Battle of Palan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Battle of Palan was one of several clashes between the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps

Tonkin Expeditionary Corps

The Tonkin Expeditionary Corps was an important French military command based in northern Vietnam from June 1883 to April 1886. The expeditionary corps fought the Tonkin campaign taking part in campaigns against the Black Flag Army and the Chinese Yunnan and Guangxi Armies during the...

and Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army

Black Flag Army

The Black Flag Army was a splinter remnant of a bandit group recruited largely from soldiers of ethnic Zhuang background, who crossed the border from Guangxi province of China into Upper Tonkin, in the Empire of Annam in 1865. They became known mainly for their fights against French forces in...

during the Tonkin campaign

Tonkin campaign

The Tonkin Campaign was a armed conflict fought between June 1883 and April 1886 by the French against, variously, the Vietnamese, Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army and the Chinese Guangxi and Yunnan armies to occupy Tonkin and entrench a French protectorate there...

(1883–1886). The battle, a French victory, took place during the period of increasing tension between France and China that eventually culminated in the Sino-French War

Sino-French War

The Sino–French War was a limited conflict fought between August 1884 and April 1885 to decide whether France should replace China in control of Tonkin . As the French achieved their war aims, they are usually considered to have won the war...

(August 1884–April 1885).
The Battle of Palan was fought two weeks after the Battle of Phu Hoai

Battle of Phu Hoai

The Battle of Phu Hoai was an indecisive engagement between the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps and Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army during the early months of the Tonkin campaign...

, in which General Alexandre-Eugène Bouët (1833–87), the French commandant supérieur in Tonkin, had failed to defeat Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army.