Battle of Phu Lam Tao The Battle of Phu Lam Tao ( 23 March 1885 ) was a politically significant engagement during the Sino - French War ( August 1884 – April 1885 ) , in which a French Zouave battalion was defeated by a mixed force of Chinese soldiers and Black Flags . Background . The battle took place three weeks after the end of the Siege of Tuyen Quang , in the course of a French reconnaissance of positions occupied by troops of Tang Ching - sung ' s Yunnan Army and Liu Yongfu ' s Black Flag Army . French accounts of the battle are curiously reticent , suggesting that things had gone badly wrong . In the wake of the relief of Tuyen Quang , General Louis Brière de l ' Isle , the general - in - chief of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps , drew up plans for a campaign against the Yunnan Army by a column of 5 , 000 French and Algerian troops , 2 , 000 Tonkinese auxiliaries and 460 mules and horses . The campaign would be launched from the major French base at Hung Hoa . " Chef de bataillon " Simon ' s 1st Battalion , 1st Zouave Regiment , which had only recently arrived in Tonkin , was ordered to make a preliminary reconnaissance of the village of Phu Lam Tao , reported to have been occupied by strong elements of the Yunnan Army . On 23 March 1885 Simon reached Phu Lam Tao and discovered that the village was held by a force of Yunnan regulars and Black Flags ( ' pirates ' , as the French called them ) . Simon ordered his battalion to attack . The battle . What happened next is difficult to establish , as the French sources skate over the engagement in silence or make only the barest of allusions to it . Agence Havas , the official French news agency , announced merely that Simon ' s battalion had made a reconnaissance towards Phu Lam Tao and had suffered several casualties , but there was clearly more to the affair than that . It is certain that the zouave battalion attacked Phu Lam Tao and was repulsed , and very likely that the repulse was ignominious . The fullest account of the action was given by Paul Sainmont , an officer in " chef de bataillon " Mignot ' s battalion of the 2nd Zouave Regiment , which had accompanied Simon ' s battalion to Tonkin : Today the 1st Battalion , 1st Zouave Regiment was at grips with the soldiers of Luu Vinh Phuc in the Thanh May district near the village of Bang Huyen . The pirates arrived there in bands chased from Lang Son by de Négrier and from Tuyen Quang by Brière de l ' Isle , to concentrate on this point . Our comrades fought furiously all the evening of 23 March , and after nightfall the garrison of Hung Hoa , which was watching this spectacle from the top of the citadel , saw the glare from the flames which were devouring two or three neighbouring villages , and could guess that action had been joined on a fairly wide front . The zouaves did not lack energy or bravery , but night came on and the enemy was now in too great numbers . They were forced to regain their cantonments on the left bank of the Red River , in good order , having vainly made several furious assaults on the fortified pagoda of Bang Huyen under an extremely murderous fire . According to Lieutenant - Colonel Bonifacy , who discussed the battle years later with officers who had been present , the troops fell back in disorder , throwing away their haversacks and rifles . Bonifacy commented that the zouaves , fresh from Algeria , should not have been given such a mission until they had acclimatised themselves to conditions of war in Tonkin . The Chinese sources claim that the Yunnan Army and the Black Flags won a clear victory at Phu Lam Tao . According to the Yunnan Army ' s official report , its forces at Phu Lam Tao were attacked by the French on 23 March , the attack was defeated , and the French abandoned their dead on the battlefield and retreated in panic into the jungle . The report added that the French retired from the area on 24 March , abandoning 400 uniforms and quantities of weapons and maps . Casualties . The casualties suffered by the French in this action are disputed . According to Lecomte , who dismissed the affair as an unimportant skirmish , Simon ' s battalion suffered ' around a dozen ' casualties . According to Sainmont , French casualties were around 40 to 50 dead and wounded . According to Nimier , French casualties were 6 dead and 29 wounded . Nimier ' s figures are probably correct , and were accepted several decades later by Thomazi , the historian of the French conquest of Indochina . Significance . The significance of the engagement at Phu Lam Tao was that it took place one day before General François de Négrier ' s heavy defeat on 24 March 1885 at the Battle of Bang Bo by the Guangxi Army . The coincidence led Brière de l ' Isle to conclude , wrongly , that the French were facing a concerted offensive by both Chinese armies . This conclusion helped to set the pessimistic tone of his notorious ' Lang Son telegram ' of 28 March 1885 , despatched in the wake of Lieutenant - Colonel Paul - Gustave Herbinger ' s Retreat from Lang Son , which toppled the government of Jules Ferry in the Tonkin Affair and brought the Sino - French War to a speedy end in circumstances of considerable embarrassment for France . The Thanh May district remained in the hands of Vietnamese bandit concentrations until October 1885 , when General Roussel de Courcy , who succeeded Brière de l ' Isle in command of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps in May 1885 , mounted a large - scale attack on their positions with 5 , 000 French troops , driving the bandits back up the Red River to Thanh Quan .