306 cannon. By the time the British fleet was ready for action, 10000 Qing soldiers were in position to defend Canton and the surrounding area. The British fleet arrived in early January, and began to bombard the Qing defenses at Chuenpi after a group of Chinese fire-rafts were sent drifting towards the Royal navy ships.
On 7 January 1841 the British won a decisive victory in the Second Battle of Chuenpi, destroying 11 Junks of the Chinese southern fleet and capturing the Humen forts. The victory allowed the British to set up a blockade of The Bogue, a blow that forced the Qing navy to retreat upriver.
Knowing the strategic value of Pearl River Delta to China and aware that British naval superiority made a reconquest of the region unlikely, Qishan attempted to prevent the war from widening further by negotiating a peace treaty with Britain. On 21 January Qishan and Elliot drafted the Convention of Chuenpi, a document which both parties hoped would end the war. The convention would establish equal diplomatic rights between Britain and China, exchange Hong Kong Island for Chusan, facilitate the release of shipwrecked and kidnapped British citizens held by the Chinese, and reopen trade in Canton by 1 February 1841. China would also pay six million silver dollars as recompense for the opium destroyed at Humen in 1838. However, the legal status of the opium trade was not resolved and instead left open to be discussed at a future date. Despite the success of the negotiations between Qishan and Elliot, both of their respective governments refused to sign the convention. The Daoguang Emperor was infuriated that Qing territory would be given up in a treaty that had been signed without his permission, and ordered Qishan arrested (he was later sentenced to death; the sentence was then commuted to military service.) Lord Palmerston recalled Elliot from his post and refused to sign the convention, wanting more concessions to be forced from the Chinese per his original instructions.
The brief interlude in the fighting ended in the beginning of February after the Chinese refused to reopen Canton to British trade. On 19 February a longboat from HMS Nemesis came under fire from a fort on North Wangtong Island, prompting a British response. The British commanders ordered another blockade of the Pearl River and resumed combat operations against the Chinese. The British captured the remaining Bogue forts on 26 February during the Battle of the Bogue and the Battle of First Bar on the following day, allowing the fleet to move further upriver towards Canton. Admiral Tianpei was killed in action during the fighting on 26 February. On 2 March the British destroyed a Qing fort near Pazhou and captured Whampoa, an action that directly threatened Canton's east flank. Major General Gough, who had recently arrived from Madras aboard HMS Cruizer, personally directed the attack on Whampoa. Superintendent Elliot (who was unaware that he had been dismissed), and the Governor-General of Canton declared a 3-day truce on 3 March. Between the 3rd and the 6th the British forces that had evacuated Chusan per the Convention of Chuenpi arrived in the Pearl River. The Chinese military was likewise reinforced, and by 16 March General Yang Fang commanded 30,000 men in the area surrounding Canton.
While the main British fleet prepared to sail up the Pearl River to Canton, a group of three warships departed for the Xi River estuary, intending to navigate the waterway between Macau and Canton. The fleet, led by Captain James Scott and Superintendent Elliot, was composed of the frigate HMS Samarang and the steamships HMS Nemesis and HMS Atalanta. Although the waterway was in places only 6 feet deep, the shallow drafts of the steamships allowed the British to approach Canton from a direction the Qing believed to be impossible. In a series of engagements along the river from March 13–15, the British captured or destroyed Chinese ships, guns, and military equipment. 9 junks, 6 fortresses, and 105 guns were destroyed or captured in what was known as the Broadway expeditio