By 1500 hours, as the heat of the day began to ebb, the French were again on the move. At this distance from Saigon and the river, the open Ky Hoa Plain gave way to occasional woods. French guns at Cay Mai provided covering fire. At about 1600, a body of Vietnamese troops and war elephants sortied onto the plain from fixed positions on the French right. They were driven back without French or Spanish losses, and no further attempt was made to impede the allied advance.

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Dusk found Charner encamped in a deserted and partially destroyed village only 1,500 meters from the northwestern corner of Ky Hoa Fort. The admiral established himself in an abandoned house. There was a brief infantry skirmish with a force of unknown size in the trees to the west and north, as well as some shelling from Ky Hoa Fort. A Vietnamese cannonball struck Charner’s headquarters without inflicting casualties. Spanish troops and French naval infantry cleared the woods, while two 4-pounders responded to the Vietnamese guns.

Darkness brought the engagement to an end. By 1000 on February 25, Charner’s force had completed its long circling movement and was in position to attack the rear of the Ky Hoa defenses. The allied troops were once more deployed in three columns. The artillery was in the center and the Spanish were on the right with the naval infantry; the left column consisted of the 1,200 men of the 3rd and 4th Marine Infantry regiments. The 70-man cavalry squadron screened the left flank. The 600 men of the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion were held in reserve behind the artillery.

Vietnamese guns began a sporadic fire on the allied columns as soon as they emerged from the trees onto the plain. As the infantry moved forward, the French guns responded from a distance of 1,000 meters and the exchange grew more heated. One participant in the battle described the Vietnamese fire as ‘lively and disciplined.’ French artillery crews began to sustain casualties. To minimize the disadvantage of having the morning sun in their eyes, Colonel Crouzat advanced his batteries at the trot, moving first to within 500 meters of the fort, then to within 200 meters of the walls, taking more casualties as they did.

As smoke and the smell of gunpowder drifted across the plain, the allied infantry downed their packs and picked up the pace of the advance. Between them and the north wall of the enemy fort lay a 100-meter expanse of man-made obstacles. Once these were overcome, the French and Spanish troops would be faced with steep earthen walls topped by chevaux de frise and planted with thorn bushes. The distance from the bottom of the last trench to the top of the ramparts was almost five meters.

On the right, naval infantry and Spanish troops charged forward. Some of the troops tried to use scaling ladders as bridges over the first trench, but the bamboo ladders quickly collapsed. By the time the Franco-Spanish force reached the final trench at the base of the north wall, only three ladders remained serviceable. Vietnamese resistance was fierce. They poured fire into the trench as the allied troops used the remaining ladders or stood on one another’s shoulders to reach the top of the wall. The scaling ladders were repeatedly shoved away by Vietnamese soldiers wielding halberds. Some men tried hauling themselves up using the chevaux de frise and were badly cut by the thickly planted thorn bushes. Of the first three men to reach the top of the wall, one was killed and the others badly wounded. But these were veterans. Driving the enemy back with grenades and using grappling hooks, the Franco-Spanish troops finally managed to clamber over the wall in sufficient force to convince the Vietnamese defenders to withdraw.

It had taken less than half an hour to ascend the outer wall, but if the French and Spanish troops thought the battle was over, they were mistaken. The unreconnoitered interior defenses were more formidable than expected. A second, bastioned wall ran perpendicular to the north wall and about 100 meters from the west wall. Behind it was another fortification. The allied troops watched as the retreating Vietnamese passed through a gate into what the French later dubbed the Mandarin Fort. With their troops safely inside, the Vietnamese resumed firing on the French and Spaniards with renewed vigor. The French sailors and Spanish infantry now found themselves with walls on four sides, with Vietnamese troops pouring murderous fire into them from the walls of the Mandarin Fort on their left. They were trapped in a killing zone.

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