From 1851 to 1853, the Chinese City of Shanghai had been occupied by the Small Swords Society, who were nominally allied with the Taiping Rebellion.

[1] In June 1860 a Taiping army of 20,000 led by Lai Wenguang had attacked Shanghai and reoccupied it[citation needed] for five months before withdrawing.

The commander of the Imperial Green Standard Army was Huang Yisheng, under the direction of Shanghai's taotai Wu Xu (吳煦).

[citation needed] On 1 March 1862 the combined troops of Hope and Ward's units routed the Taiping forces near Xiaotang village, just outside of the city.

[4] On the 10th day of the 4th month of the Chinese calendar in 1862, Li Hongzhang was promoted to governor of Jiangsu province, of which Shanghai was a part.

At the same time the mayor of Jinshan commanded 5,000 men of the Green Standard Army to surround and attack the city of Taicang, which was then occupied by Taiping forces.

On the 29th of the month, Major General Chen Bingwen occupied Jiading, whose Qing garrison withdrew to Shanghai proper.

Qing fleet commander Huang Esen counterattacked from the river, gaining some ground, but even after reinforcement by the Ever Victorious Army he was unable to make much progress.

Li Hongzhang arrived to oversee the combat in person, ordering his generals (Cheng, Guo and Liu) to defeat Tan at Jiading and relieve the Imperial units surrounded by the Taiping on the northern coast before it was too late.

The combined forces of the Qing government, the British and the French were victorious, and Taiping permanently abandoned its designs on Shanghai.