During the First Opium War, the British occupied Hong Kong in 1841 and one year later, Hong Kong Island was ceded to them in the Treaty of Nanking. The new administration chose the site between the bottom of Government Hill and Wan Chai as land for military use. The British Army erected the Naval and Military Hospital in a matshed in January (or April) 1841. However, it was obliterated just six months later when a typhoon struck Hong Kong.