Tonkin Flotilla

The Tonkin Flotilla (French: flottille de Tonkin) of 1883 was a flotilla of French Imperial gunboats and despatch vessels used to enforce French Colonial rule on the waterways of Tonkin (modern-day northern Vietnam). It was organized during an episode of the French Conquest of Vietnam known as the Tonkin campaign (1883–1886), in which the French were to fight against—variously—the Vietnamese, Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army and the Chinese Guangxi and Yunnan armies with the objective of occupying Tonkin and entrenching a French protectorate there.