BATTLE OF SINHO. 323 operation. When the manoeuvre of outflanking had been satisfactorily accomplished, the attack was commenced in front. Here the Chinese stood to their position, but only for a brief time, as the fire from eighteen guns, including some 40-pounders, soon silenced their gingals, and they precipitately abandoned their entrenchments. While the engagement in front had reached this favourable termination Sir Robert Napier had been engaged on the right hand with a strong body of Tartar cavalry, which attacked with considerable valour, and with what seemed a possibility of success, until the guns opening upon them and the Sikh cavalry charging, their momentary dream of victory was dispelled. The prize of this battle was the village of Sinho with its line of earthworks, one mile north of the Peiho, and about seven miles in the rear of the Taku forts. The next day was occupied in examining the Chinese position and in discovering, what was more difficult than its capture, how it might be approached. It was found that the village, which formed a fortified square protected by batteries, could be best assailed by the river-bank, for the only obstacle in this quarter was that represented by the fire of the guns of two junks, supported by a battery on the opposite side of the river. These, however, were soon silenced by the superior fire directed upon them, and the guns were spiked by Captain Willis and a few sailors who crossed the river for the purpose. The flank of the advance being thus protected, the attack on Tangku itself began with a cannonade from thirty-six pieces of the best artillery of that age. The Chinese fire was soon rendered innocuous, and their walls * Sir Hope Grant described the march as follows:-"We encountered great difficulty in dragging the artillery along. The horses got bogged, the guns sank up to their axletrees, and the waggons stuck fast. At last we were compelled to leave the waggon bodies behind us, and to content ourselves with the gun and waggon limbers. At one time I really thought we should be obliged to give up the attempt; but Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) was full of energy; the struggle was continued, and sound ground was reached." Mr. Robert Swinhoe, in his account of the North China Campaign, says: "It was a fearful trudge across that mud for the unfortunate troops. . . . The Punjaubees, finding their boots an impediment, preferred throwing them away, and, tucking up their trousers, pushed boldly on." ... and forts were battered down. Even then, however, the garrison gave no signs of retreat, and it was not until the Armstrongs had been dragged to within a very short distance of the walls, and the foot-soldiers had absolutely effected an entrance, that the garrison thought of their personal safety and turned in flight.* Some days before the battle and capture of Tangku, Lord Elgin had received several communications from Hang, the Governor-General of Pechihli, requesting a cessation of hostilities, and announcing the approach of two Imperial Commissioners appointed for the express purpose of ratifying the Treaty of Tientsin. But Lord Elgin very wisely perceived that it would be impossible to negotiate on fair terms unless the Taku forts were in his possession; and with the view of being in a position to discuss affairs with the Chinese at as early a date as possible, he wrote to Sir Hope Grant expressing his wish that there might be no unnecessary delay in reducing those forts, and in thus opening the way to Tientsin. The capture of Tangku placed the allied forces in the rear of the northern forts on the Peiho; and those forts once occupied, the others on the southern side would be practically untenable and obliged to surrender at discretion. Several days were passed in preliminary observations and skirmishing. On the one side the whole of the Tartar cavalry was removed to the southern bank; on the other, * Colonel Fisher gives a very graphic description of the attack on Tangku in his "Narrative of Three Years' Service in China." During the night preceding the attack Colonel Mann and he, with a party of engineers, constructed a trench at 500 paces from the wall-an operation which contributed not a little to the easy success on the following day. The following description of how the Chinese fought at a great disadvantage will be interesting :-"The Tartars really for a time fought nobly. I saw one man, stripped to his loins, fighting his gun singlehanded after every bit of parapet near him had been knocked away and our shot was crashing in all around him. . . . Having seen that one brave man, the survivor of all the gun detachment, working his gun alone, loading and firing among the corpses of his fellows, with no one near to applaud him nor witness his fall, working away, whatever his motive might be, until he fell like his comrades, I could not but picture to myself in all those grim groups of eight or ten perhaps at a gun, how one by one they had fallen and yet the survivors disdained to fly." CAPTURE OF THE FORTS. * 325 a bridge of boats was thrown aross the Peiho, and the approach to the northern fort carefully examined up to 600 yards from the wall. At this point again the views of the allied generals clashed. General Montauban wished to attack the southern forts. Sir Hope Grant was determined to begin by carrying the northern. The result furnished the most expressive commentary on the respective merits of the two plans. The attack on the northern fort commenced on the morning of the 21st of August with a heavy cannonade; the Chinese, anticipating the plans of the English, were the first to fire. The Chinese fought their guns with extraordinary courage. A shell exploded their principal magazine, which blew up with a terrible report; but as soon as the smoke cleared off they recommenced their fire with fresh ardour. Although this fort, like the others, had not been constructed with the same strength in the rear as in the front, the resistance was most vigorous. A premature attempt to throw a pontoon across the ditch was defeated with the loss of sixteen men. The Coolie Corps here came to the front, and, rushing into the water, held up the pontoons while the French and some English troops dashed across. But all their efforts to scale the wall were baffled, and it seemed as if they had only gone to self-destruction. While the battle was thus doubtfully contested, Major Anson, who had shown the greatest intrepidity on several occasions, succeeded in cutting the ropes that held up a draw-bridge, and an entrance was soon effected within the body of the works. The Chinese still resisted nobly, and it was computed that out of a garrison of 500 men but 100 escaped.