Qualla: Taku Forts

Taku Forts: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tippecanoe8, Public domain. The youngest person ever to receive the Victoria Cross earned it here. Andrew Fitzgibbon was 15 years and 3 months old when he served as a hospital apprentice during the 1860 assault on the Taku Forts, the fortifications at the mouth of the Hai River that guarded the maritime approach to Beijing. Between 1858 and 1900, these forts were attacked four separate times by foreign powers. Each assault left them more damaged, each reconstruction more desperate. Today, two of the original six major forts survive, sitting incongruously far from the modern shoreline because decades of land reclamation have pushed the coast outward. But the guns in the reconstructed embrasures still point toward the sea.

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Image: Tippecanoe8 | Public domain

Taku Forts: Built Against Pirates, Tested by Empires

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amazingloong, CC BY-SA 4.0. The first fort at Dagukou was built between 1522 and 1527, during the reign of the Ming Jiajing Emperor, by the military governor Qi Jiguang. Its purpose was straightforward: defend Tianjin from wokou sea raiders. For three centuries, that was enough. Then the West arrived. In 18...

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Image: Amazingloong | CC BY-SA 4.0

Taku Forts: Four Battles in Forty Years

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Lycoo assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The forts were first attacked in May 1858, when Anglo-French gunboats under Admiral Michael Seymour overwhelmed the defenses during the Second Opium War. The Treaties of Tianjin followed, opening the city to foreign trade. In 1859, China refused to allow foreign legations in Beij...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Lycoo assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Taku Forts: The Boxer Rebellion's Turning Point

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rock com cn, CC BY-SA 3.0. The final and most consequential battle came in June 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion. The Eight-Nation Alliance demanded the forts' surrender by 2 a.m. on June 17. When the deadline passed, 900 allied sailors and soldiers assaulted the fortifications in an overnight battle that ...

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Image: Rock com cn | CC BY-SA 3.0

Taku Forts: What Remains

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit KangTyngrwey, CC BY 4.0. Two forts survive. The southern Wei fort was repaired in 1988 and opened to the public in June 1997. Land reclamation has left it far from the current shoreline, marooned in a landscape that would be unrecognizable to the soldiers who defended it. The restoration is modest: canno...

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Image: KangTyngrwey | CC BY 4.0