imperial palace pekin looking north 1860 Second Opium War French expeditionary forces
In 1860, during the Second Opium War, British and French expeditionary forces, having marched inland from the coast, reached Beijing (then known as Peking). On the night of October 6 French units diverted from the main attack force towards the Old Summer Palace. Although the French commander Montauban assured the British commander Grant that "nothing had been touched", extensive looting, also by British and Chinese, took place. The Old Summer Palace was then occupied only by a few eunuchs, the Emperor Xianfeng having fled. There was no significant resistance to the looting from the Chinese, even though many Imperial soldiers were in the surrounding country. On October 18, 1860, the British High Commissioner to China Lord Elgin, ordered the destruction of the palace as a way to punish the Emperor Xianfeng without harming the general population or destroying Beijing itself for the torture, and execution of almost twenty European and Indian prisoners, including two British envoys and a journalist for The Times. The envoys, Henry Loch and Harry Parkes, had gone ahead of the main force under a flag of truce to negotiate with the Prince I at Tungchow. After a day of talks, they and their small escort of British and Indian troopers were suddenly surrounded and taken prisoner. They were taken to the Board of Punishments in Beijing where they were confined and tortured. Parkes and Loch were returned after two weeks, with fourteen other survivors. Twenty British, French and Indian captives died. Their bodies were barely recognisable. The treatment of their people caused revulsion among the European army. Destroying the Forbidden City was also thought to be a way of discouraging the Chinese from using kidnapping as a bargaining tool and to exact revenge for the mistreatment of the prisoners.
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