Monarch Profile: Emperor Gia Long of Vietnam

In the first half of the eighteenth century, Vietnam was a divided country. While the emperors of the Latter Le Dynasty continued to reign in Hanoi, actual power was held by two feuding families; the Trinh family in the north and the Nguyen family in the south. Most recognized the damage and stagnation this was causing but neither side wished to give up their hold on power. Rebellions increased dramatically but none were successful. Significant change was not sparked until 1771 when the Tay Son brothers, from an area in central Vietnam under the control of the Nguyen family, rose up in revolt. As usual, they promised to rob from the rich and give to the poor and also to restore the Le Dynasty emperor to actual power. In 1778 they accomplished what the Trinh never had and routed the Nguyen militia in front of Gia Dinh (Saigon) and massacred the family almost entirely. The only survivor of this bloodbath was one 16-year old prince named Nguyen Anh. Born in 1761, he would prove to be more formidable than any enemy the Tay Son would ever face.

Prince Anh during his sojourn in Siam

Prince Nguyen-Phuc Anh was the third son of Prince Nguyen-Phuc Luan, the second son and designated successor of Prince Nguyen-Phuc Khoat, lord of southern Vietnam. However, when Lord Nguyen Khoat died, a powerful mandarin named Truong Phuc Loan changed his will to keep Prince Nguyen Luan from power, imprisoning him until his death in 1765. It is then, not so surprising that Prince Anh would grow up to be such a formidable character. As a young child his father had been betrayed and imprisoned, denied his birthright and as a teenager he had witnessed the wholesale slaughter of his entire family by the rampaging forces of the Tay Son. To redeem the memory of his father and restore the achievements of his ancestors became the driving ambition of his life. Despite being left alone in the world, he was committed to doing whatever was necessary to regain all that had been lost, no matter how long or how difficult it would be. From there, he had higher aspirations still but focused, for the time being, on the battle at hand.

While the Tay Son turned their aggression on the Trinh, abandoning their earlier promise and ousting the Le emperor to establish their own, short-lived, imperial dynasty and even defeating a Qing Dynasty army from China sent in to rescue their Le Dynasty vassal, Prince Nguyen Anh rallied the remnants of his family’s forces. Despite his young age, he proved a very inspirational figure, cunning leader and, above all, a young man of boundless determination. After regrouping, he succeeded in re-taking Saigon from the Tay Son forces and, for a time, a sort of stalemate ensued as the two sides battled back and forth for domination of southern Vietnam. In 1783, however, the stalemate was broken and the Nguyen forces once again suffered a devastating defeat. Having earlier taken refuge in Siam, this time Prince Anh fled to Phu Quoc. A Catholic seminary was there and he was given a safe haven by the French missionary Pierre Joseph Pigneau de Behaine, a Catholic priest and eventual Bishop of Adran. Pigneau and Prince Anh quickly became very devoted friends.

The Tay Son had originally posed as the friends of the Christian minority in Vietnam but, after achieving power, began persecuting them. Pigneau wanted to do something to end the suffering of his fellow Catholics, naturally, and also to secure special favor for his native Kingdom of France in what was then known as Dai Viet. Prince Anh, likewise, knew that his own forces were far too depleted and he would need foreign assistance, particularly advanced foreign warships and firearms, to achieve his goal of victory over the Tay Son. Despite his setbacks, he was more determined than ever to not only regain his family’s rule over the south of the country but to reunite the whole country under his leadership.

Pigneau de Behaine

Toward this end, Prince Anh dispatched Pigneau to arrange an alliance with his country and, as a sign of his goodwill, sent along his first son, Crown Prince Canh (by his first wife Thua Thien), who was only five years old. Pigneau first went to Pondicherry, in French India, but the local governor would give him no support. Undeterred, he traveled all the way to France where little Prince Canh was quite the sensation. He met with King Louis XVI and made the offer of Prince Anh to His Most Christian Majesty; if France would provide ships and weapons to help Anh become emperor, there would be freedom of religion for Catholics, France would be ceded the island of Poulo Condore and part of the port of Da Nang along with special trading privileges. King Louis XVI was most agreeable and Pigneau and his young charge set out for the return voyage to Indochina confident that they had succeeded. Upon arrival in India, however, they found out that due to the growing threat of revolution in France, no official help would be extended after all. Still undeterred, Pigneau acted on his own to hire French mercenaries to act as advisors and obtain what modern ships and artillery he could.

