It was decided on receipt of this extraordinary document, early in April, to commence operations at once. Towards the end of May all preparations for the campaign in the north were completed, and by the end of July the combined French and British fleets of warships and transports stood off the mouth of the Peiho river, and the troops were able to discern in the distance the boasted Taku Forts, at which a British admiral had been previously repulsed, and which it was their immediate objective to take by assault.
The forts were situated two on each bank of the Peiho, several miles distant from the mouth, the strongest being the larger one. They were built on the extremity of the firm ground, in front of them being a great expanse of deep and sticky mud, to land on which and to storm the forts would have been an impossibility. It was therefore decided to land at Pehtang, a town and forts standing on the river of that name to the north of the Peiho, and advance from this direction to the assault of the Taku forts.
It was rumoured throughout the fleet that the Emperor of China had sent a message to General Grant, informing him that a picket of 40,000 Tartars was lying in wait at Pehtang forts, “with a force of 200,000 under the commander-in-chief, Sang-ko-lin-sin, between that and Tientsin.” He therefore recommended the General to go away, if he valued the lives of himself and his people.
The disembarkation of the troops at about 2000 yards from the Pehtang forts, on the afternoon of the 1st August, was accomplished.
During the night an officer penetrated into the town, and discovered it had been abandoned by the Chinese soldiers, and that most of the guns in the town were only wooden dummies.
At length, on the 12th August, the general advance commenced, ten thousand British and five thousand French participating. The first British division, with the French, moved along the causeway, to attack the Chinese entrenched position at Sinho, while the 2nd Division and the cavalry diverged to the right, to cut off the retreat of the enemy. The march of these latter troops was laborious in the extreme, the mud being knee-deep, but, after four miles, harder ground was reached, and the troops found themselves faced by an extended line of Tartar cavalry.
Our new Armstrong guns, then for the first time tested in actual warfare, began to create great havoc among the enemy, whose wretched gingals and small field guns were absolutely ineffective at the long range. For a time, however, the Tartars bore this destructive fire well, and finally succeeded in effecting a well-directed charge in spite of it. Our cavalry, however, speedily put them to the rout, and the exhausted state of our horses alone prevented a lengthy pursuit and a heavier loss to the enemy.
Meanwhile, on the causeway, the 1st Division was engaged in bombarding the enemy’s entrenched position, and after twenty-five minutes the latter found their position untenable. Here, as elsewhere, our cavalry were too exhausted to pursue, and the field guns were hurried forward to pour their deadly volleys into the masses of retreating Tartars.
By the afternoon the battle of Sinho was virtually over, though individual skirmishes still took place. Our loss was only two killed and some dozen wounded, and the French casualty list was equally light. The loss of the enemy, however, was very heavy, the plain being dotted with Tartar corpses for a long distance, while dead bodies in heaps lay within the enemy’s entrenchments. Considering, however, that the allied troops outnumbered the enemy by two to one, it must be admitted, with General Napier, that the enemy “had behaved with courageous endurance.”
At the conclusion of the engagement at Sinho, it was discovered by the allied commanders that the force there encountered was but a strong outpost, the main body of the enemy being located behind entrenchments at Tang-ku, some three miles further along the causeway.