Qing officials boarded the Arrow in Canton (Guangzhou), arresting crew members and disputing the ship’s British registration—an incident Britain used as a casus belli in what became the Second Opium War.
Britain escalated the dispute by attacking Canton (Guangzhou), turning the diplomatic confrontation into open fighting and setting the stage for a wider Anglo-French campaign.
British naval forces seized the French Folly Fort near Canton (Guangzhou), part of early riverine operations to pressure Qing authorities in Guangdong after hostilities began.
British forces took key fortifications guarding approaches to the Pearl River at the Humen (Bogue) strait, strengthening their operational position against Canton (Guangzhou).
British and French forces captured Canton (Guangzhou) and detained the Qing official Ye Mingchen, a major escalation that enabled the allies to shift operations northward toward Tianjin and Beijing.
Anglo-French forces captured the Taku (Dagu) Forts guarding the Hai River approach toward Tianjin and Beijing, creating the leverage that led to peace negotiations in 1858.
Qing representatives signed the Treaties of Tianjin (Tientsin) with Britain and France (and parallel agreements with other powers). The treaties expanded treaty-port access and granted new rights to foreign diplomats, trade, travel, and missionaries—though Qing ratification became a further point of conflict.
An Anglo-French attempt to proceed up the Hai River to implement treaty provisions failed when Qing defenses held at the Taku Forts, helping precipitate the renewed 1860 expedition.
During the renewed Anglo-French expedition, the allies captured the Taku Forts after a sustained operation, reopening the route toward Tianjin and ultimately Beijing to enforce the 1858 treaties.
Anglo-French forces defeated Qing troops near Tongzhou at Zhangjiawan, part of the allied advance toward the capital after securing the Hai River corridor.
A decisive Franco-British victory at the bridge of Palikao (Baliqiao) broke major Qing resistance on the approaches to Beijing, enabling allied forces to move on the capital and compel settlement.
British troops looted and then burned the Yuanmingyuan (Old Summer Palace), an act intended as coercive retaliation that became one of the war’s most enduring symbols of imperial violence and cultural loss.
Qing Prince Gong signed the Anglo–Chinese Convention of Peking, which confirmed and implemented key provisions associated with the 1858 settlement and concluded major fighting between Britain and the Qing court.
A day after the British agreement, a parallel Franco–Chinese Convention of Peking was signed, finalizing France’s settlement terms and ending the Franco-Qing phase of the conflict.
The Russo–Chinese Convention of Peking finalized a separate agreement between Qing China and Russia, part of the broader 1860 settlement reshaping Qing foreign relations after the allied occupation of Beijing.
Second Opium War and the Treaties of Tianjin and Peking (1856–1860)
