The Cần Vương movement was aimed at the French, but although there were more than 35,000 French soldiers in Tonkin and thousands more in the French colony of Cochinchina, the French had only a few hundred soldiers in Annam, dispersed around the citadels of Huế, Thuận An, Vinh and Qui Nhơn. With hardly any French troops to attack, the insurgents directed their anger instead against Vietnamese Christians, long regarded as potential allies of the French. Although the numbers remain disputed, it seems likely that between the end of July and the end of September 1885 Cần Vương fighters killed around 40,000 Vietnamese Christians, wiping out nearly a third of Vietnam's Christian population.