Taku Forts
| Taku Forts | |||||||||
View looking north from the gun platform.
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| Simplified Chinese | 大沽炮台 | ||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 大沽砲台 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | Dagu batteries | ||||||||
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| Peiho Forts | |||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 白河碉堡 | ||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 白河碉堡 | ||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Dàgū Pàotái |
| Wade–Giles | Ta Ku P'aoT'ai |
| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Báihé Diāobǎo |
The Taku Forts or Dagu Forts, also called the Peiho Forts are forts located by the Hai River (Peiho River) estuary, in Tanggu District, Tianjin municipality, in northeastern China. They are located 60 kilometres (37 mi) southeast of the Tianjin urban center.
The first fort was built during the reign of the Ming Jiajing Emperor between 1522 and 1527. Its purpose was to protect Tianjin from attack by wokou sea raiders.
Later, in 1816, the Qing government built the first two forts on both sides of the Haihe estuary in response to increased concerns about seaborne threats from the West. By 1841, in response to the First Opium War, the defensive system in Dagukou was reinforced into a system of five big forts, 13 earthen batteries, and 13 earthworks. In 1851, Imperial Commissioner Sengge Rinchen carried out a comprehensive renovation of the forts, building 6 large forts: two on the south of the estuary, called "Wēi" (威-Might) and "Zhèn"(震-Thunder, Tremor, Quake), three to the north, "Hǎi"(海-sea), "Mén"(门-gate) "Gāo" (高-high), and the sixth, the "Shitoufeng" (石头缝-Stone Seam) Fort, was built on a small ridge on the northern shore. Each fort had three large guns and 20 small caliber guns. Forts were constructed of wood and brick with an external curtain of two feet of concrete, the layering designed to avoid spalling and minimize penetration by artillery rounds. The forts were around 10 to 15 metres (33 to 49 ft) high, which located as they were in an exceedingly flat landscape, provided a critical vantage point.
In 1856, Chinese soldiers boarded The Arrow, a Chinese-owned ship registered in Hong Kong flying the British flag and suspected of piracy, smuggling and of being engaged in the opium trade. They captured 12 men and imprisoned them. Though the certificate allowing the ship to fly a British flag had expired, there was still an armed response. The British and French sent gunboats under the command of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour to capture the Taku Forts in May 1858. In June 1858, at the end of the first part of the Second Opium War, the Treaties of Tianjin were signed, which opened Tianjin to foreign trade.
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