Battle of Fuzhou - Losses

Losses

The losses of the French squadron in the course of the operations before Fuzhou and in the Min River were relatively light (10 dead and 48 wounded). Most of these casualties were inflicted not by shellfire during the engagement of 23 August but by sniper fire from Chinese infantry during the squadron's descent of the Min River. The French dead included lieutenant de vaisseau Bouët-Willaumez, second-in-command of the gunboat Vipère and son of the noted French admiral Louis-Édouard Bouët-Willaumez (1809–71), who was shot dead on Vipère's bridge during an exchange of fire with the defenders of Fort Kimpai on 27 August. With the exception of La Galissonnière and Torpedo Boat No. 46, none of Courbet's vessels suffered serious damage.

The Chinese lost nine of the eleven ships of the Fujian Fleet. Some of the Chinese ships foundered where they were struck, sinking off the Pagoda anchorage and the Foochow Navy Yard. Others drifted downriver and either ran aground or sank between Losing Island and the Min'an pass. French officers aboard Châteaurenault, anchored near the entrance to the Min River, saw three Chinese warships drifting downriver on the evening of 23 August, abandoned by their crews and blazing from stem to stern. One of the Chinese ships exploded in front of their eyes.

Courbet estimated Chinese casualties at between 2,000 and 3,000 dead. The commemorative tablets in a shrine erected shortly after the war at the Pagoda Anchorage to honour the Chinese dead list the names of 831 sailors and soldiers killed on 23 August, but this list does not include the hundreds of Chinese soldiers killed by the French during their descent of the Min River.

The Chinese imperial commissioner Zhang Peilun, who made no serious attempt to coordinate the resistance of the Fujian fleet, was degraded after the battle and replaced by the veteran general Zuo Zongtang (左宗棠). He Jing (何璟), the governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang, Zhang Zhaotong (張兆棟), the governor of Fujian, and He Ruzhang (何如璋), the director-general of the Foochow Navy Yard, were also degraded. The Manchu General of Fuzhou Mutušan (穆圖善), who had directed the defence of the Jinpai pass on 27 and 28 August with skill and energy, kept his job.

The Cantonese naval officer Zhang Cheng (張成), a graduate of the Foochow naval college and captain of the Chinese flagship Yangwu, abandoned ship as soon as the battle started and was later beheaded for cowardice.