Pigneau finally returned in 1789 with two ships filled with French soldiers of fortune and various war materials along with Crown Prince Canh, who had been baptized into the Catholic faith. Prince Anh would be forever grateful to his friend Pigneau for this and used these forces to regain control of his ancestral lands in the south. He won over the locals who had become disenchanted with the Tay Son who had promised much but delivered little. Prince Anh impressed the people with his honesty as he admitted that his family had made mistakes in the past, had acted incorrectly but promised to set things right with a renewed commitment to morality and good government based on the ethical code of the great Confucius. Spears were made, muskets and swords distributed, ships were stocked, cannon were loaded and the war elephants were prepared. Prince Anh launched a massive and devastating offensive against his enemies, sweeping inexorably north through the country until the Tay Son were totally defeated and he stood victorious as the master of all.

Neither Pigneau nor Crown Prince Canh had lived to see this triumph but it marked the beginning of the reign of the Nguyen Dynasty in 1802. Prince Anh, to show that the country was now united, with neither the north ruling the south or the south ruling the north, moved the capital to Hue in the central provinces and took as his reigning name Gia Long, a combination of the words Gia Dinh (Saigon) and Thanh Long (Hanoi). He immediately set to work to establish his dynasty. He sought and received the recognition of the Qing Emperor in Peking for his reign over Nam Viet, though the Qing court reversed the name of the country to Viet Nam. Emperor Gia Long set to work keeping the promises he had made. Vietnam became a staunchly conservative Confucian country with the imperial commands implemented by a bureaucracy of mandarins trained in Confucian morality.

To their annoyance, France did not receive the pride of place they had expected due to the fact that they had not fulfilled their promise to aid Gia Long. He knew that what help he received was due to Pigneau and not to the government in Paris. Therefore, out of respect for his late friend, Christianity would be tolerated in Vietnam as long as Gia Long was alive. He was, however, not entirely pleased that his late son and heir had been converted to Christianity and was careful not to allow western influence to spread in his country. Rather than any particular religion, Confucianism was to be the backbone of the country under Gia Long and trade and contact with the west was restricted. This was the basis of what has become the major criticism of Emperor Gia Long, which is that he isolated Vietnam and allowed the country to stagnate and thus become vulnerable to French expansion in later years. This, however, is not entirely fair.

Emperor Gia Long did do his best to secure the country, strengthening the military and building a series of modern fortresses across the country. However, neither he nor anyone should be expected to foretell the unprecedented events that would happen in the future. He had restored his dynasty to power, consolidated control over the whole country, reunited the country and ended the fratricidal north-south divide. He had the recognition of Imperial China, the traditional powerhouse of East Asia and no one then expected that the European powers, about which most in East Asia still knew very little, would so soon come to dominate the whole region. Some of his domestic policies, such as heavy taxation and mandated periods of forced labor, were quite unpopular, however they were essential to rebuilding and strengthening the country quickly after such a long period of turmoil and civil wars. Furthermore, while he did work to curtail western influence in his country, he continued to maintain contact and trade with East Asian powers such as China. The Nguyen lords in the south had even maintained quite active trade ties with the Empire of Japan prior to the shogun adopting its isolationist policy.

Most of the reign of Emperor Gia Long was concerned with consolidation. Fairly early on there developed two different factions at the imperial court, one of which was more focused on establishing ties with the west, based around the family of the late Crown Prince Canh, and the other which favored closer ties with China and isolation from the west which was focused on the family of Prince Nguyen-Phuc Dam and this was the faction that Emperor Gia Long favored, naming Dam as his heir and successor. Emperor Gia Long was obliged to neglect the navy so as to have funds for the building of fortresses and an extensive infrastructure project of building roads to improve travel and communication as well as canals and other waterway projects to boost agricultural production. Again, not all of these were popular at the time, but all of them paid dividends in the long run though the lack of a modern navy would be problematic when the French came calling in the years to come.

