Fujian Fleet
During the spring of 1884 the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps, under the command of General Charles-Théodore Millot, routed China's Guangxi Army in the Bắc Ninh campaign (February 1884) and completed the French conquest of the Red River Delta by capturing Hưng Hóa (March 1884), Thái Nguyên (May 1884) and Tuyên Quang (June 1884). Hopes of an early peace with China were shattered on 23 June 1884, however, by the Bắc Lệ ambush, in which a French column advancing to occupy Lạng Sơn was attacked near Bắc Lệ by a detachment of the Guangxi Army. On 23 August 1884, following the breakdown of negotiations to resolve the crisis between France and China, Admiral Amédée Courbet destroyed China's Fujian Fleet at the Battle of Fuzhou, inaugurating the nine-month Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). To avenge the defeat at Fuzhou, the Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the commanders of the Guangxi and Yunnan armies to advance into Tonkin, defeat the outnumbered French forces there, recapture Bắc Ninh and occupy Hanoi.