Treaty of Tientsin
Resistance continued growing while the French in Tonkin were distracted by the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). Matters came to a head in June 1885, when France and China signed the Treaty of Tientsin, in which China implicitly renounced its historic claims to suzerainty over Vietnam. Now freed from external distractions, the French government was determined to gain direct rule over Vietnam. Their agent of choice was General Count Roussel de Courcy.