Emperor Gia Long enacted a new legal system, basically a combination of the old Le Dynasty legal code and that of the Qing Dynasty in China. The focus, again, was on the authority of the Emperor, the centrality of the mandarins as his instruments and the traditional family values of Confucian ethics. To placate the spirits of his family, he took his revenge on the Tay Son, executing those who had survived and desecrating the remains of those already gone. He did away with their political innovations and restored the traditional laws that had preceded them. He had sense enough to advise his heir not to provoke or offend the western powers but told him to take his example from the Empire of Japan which was careful to shut them out.

Emperor Gia Long, first emperor of the Nguyen dynasty, founder of the last Vietnamese imperial line, died at the age of 57 on February 3, 1820. He was buried at Thien Tho Tomb, which he had originally built in 1814 for his beloved wife Empress Thua Thien, but which has since, sadly, fallen into disrepair. For someone who had such a remarkable life, rising from the ashes of defeat and the massacre of his entire family, to triumph over his enemies and forge an empire, the historical legacy of Emperor Gia Long has been grossly distorted due to the political bigotry of those who have come to power since the Nguyen reign. While generally dismissive of the entirety of traditional Vietnamese history, the Communist Party seized on Emperor Gia Long as a particular enemy in their propaganda. Taking the side of the Tay Son rebels, they tended to heap all blame for any misfortunes which befell Vietnam on Emperor Gia Long and his policies. This is quite unfair and quite outrageous considering the extent to which Emperor Gia Long is responsible for what most recognize as traditional Vietnam even today.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Minh Mang of Vietnam

The man who would become the second emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam was born Prince Nguyen Phuc Dam, fourth son of the future Emperor Gia Long and his consort of the first rank Thuan Thien, on May 25, 1792 in Gia Dinh. He was not originally supposed to inherit the throne but his brother, Crown Prince Canh, died the year before the Nguyen Dynasty reunited Vietnam and came to power in 1802. The Crown Prince had been sent to France where he learned western ways and become very interested in Christianity (though he was never baptized). This was part of an attempted alliance between the Nguyen Dynasty and France which was never fully realized because the events of the French Revolution prevented the French from following through on their promises of support. However, a French missionary had aided Emperor Gia Long greatly (saving his life at one point) and the Emperor promised that he would always respect Christianity and never forgot the friendship of this man, the Bishop of Adran. However, after the Bishop died Emperor Gia Long became increasingly concerned about French efforts to collect payment for services they had never rendered. Looking toward the future, there were two camps to choose from; the pro-western, innovative camp and the pro-Chinese, traditional camp. In 1816 Emperor Gia Long named Prince Nguyen Phuc Dam as his successor and this was a clear choice in favor of the anti-French, pro-Chinese point of view.

A few years later, Gia Long passed away and his son became Emperor Minh Mang of Dai Nam, the “Great South”, taking a name which meant, “the Radiant Mandate”. He was only 29 but was already extremely well educated in the traditional Confucian style and very set in his views and opinions. He could be counted on to strengthen the traditional ties with China, exclude western influences and emphasize the traditional Confucian values of the Vietnamese monarchy. Missionaries in the country were quick to report that Emperor Minh Mang had spoken favorably of the Japanese for eradicating Christianity in their country and shutting themselves off from the western world. Of course, the situation was not as simple as that but it reflects the mentality of Emperor Minh Mang. He was known for being very scholarly, very conservative and very suspicious of anything foreign. However, he was not opposed to learning from the west and, in fact, took a great interest in western technology and ideas. However, he felt that these all had to be strictly limited and that it was better to have no foreign elements at all that to risk the damage that these things would do as he saw it. Personally, he was a very regal monarch who impressed all those who visited him. He worked tirelessly, no detail being too minor to escape his attention. During his reign, Vietnam would achieve something of a “Golden Age” with a highly developed society based on the Confucian moral code and a realm stretching across all of Vietnam and most of Laos and Cambodia.

Described as a gentle man, almost feminine in his delicate grace and manners, Emperor Minh Mang was, nonetheless, a strong ruler. He refused all French trade agreements, rebuffed the first American visit to Vietnam and would not allow anyone to do business with his empire who did not conform to their laws and customs. The westerners, who he referred to as barbarians, were to be shunned. Although much is usually made of his anti-Christian policies, he was not exactly lenient when it came to East Asian religions like Daoism or Buddhism. He believed in Confucianism and ancestor worship and thought that religious diversity could only be a weakness. Moreover, these other religions tended to be egalitarian to an extent, disregarding or even denying the divine authority of the Emperor as the “Son of Heaven” and so they were suspect in their loyalty. Christianity, being foreign and also insisting that even the Emperor was a sinner who would have to accept Christ to attain eternal life, was naturally singled out for particular scrutiny. When revolts against the dynasty sprang up, whether instigated because of foreign meddling or simply corrupt local mandarins, Minh Mang was convinced that the Catholics were behind it all and that the “perverse religion of the Europeans” must be to blame.

