The English Expedition, Strongly Re-Enforced From India, Then Abandoned Ningpo And Chinhai, And, Proceeding North, Began The Final Operations Of The War With An Attack On Chapoo, Where The Chinese Had Made Extensive Measures Of Defense.

Chapoo was the port appointed for trade with Japan, and the Chinese had collected there a very considerable force from the levies of Chekiang, which ex- Commissioner Lin had been largely instrumental in raising.

Sir Hugh Gough attacked Chapoo with 2,000 men, and the main body of the Chinese was routed without much difficulty, but 300 desperate men shut themselves up in a walled inclosure, and made an obstinate resistance. They held out until three-fourths of them were slain, when the survivors, seventy-five wounded men, accepted the quarter offered them from the first. The English lost ten killed and fifty-five wounded, and the Chinese more than a thousand. After this the expedition proceeded northward for the Great River, and it was found necessary to attack Woosung, the port of Shanghai, en route. This place was also strongly fortified with as many as 175 guns in position, but the chief difficulty in attacking it lay in that of approach, as the channel had first to be sounded, and then the sailing ships towed into position by the steamers. Twelve vessels were in this manner placed broadside to the batteries on land, a position which obviously they could not have maintained against a force of anything like equal strength; but they succeeded in silencing the Chinese batteries with comparatively little loss, and then the English army was landed without opposition. Shanghai is situated sixteen miles up the Woosung River, and while part of the force proceeded up the river another marched overland. Both columns arrived together, and the disheartened Chinese evacuated Shanghai after firing one or two random shots. No attempt was made to retain Shanghai, and the expedition re-embarked, and proceeded to attack Chankiang or Chinkiangfoo, a town on the southern bank of the Yangtsekiang, and at the northern entrance of the southern branch of the Great Canal. This town has always been a place of great celebrity, both strategically and commercially, for not merely does it hold a very strong position with regard to the Canal, but it forms, with the Golden and Silver Islands, the principal barrier in the path of those attempting to reach Nankin. At this point Sir Hugh Gough was re-enforced by the 98th Regiment, under Colonel Colin Campbell. The difficulties of navigation and the size of the fleet, which now reached seventy vessels, caused a delay in the operations, and it was not until the latter end of July, or more than a month after the occupation of Shanghai, that the English reached Chinkiangfoo, where, strangely enough, there seemed to be no military preparations whatever. A careful reconnaissance revealed the presence of three strong encampments at some distance from the town, and the first operation was to carry them, and to prevent their garrisons joining such forces as might still remain in the city.

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