weapons at the disposal of the british was the steam-driven warship which enabled the royal navy to operate in chinese rivers and to maneuver at will free of the wind the chinese had not seen anything like it before and it was truly a turning point in the history of naval warfare the first of these operations came to be called the battle of the barrier and it occurred on the boundary between portuguese macau and mainland china on the 19th of august 1840. narrow sandy ismus separated macau from the mainland facing the border and defending the eastern side of the isthmus were chinese breastworks that contained about 1500 troops within placed artillery british warships moved into the shoal water on the eastern side of the isthmus the chinese had positioned eight war junks along the western flank of the isthmus to provide covering fire at noon on the 19th of august captain henry smith aboard hms hyacinth prepared to attack alongside the higher synth was hms lan a cutter named louisa and the steamboat hms enterprise the vessels opened fired the chinese positions on shore which promptly returned that fire and the junks attempted to join in quote the junks which were aground in the inner harbour were utterly useless for none of their guns could be brought to bear though several of the 32-pound shots of the ships found their way over the bank much to the consternation of the occupants of the junks recalled lieutenant john bingham once the bombardment had done its work captain smith ordered his landing force into action this consisted of 110 royal marines 90 armed seamen from hms druid and 180 bengal volunteers little fighting was encountered the british suffered only four men wounded between 100 and 180 chinese were killed or injured during this short battle and many cannon captured the british now believe that they had some leverage with which to negotiate concessions from the chinese and perhaps avoid further costly naval operations in october 1840 the daogwang emperor dismissed commissioner lin and replaced him with qishan a 54 year old manchu nobleman and former provincial viceroy lord palmerston instructed elliot to have the ports of canton amoy fujo ningbo and shanghai open to british trade london also instructed eliot to acquire the session of an island off the chinese coast and obtain financial compensation for destroyed opium and attendant naval and military costs elliot initially demanded 7 million chinese dollars in compensation to be paid over six years and the surrender of canton and namoy as permanent british possessions commissioner chi refused offering 5 million over 12 years the two men eventually agreed upon 6 million chinese dollars qi refused however to countenance any territorial concessions as the emperor would not stand for it elliot offered to abandon recently captured chusan island for another port to be decided later again chi refused exasperated eliot warnchi directly quote there are very large forces collected here he said referring to the large numbers of british warships and troops at the mouth of the bokker tigris delays must breed amongst them a very great impatience unquote no settlement could be reached for months as the chinese determined not to permit a permanent british presence in their country rumors circulated among the foreigners that the emperor meant for war finally on the 5th of january 1841 eliot told commodore bremer to prepare for an attack on canton he informed commissioner chi that unless british demands were met a general assault will be launched in two days time when no reply was forthcoming from the chinese eliot gave orders for bremer to begin the assault at 9 00 am on the 7th of january a large force of british and indian troops 504 royal marines 33 royal artillery 104 men from the 26th and 49th foot 76 bengal volunteers 607 of the 37th madras native infantry and 137 sailors landed from the warships wellesley blenheim and melville two miles below the twen p batteries in command ashore was major simpson pratt 26th foot the landing was unopposed by some 2000 chinese defenders accompanying the infantry force was another 30 seamen man handling a 24-pounder howitzer and two six-pounder field guns the british force advanced two miles inland until they came upon a strong chinese defensive position two forts with many dug in cannon surrounded by a protective ditch and breastworks when the british approached the chinese soldiers started cheering and yelling waving flags and then opening fire with their cannon the naval artillery had been established on a nearby hill and the seamen opened fire on the forts the two sides trading shot for perhaps 20 minutes in the meantime bremer ordered his ships to move in and bombard the two chinese forts a squadron consisting of hms queen and nemesis under the command of captain edward belcher poured fire onto the upper fort he would be the first person to survey hong kong harbor in 1841 commanding the second squadron to bombard the lower chinese fort was captain sir thomas herbert a veteran of both the battle of trafalgar in 1805 and the war of 1812 in america herbert's division consisted of hms calliope hyacinth and lan the effect of the naval bombardment was devastating and both chinese faults were silenced in less than an hour by 10 am the upper fort was in british hands while the royal marines stormed the lower fort at the point of the bayonet in anson's bay fifteen chinese war junks under admiral gwen jianpei attempted to disrupt the british operations hms nemesis a 660-ton iron paddle frigate known to the chinese as the devil ship fired a single rocket at one large junk causing a catastrophic explosion that completely demolished the vessel it blew up with a terrific explosion recalled a british witness launching into eternity every soul on board and pouring forth its blaze like the mighty rash of fire from a volcano dismembered bodies rained down along with masses of debris in a short space of time another 10 junks were destroyed by accurate british gunnery the other junks struck their colours by about 11 30 am after witnessing this horrifying spectacle the next phase of the operation was by this stage fully underway commanded by 50 year old napoleonic wars and war of 1812 veteran captain james scott aboard hms samarang scott attacked taikok tao island to the west of twen p island aiming to knock out the forts that were armed with cannon the forts opened fire at 10 20. the samarang maneuvered to a position just 200 yards from the main fort dropped anchor and proceeded to unleash repeated deadly broadsides against the chinese positions the samarang was joined by modest druid and columbine and together they unleashed hell within 10 minutes the british ships had silenced the chinese guns with the exception of one or two and scott ordered cutters containing his landing parties to row for the shore and storm the forts the chinese remained inside the forts surrounded by smashed cannons and equipment and the british marines and blue jacketed sailors fought their way in after taking the forts and a hundred prisoners the chinese guns were spiked and thrown into the river the battle ended with a complete british victory between 500 and 600 chinese had been killed along with two to three hundred wounded the british suffered just 38 men wounded the forts that defended the entrance to the baka tigris had been captured and the way was open for the next phase of the campaign to capture canton tune in next time for part two hurrying the coast you have been listening to the opium wars part 1 foreign mud written and narrated by dr mark felton for a wide variety of military history videos please visit my other youtube channel mark felton productions you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below