Battle of Macao Fort

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Battle of Macao Fort
Part of the Second Opium War
Plan of Boat Action, 4 Jan 1857.jpg
Map of the battle
Date4 January 1857
Location
Coordinates: 23°4′12″N113°15′29″E / 23.07000°N 113.25806°E / 23.07000; 113.25806
Result British victory
Belligerents
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom Flag of China (1862-1889).svg Qing China
Commanders and leaders
Michael Seymour Ye Mingchen
Strength
4 sloops
3 pinnaces
1 gig
1 cutter
70+ junks [1] (many armed with stinkpots)
30+ row boats
Casualties and losses
1 killed [2]
6 wounded [3]
Unknown

The Battle of Macao Fort was fought between British and Chinese forces in the Pearl River, Guangdong, China on 4 January 1857 during the Second Opium War. Macao Fort was located on an islet about 3 miles (4.8 kilometres) south of Canton (Guangzhou).

Pearl River (China) river in China

The Pearl River, also known by its Chinese name Zhujiang and formerly often known as the Canton River, is an extensive river system in southern China. The name "Pearl River" is also often used as a catch-all for the watersheds of the Xi ("West"), Bei ("North"), and Dong ("East") rivers of Guangdong. These rivers are all considered tributaries of the Pearl River because they share a common delta, the Pearl River Delta. Measured from the farthest reaches of the Xi River, the Pearl River system is China's third-longest river, 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi), after the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, and second largest by volume, after the Yangtze. The 409,480-square-kilometre (158,100 sq mi) Pearl River Basin (珠江流域) drains the majority of Liangguang, as well as parts of Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan and Jiangxi in China; it also drains northern parts of Vietnam's Northeast Cao Bằng and Lạng Sơn provinces.

Guangdong Most populous province of the Peoples Republic of China

Guangdong, is a province in South China, on the South China Sea coast. Guangdong surpassed Henan and Shandong to become the most populous province in China in January 2005, registering 79.1 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants who lived in the province for at least six months of the year; the total population was 104,303,132 in the 2010 census, accounting for 7.79 percent of Mainland China's population. This also makes it the most populous first-level administrative subdivision of any country outside of South Asia, as its population is surpassed only by those of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the Indian states of Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are among the most populous and important cities in China. The population increase since the census has been modest, the province registering 108,500,000 people in 2015. Most of the historical Guangdong Province is administered by the People's Republic of China (PRC). However, the archipelagos of Pratas in the South China Sea are controlled by the Republic of China, and were previously part of Guangdong Province before the Chinese Civil War.

Second Opium War war in China from 1857–1860

The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the United Kingdom and the French Empire against the Qing dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860.

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References

  1. Further Papers Relating to the Proceedings of Her Majesty's Naval Forces at Canton . London: Harrison and Sons. 1857. pp. 27–31.
  2. Kennedy, William (1900). Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor: Fifty Years in the Royal Navy . Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons. pp. 66–67.
  3. Allen's Indian Mail . 3 March 1857. 15 (311): 137.

Further reading