† There still remained four more forts on the northern side of the river, and it seemed as if these would offer further resistance, as the garrisons uttered threats of defiance to a A division of 2500 English troops was alone engaged. Eleven heavy or siege guns, four batteries, and one rocket battery were employed in the cannonade. The French force consisted of 400 infantry and two field batteries. The English loss was 22 killed and 179, including 21 officers, wounded. Lord Napier of Magdala was hit in five places without being actually wounded. To these figures must be added the French loss. summons to surrender. But appearances were deceptive, and for the good reason that all of these forts were only protected in the rear by a slight wall. The French rushed impetuously to the attack, only to find that the garrison had given up the defence, while a large number had actually retired. Two thousand prisoners were made, and evidently no further resistance would be attempted. The fall of the forts on the northern bank was followed by an immediate summons to those on the southern to surrender; and as they were commanded by the guns in the former, they yielded with as good a grace as they could muster. The following day formal occupation was made, and the spoil included more than 600 cannon of various sizes and degrees of efficiency. On that day also the fleet, which had during these operations been riding at anchor off the mouth of the river, proceeded across the bar, removed the different obstacles that had been intended to hinder its approach, and Admiral Hope anchored in security off those very forts which had repulsed him in the previous year, and which would in all probability have continued to defy any direct attack from the sea. Let it not be said, therefore, that Sir Hope Grant's capture of the Taku forts reflected in any way on the courage or capacity of Admiral Hope for the failure in 1859. If it bore in any way on the earlier event, it went to show that the Chinese were capable of a skilful as well as a valiant defence.† * Mr. Loch, in his "Narrative of Events in China," says: "In the inside there were upwards of two thousand men seated on the ground; they neither moved nor spoke as we approached. They had thrown away their arms and divested themselves of all uniform or distinctive badge that could distinguish them as being soldiers." † It should be stated that after the capture of the northern forts Mr. Parkes, Mr. Loch, Major Anson, and three French officers crossed the river with a flag of truce, carried on the spear of a Sikh trooper, in order to arrange for the giving up of the southern forts. The undertaking was one of extreme danger and difficulty. The mandarins refused to make any sign, and as the small party passed below the walls of the forts they could see the gunners with their lighted matches through the embrasures. They made their way, however, unmolested to Hang's yamen at Taku, where the surrender of the other forts was soon agreed upon as the only way to obtain the cessation of hostilities. For a graphic description of the scene with Viceroy Hang, see Mr. (now Lord) Loch's narrative already mentioned. TIENTSIN OCCUPIED. 327 By this decisive success, which fully justified the foresight of the English general, the road to Tientsin was opened both by land and by the river. The fleet of gun-boats, which had participated as far as they could without incurring any undue danger in the attack on the forts, was ordered up the Peiho; and the English ambassador, escorted by a strong naval and military force, proceeded to Tientsin, where it would be possible, without any loss of dignity, to resume negotiations with the Pekin Government, whose excessive pride made it seem false, but whose weakness had now been rendered painfully apparent. Up to this point the Chinese had never been altogether sincere in their peace overtures. They had not abandoned the hope of victory even when the large foreign army landed at Pehtang. The defeat at Sinho. had somewhat shaken their confidence; but while the forts at the mouth of Peiho remained untaken the situation was not regarded as desperate. Papers found in the general's quarters at Sinho showed that, while Hang was expressing his own and his master's desire for peace, the military officers were requested to lose no occasion of achieving a military success. The one thing that was clear at Pekin was that only victory could save the national honour and avert the necessity of making those further concessions to foreigners which were incompatible with the dignified position claimed by the Emperor. The hope that Heaven might intervene in favour of the Celestial dynasty was never abandoned until Pekin itself had been reached; but after the capture of the Peiho forts it became clear that some terms must for the moment be arranged with the English, if only as a means of gaining time for the arrival of Sankolinsin's last levies from Mongolia. The advanced gun-boats arrived at Tientsin on the 23rd of August, and three days later the greater portion of the expedition had entered that city. No resistance was attempted, although several batteries and entrenched camps were passed on the way. Precautions were at once taken to make the position of the troops as secure as possible in the midst of a very large and presumably hostile population. The people showed, according to the ideas of Europe, an |