The Emperor was not always wrong in his suspicions but such attitudes can result in self-fulfilling prophecies. The noted soldier and scholar, Le Van Duyet, had voiced some concern at the Emperor’s policies given that his father had promised to tolerate Christianity in his realm. When his adopted son, Le Van Khoi, led a rebellion against the Emperor this, combined with the many Catholics who supported him, reaffirmed in the Emperor’s mind that Christianity was a virus that had to be purged from his country. Armed with this self-assurance, Emperor Minh Mang ordered the arrest of all foreign and Vietnamese Catholic priests. Some escaped but some did not such as Father Francois Isidore Gagelin who was slowly strangled to death in 1833 and then exhumed from his grave three days later to make sure he had not been resurrected like Christ. When reading this stories, it is important to keep in mind that this was not a massive bloodbath. Only about ten missionaries were actually executed over a period of seven years, however, the method of execution was often gruesome as these men were being used as examples in the hope that the people would abandon the religion and that foreign missionaries would not return to Vietnam. Despite the way he is often portrayed, Emperor Minh Mang was not a cruel or vicious man. He firmly believed that he was taking harsh but necessary measures for the good of his country and would have preferred to do it all without any violence.

Most Vietnamese, after all, were not Christians and had no contact with the religion. The Emperor was not consumed by the subject and generally regarded the westerners, who he considered “barbarians” to be unworthy of much consideration. He was most interested in traditional cultural pursuits. He was a very skilled writer and poet, writing the poem that would be used to name future generations in keeping with their place in the line of succession to the throne. And there were many of them. Emperor Minh Mang reputedly had a huge number of concubines and fathered 142 children. One wonders when the man found time to rule a country. He was also a great builder and left behind many beautiful monuments that are today cultural treasures of Vietnam such as the Mieu Temple build in 1821 which honors ten of the Nguyen emperors and his magnificent tomb complex which attracts many visitors to this day. It was also he who ordered the casting of the nine large urns outside the Hien Lam Pavilion and Mieu Temple which had great spiritual significance. His motto as emperor was to “conform to the constant movement of Heaven” and this was his guiding principle. There was a cosmic order that Emperor Ming Mang wanted his country to be in harmony with and he sought to encourage that in all instances while rooting out anything that might disrupt that harmony.

All too often, the foreign policy of Emperor Minh Mang is over-simplified to be isolationism and anti-Catholic persecution. It was, actually, much more complex than that. The French had government that were themselves alternately pro- and anti-Catholic Church and the Emperor tried to hold off on taking actions he knew would anger the French until a time when they would be least able to do anything about it. He was also not being unreasonable in his demands that visitors respect local laws and customs and it is also true that some missionaries in Vietnam did not confine themselves to spiritual matters as they should have done but stepped over the line into politics and so brought down punishment on themselves. It is also often overlooked that Emperor Minh Mang was well informed about world events and began to moderate his isolationist position somewhat. He saw the British being very successful in their intervention in China, the traditional powerhouse of East Asia, and this alarmed Minh Mang greatly that the French might do the same in Vietnam. He sent envoys to Paris in an effort to come to an understanding with the French but, due to the political situation in France at the time, King Louis Philippe refused to even receive them. There was, then, an opportunity for France and Vietnam to work out their differences peacefully but it was one that France, not Emperor Minh Mang, refused to embrace.

