Taku Forts
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.
Built Against Pirates, Tested by Empires
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 1816, the Qing government built the first paired forts on both sides of the Hai River estuary to counter seaborne threats from European powers. By 1841, responding to the First Opium War, the defensive system had expanded to five large forts, 13 earthen batteries, and 13 earthworks. In 1851, Imperial Commissioner Sengge Rinchen undertook a comprehensive renovation, constructing six major forts: Wei and Zhen on the south bank, Hai, Men, and Gao on the north, and the Shitoufeng Fort on a small northern ridge. Each mounted three large guns and 20 smaller cannon. The walls were wood and brick with two feet of concrete curtain, layered to resist spalling from artillery fire.
Four Battles in Forty Years
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 Beijing, and a British fleet under Admiral James Hope attacked the forts again. This time, the Chinese fought harder. The American Commodore Josiah Tattnall, though officially neutral, came to the aid of the battered British, sending men to help work the guns. His famous dispatch to Washington introduced a phrase into the English language: 'Blood is thicker than water.' In 1860, a third Anglo-French assault succeeded, and it was during this battle that young Andrew Fitzgibbon earned his Victoria Cross. The forts were severely damaged, and Sengge Rinchen's troops withdrew. The allied force marched on to capture Beijing itself.
The Boxer Rebellion's Turning Point
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 saw magazine explosions, hand-to-hand fighting, and rivers of blood. The fall of the forts pushed the Qing government decisively to the side of the Boxers, triggering the Siege of the Legations in Beijing. In the aftermath, most of the forts were dismantled. The defensive system that had been expanded and rebuilt over four centuries was largely erased.
What Remains
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: cannons placed in reconstructed embrasures suggest its former purpose, and an exhibition in Chinese recounts the history of the Opium Wars and the forts' role in them. The northern Hai fort also remains, visible from Haifang Road. In 1988, the Dagukou Forts were added to the national list of Priority Protected Sites. They stand now as monuments to a pattern that repeated across China in the nineteenth century: fortifications built, attacked, rebuilt, attacked again, each cycle leaving the defenders weaker and the foreign powers more deeply embedded in Chinese soil.
From the Air
The Taku Forts are located at approximately 38.98N, 117.71E at the Hai River estuary in the Binhai New Area, 60 km southeast of Tianjin's urban center. The surviving forts sit on both banks of the river, with the southern Wei fort now some distance from the modern shoreline due to land reclamation. Tianjin Binhai International Airport (ZBTJ) is approximately 30 km to the northwest. The flat coastal terrain makes the fortification mounds visible from low altitude.