Battle of Shanghai (1861)
| Battle of Shanghai (1861) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Taiping Rebellion | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Qing Dynasty French Empire United Kingdom United States
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Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Li Hongzhang Cheng Xueqi Huang Yisheng (黃翼昇) Pan Dingxin (潘鼎新) Guo Songlin (郭松林) Liu Mingchuan Auguste Léopold Protet † James Hope Frederick Townsend Ward Edward Forrester
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Li Xiucheng Tan Shaoguang Li Rongfa Ji Qingyuan (吉慶元) Chen Kunshu Chen Bingwen (陳炳文) Gao Yongkuan (郜永寬) |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 40,000 Green Standard Army 20,000 Huai Army 3,000 Ever Victorious Army 4,000 3,000 |
120,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 10,000 deaths | 25,000 deaths | ||||||||
The Battle of Shanghai (太平軍二攻上海) was a major engagement of the Taiping Rebellion that occurred from June 1861 to July 1862. British and French troops used modern artillery on a large scale for the first time in China. Cannon fire inflicted heavy casualties on the Taiping forces, whose commander Li Xiucheng was wounded in the left leg by a shot fired from a cannon.
Shanghai had been occupied by the initial wave of the Taiping Rebellion in 1851 but was recovered by the Qing in February 1853.
In June 1860 a Taiping army of 20,000 led by Lai Wenguang had attacked Shanghai and reoccupied it for five months before withdrawing. In early 1861 Li Xiucheng was in control of Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, commanding over 600,000 Taiping troops. He aimed to capture the large but isolated city, one of the most important cities under the Qing government and home to an international port. At Li Xiucheng's request the UK and France had promised to maintain neutrality.
By 11 June 1861 the Taiping Army was able to muster five armies, commanded by Tan Shaoguang, Li Rongfa, Ji Qingyuan, Chen Kunshu, and Chen Bingwen, organized under two fronts, and other units.
The commander of the Imperial Green Standard Army was Huang Yisheng, under the direction of Shanghai's taotai Wu Xu (吳煦). The Huai Army militia were led by Li Hongzhang.
Taiping's Lt. Gen. Li Rongfa began the battle with an invasion of Pudong by 20,000 men, transported in thousands of boats. Upon his occupation of the whole district the city requested help from the British and French. In October (according to the Chinese calendar), the American Frederick Townsend Ward brought 2,000 Filipino and Chinese soldiers, whom he had trained, against the Taiping forces.
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