The
Treaty of Nanking of 1842 ceded Hong Kong to the British and required the Chinese to pay $21 million for opium they had
seized from British merchants. In 1856 the Chinese boarded a ship flying a British flag, and Admiral Sir Michael Seymour occupied Canton on 23 October, and when reinforcements arrived destroyed the Chinese fleet in March 1857. In January 1858 Canton was again
captured by troops under Major General Sir Charles van Straubanzee. A peace
treaty was to be signed but the Chinese would not allow the British to pass up to Peking to sign it, so in May 1858 the Taku Forts were captured. When British and French ambassadors went to Peking they were fired on from the same Taku Forts, and Admiral James Hope (successor to Seymour) was wounded. A force under Lieutenant General Sir James Hope Grant landed at Peh-Tang on 1 Aug 1860 and recaptured the Taku Forts on 21 August, and entered Peking on 13 October. One of the comparatively junior officers was Charles George Gordon, whose death at Khartoum some years later captured the imagination of the British public.