 A proposal to use the Far East squadron to make a landing in the Gulf of Petchili was cancelled on the news of the French defeat in the Battle of Bang Bo (24March 1885) and the subsequent retreat from Lạng Sơn, and Courbet was on the point of evacuating Keelung to reinforce the Tonkin expeditionary corps, leaving only a minimum garrison at Makung in the Pescadores, when hostilities came to an end in April 1885.The French occupied the Pescadores until July 1885.Courbet and several dozen other French soldiers and sailors died of cholera during the brief French occupation.