here by permission and flourished, but their rapacity led to their expulsion in 1545. After the Portuguese obtaining a trade mission in Ningbo using coercion and bribe, in retaliation, the Ming forces in 1545 exterminated the entire Portuguese community of Ningbo in the Ningbo Massacre (1542). A force of 60,000 Chinese troops descended on the community, 800 of the 1,200 Portuguese residents were massacred, and 25 Portuguese vessels and 42 junks were destroyed.
Qing dynasty
Ningbo was one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing (signed in 1842) at the end of the First Opium War between Britain and China. During the war, British forces took possession of the walled city of Ningbo briefly after storming the fortified town of Zhenhai at the mouth of the Yong River on October 10, 1841. The British repulsed a Chinese attempt to retake the city in the Battle of Ningpo on March 10, 1842. In 1864, the forces of the Taiping Rebellion held the town for six months. In March 1885, during the Sino-French War, Admiral Courbet's naval squadron blockaded several Chinese warships in Zhenhai Bay and exchanged fire with the shore defences. Ningbo was also once famed for traditional Chinese furniture production.
During the Qing dynasty, western encyclopedias described Ningbo as a center of craftsmanship and industry.
During the late Qing dynasty, in the 1800s, the Ningbo authorities contracted Cantonese pirates to exterminate and massacre Portuguese pirates who raided Cantonese shipping around Ningbo. The massacre was "successful", with 40 Portuguese dead and only 2 Chinese dead, being dubbed "The Ningpo Massacre" by an English correspondent, who noted that the Portuguese pirates had behaved savagely towards the Chinese, and that the Portuguese authorities at Macau should have reined in the pirates.
During late Qing era, Western missionaries set up a Presbyterian Church in Ningbo. Li Veng-eing was a Reverend of the
