On 11 February Courbet's task force met the cruisers Kaiji (開濟), Nanchen (南琛) and Nanrui (南瑞), three of the most modern ships in the Chinese fleet, near Shipu Bay, accompanied by the frigate Yuyuen (馭遠) and the composite sloop Chengqing (澄慶).

On 28 February he arrived off Zhenhai Bay, en route for Shanghai, with the ironclads Bayard and Triomphante, the unprotected cruiser Nielly and the troopship Saône.

[2] Early in the afternoon of 1 March, Courbet conducted closer reconnaissance from the Nielly, triggering vigorous fire from Chinese shore batteries and nearby warships.

Even if the French warships succeeded in suppressing the Chinese defences and forcing the barrage, the enemy cruisers might still elude them by heading upriver towards Ningbo.

On the night of 2 March, as the French squadron lay at anchor, a searchlight suddenly swept the Chinese barrage, several flares soared into the air, and the sound of cannon and rifle fire came from within the bay.

One or two of the more professionally minded French officers complained at the prodigious waste of ammunition sanctioned by the enemy generals, but most enjoyed the nocturnal display of flashes and detonations above Zhenhai Bay as a welcome respite from the tedium of blockade service.

Although Courbet had not gone in after them, locating and trapping the Chinese warships ranked as a strategic success comparable to the destruction of Yuyuan and Chengqing a fortnight earlier.

Courbet’s decision not to force the defences of Zhenhai Bay allowed the Chinese to claim the brief engagement on 1 March as a striking defensive victory.

According to Ouyang's account, the defence of the town was in the hands of the Chinese military mandarins Xue Fucheng (薛福成), Liu Bingzhang and himself.

L. C. Arlington, an American naval officer serving as a 'foreign adviser' with the Nanyang Fleet at Zhenhai, provides testimony that sheds light on Ouyang Lijian's patriotic account.

A shot from Admiral Courbet's flagship, the ironclad Nielly (incorrectly identified as her sister ship Atalante by Arlington), hit the artillery battery that had opened fire, killing 26 Chinese soldiers and wounding 30 more.

On 11 June 1885 Admiral Courbet died of dysentery aboard his flagship Bayard in Makung harbour, where most of the Far East Squadron had been stationed since the end of the Pescadores Campaign in late March 1885.

Shortly after the end of the war, the British consul at Ningbo told Rieunier that Courbet’s arrival had created such alarm that the Chinese ship captains were ready to surrender if the French made a serious attack on the defences of Zhenhai.