Not long after, Emperor Minh Mang died on January 20, 1841 at the age of 49. His reign had, overall, been more glorious than troubled. He was strict about the Confucian bureaucracy and social system but he was also gentle, lessening the use of forced labor and showing concern for the peasants. He had defeated all rebellions against his authority and an attack from Siam that tried to take advantage of the most serious of these. The Great South had endured, united and secure under the reign of Minh Mang. The harmony that he so focused on had been protected and his policies would persist into the future, perhaps even more so, under his son and successor Emperor Thieu Tri. The persecution of Christians is a dark spot, though it was not as bad nor as completely unfounded as some choose to think. However, this would build to be a greater problem in the future and that is the only negative that can be attributed to Emperor Minh Mang. According to his traditional, conventional Confucian mindset, he had done everything right and everything had mostly gone well. The problem was what would happen in the future as the combination of internal unrest, the persecution of Christians and the isolationism that led to Vietnam being left behind in terms of technical advancement, would ultimately have negative repercussions for the Nguyen Dynasty. Still, one can hardly expect a monarch to be able to foretell future events. Emperor Minh Mang was a very traditional monarch and by the standards of his own traditions, the Confucian system of authority, virtue and piety, he was a successful monarch and a very great emperor.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Thieu Tri of Vietnam

As the son and heir of Emperor Minh Mang, Thieu Tri had a tough act to follow. Vietnam had achieved its peak in size and influence but the “Great South” stood precariously on this historical apex. The French were becoming increasingly interested in the region and the slightest mistake could upset the balance and plunge the country into a struggle it could not hope to win. However, when Prince Nguyen Mien Tong came to the throne in 1841, taking the era name of Thieu Tri, this looming threat was not outwardly apparent. The reign of his father had not been free of trouble by any means but it had been great and glorious and it seemed that all Emperor Thieu Tri had to do was follow in his footsteps, steering a steady course and the power and prestige of the Nguyen Dynasty would continue. The country seemed to be in good hands as Emperor Thieu Tri was similar to his illustrious father in many ways. He was highly educated, very intelligent, devoted to traditional Confucian values, a lover of nature, artistic and intellectually curious. He was open to learning from the west but like his father was also determined to keep western influence out of Vietnam and maintain the close relationship with the Great Qing Empire.

the Vietnamese court

In the early days of his reign, everything appeared tranquil. There were no major problems and the reign of the Nguyen Dynasty seemed permanent and unassailable. When it came to foreign affairs, the situation called for concern but not alarm. In China, the Qing Empire was being hard pressed by the British in the First Opium War but they were holding their own at that point and there seemed no danger of this touching Vietnam. Best of all, in Paris King Louis Philippe of the French exhibited no desire for imperial expansion into southeast Asia. But Emperor Thieu Tri faced two very real threats that would soon come together to provoke a major crisis that would change the course of his dynasty and the entire Indochina region forever. The first problem was the persistence of Christianity in the country. Despite the efforts of his predecessor to discourage the new religion, Catholic missionaries, mostly French and Spanish, continued to come to Vietnam and win converts. And, just like before, they did not always restrict themselves to the spiritual sphere but were often complicit in minor peasant rebellions, sometimes even encouraging them because the Emperor was distrustful of Christianity. Naturally, such actions only reaffirmed the belief at the imperial court in Hue that Christianity was a threat to the established order.

On orders from Emperor Thieu Tri, continuing policies already in place, Nguyen officials punished Christians and arrested Catholic missionaries on the grounds that they were spreading “false” and “seditious” beliefs which upset the Confucian hierarchy, disturbed the native gods and ran contrary to proper virtue and morality. Actually, such incidents were handled fairly mildly more often than not and Emperor Thieu Tri was no fool. He realized that if he came down too hard on the Christians that this would be used by the French as a pretext to move against his country. Anti-Christian outbursts throughout East Asia had often been prompted by the fact that European domination tended to come on the heels of those preaching the new religion and the powers-that-be did not want it gaining a foothold. So, to avoid trouble, Emperor Thieu Tri hoped to simply frighten the Catholics into staying away from Vietnam. Time and time again a missionary would be sentenced to death for spreading subversive beliefs only to have the Emperor spare his life and order him deported. Emperor Thieu Tri released many missionaries rather than put them to death but there were those who persisted in always coming back. Eventually, their cause was taken up by the second major threat Thieu Tri faced.

