Events in Hong Kong proceeded quickly. In late December, Allied bombardments set Guangzhou aflame. Ye was in the midst of suppressing rebellion in Guangxi, did not dare to bring troops, and the city quickly fell. Harry Parkes hunted Ye through the streets of Guangzhou, and a British colleague reported that Parkes took special pleasure in humiliating Ye. "Ye was my game," said Parkes, and finally found what a report called "a very fat man contemplating the achievement of getting over the wall at the extreme rear of the yamun." In violation of diplomatic procedure, the British brought him as a prisoner of war to Fort William, Calcutta, in British India where he died a year later of sickness at Tolly Gunge just outside Calcutta. Ye's remains were later returned (13 May 1859) for interment in Guangzhou (Canton) towed by a ship chartered by the American government, the "Hong Kong".