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Updated: May 25, 2025
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 small garrison was left in an encampment on a height commanding the entrance to the Canal; but there was little reason to apprehend any fresh attack, as the lesson of Chinkiangfoo had been a terrible one.
The Chinese, or rather the Tartars, never fought better, and it appears from a document discovered afterward that if Hailing's recommendations had been followed, and if he had been properly supported, the capture of Chinkiangfoo would have been even more difficult and costly than it proved.
They abandoned Hankow, and confined their occupation of the river banks to the part between Kiukiang and Nanking; but they determined to secure the Grand Canal, which enters the river east of the city. On 1st April 1853 they occupied Chinkiangfoo, on the southern side of the river, and they held it, but although they also captured Yangchow on the northern bank, they evacuated it in a few days.
Contrary winds delayed the progress of the English fleet, and it was not until the fifth of August, more than a fortnight after the battle at Chinkiangfoo, that it appeared off Nankin, the second city in reputation and historical importance of the empire, with one million inhabitants and a garrison of 15,000 men, of whom two-thirds were Manchus.
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.
To attain this object in a still more perfect manner they occupied Chinkiangfoo at the entrance to the Grand Canal. They also seized Yangchow on the northern bank of the river immediately opposite the place where Sir Hugh Gough had gained his decisive victory in 1842.
Some delay at Chinkiangfoo was rendered necessary by the exhaustion of the troops and by the number of sick and wounded; but a week after the capture of that place in the manner described the arrangements for the further advance on Nankin were completed.
Despite the greatest precautions of the English authorities, Chinkiangfoo became the source of pestilence, and an outbreak of cholera caused more serious loss in the English camp than befell the main force intrusted with the capture of Nankin.
To them the opulent cities of the Chinese had proved as fatal as Capua to the army of the Carthaginian, and, as the self-immolations of Chapoo and Chinkiangfoo proved to have no successors, they showed themselves unworthy of the empire won by their ancestors.
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