" In June 1842 the British fleet entered the Yangtze. The Chinese were ready to receive their enemy, having assembled a considerable fleet of sixteen war junks and seventy merchant men and fishing vessels requisitioned for naval duty. In the forts of Woosung, near the mouth of the river, they had placed 253 heavy artillery pieces.

The Chinese also unveiled a secret weapon: paddle-wheelers armed with brass guns, gingals, and matchlocks, and propelled by men inside the hull operating treadles. Nin Chien, governor-general of Nanking, wrote of them:

`Skilled artisans have also constructed four water-wheel boats, on which we have mounted guns. They are fast and we have specially assigned Major Liu Ch'ang to command them. If the barbarians should sail into the inland waterways, these vessels can resist them. There is not the slightest worry.`23

The battle of Woosung was swift. The British ships of the line soon silenced the guns of the forts. The Nemesis, towing the eighteen-gun Modeste, led the fleet into the river, firing grape and canister at the Chinese crafts, which fled. The Nemesis and the Phlegethon thereupon chased the fleeing boats, captured one junk and three paddle-wheelers, and set the rest on fire. "

― , The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century