of their position--although they stood their ground in a creditable
manner--and chased over the hills down to the rice fields below. The
Chinese loss was over a thousand killed, including many of the Imperial
Guard, of whom 500 were present, and whom Sir Hugh Gough described as
"remarkably fine men," while the English had six killed and thirty-seven
wounded. For the moment it was intended to follow up this victory by an
attack on the city of Hangchow, the famous Kincsay of medieval travelers;
but the arrival of fresh instructions gave a complete turn to the whole
war.
Little permanent good had been effected by these successful operations on
the coast, and Taoukwang was still as resolute as ever in his hostility;
nor is there any reason to suppose that the capture of Hangchow, or any
other of the coast towns, would have caused a material change in the
situation. The credit of initiating the policy which brought the Chinese
government to its knees belongs exclusively to Lord Ellenborough, then
governor-general of India. He detected the futility of operations along
the coast, and he suggested that the great waterway of the Yangtsekiang,
perfectly navigable for warships up to the immediate neighborhood of
Nankin, provided the means of coercing the Chinese, and effecting the
objects which the English Government had in view. 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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