Imperial Decree of Emperor Thieu Tri

The most famous example of this policy was that of the French Bishop Dominique Lefebvre. In 1845 he was arrested and sentenced to death by a Vietnamese court but at the request of a French admiral, Emperor Thieu Tri intervened to have Lefebvre pardoned and released. Unfortunately, his zeal would not allow him to leave the country and ‘shake the sand from his feet’ as he departed (Matthew 10:14) and he returned to Vietnam to be arrested again in 1847 by which time the patience of Emperor Thieu Tri was running increasingly thin. A similar incident involving Lefebvre has almost sparked a major incident with the United States and the bishop was caught illegally entering the country three times.

The second threat to the reign of Thieu Tri appeared in March of 1847 and that threat was the French Navy whose officer corps tended to be very conservative and very Catholic. So far from home, they were also liable to act on their without waiting for instructions from the King in Paris or whatever government happened to be in power when they returned. The French naval forces in Southeast Asia took up the cause of the Catholic missionaries and undoubtedly many of the officers were sincere in their motives for doing this. However, it is equally true that these same officers wanted to see the expansion of French power. They were alarmed at the growing British presence in the region (China, Malaya, Burma etc) and did not want France to lose out to Britain in the colonial race in Asia.

Captain Rigault de Genouilly

It was two French ships under Captains Lapierre and Rigault de Genouilly who entered Vietnamese waters at Tourane on March 23. Deciding on their own to take dramatic action they issued an ultimatum; Emperor Thieu Tri was to release all foreign prisoners and reinstate religious tolerance for Catholics. Hopefully, Paris would back them up after the fact. Obviously, this was something Emperor Thieu Tri could never agree to. It would mean allowing a foreign power to dictate the laws of his country and undermine his own position. Already the more orthodox Confucianists were criticizing him for the mercy he had shown the missionaries, warning him that he was neglecting filial piety by allowing this new religion to dishonor the spirits of his ancestors. Emperor Thieu Tri, therefore, ordered his forces on the coast to be strengthened and prepare to defend themselves against attack. Neither side wished to show weakness and so the French attacked, wiping out the eight Vietnamese junks sent to oppose them with relative ease. They then proceeded to carry out a naval bombardment of the port city of Da Nang. This only made things worse, for the French in the short term and for the Vietnamese in the long-term. It had, after all, been essentially a bluff. The French attack was unauthorized by the government in Paris and they lacked the forces on hand to follow up their victory. Meanwhile, it confirmed to Emperor Thieu Tri that the conservatives at court had been right all along and that drastic measures had to be taken to eradicate all foreign influence in Vietnam.

Temple of Emperor Thieu Tri

In a fit of rage, Emperor Thieu Tri issued an imperial decree ordering the massacre of all westerners in Vietnam without exception. Thankfully, a bloodbath was averted by the cooler heads among the mandarins who simply failed to carry out the order, knowing full well that such action would only guarantee that France would launch an all-out war against them in retaliation. It may have been that all of this storm and stress was too much for the delicate, intellectual monarch and Emperor Thieu Tri died only a few months later on November 4, 1847, leaving the throne to his son Prince Nguyen Hong Nham.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Tu Duc of Vietnam

Emperor Tu Duc is sometimes referred to as the “last independent Emperor of Vietnam”, mostly by those who seem anxious for monarchies to end and dynasties to fall. Tu Duc was certainly not the last Vietnamese monarch, being only the fourth of the twelve Nguyen dynasty emperors (thirteen if one counts Nguyen Duc Duc) but it was during his reign that French forces established their first colonial foothold in Vietnam. His designation as the “last independent emperor” stems from the fact that monarchs after him tended to be dominated by corrupt regents and then the French, losing their throne if they opposed these forces. The future Emperor Tu Duc was born Prince Nguyen-Phuc Hong Nham on September 22, 1829 to Emperor Thieu Tri. His elevation to the throne after the death of his father in 1847 was not without difficulty. Emperor Thieu Tri had changed the law of succession so that he could choose his successor rather than having the throne pass automatically to the eldest son. In this case it meant that Crown Prince Hong Bao was passed over in favor of his younger brother who was enthroned as Emperor and Son of Heaven with the era name of Tu Duc.

This was done because, since the reign of the Nguyen Dynasty, concern was growing stronger about the threat of foreign powers and because, from the reign of the first Nguyen emperor onward, a renewed emphasis had been placed on strict Confucian orthodoxy. Emperor Thieu Tri wanted his successor to be someone who would maintain traditional, conservative values and keep foreign influences out of Vietnam and there was no doubt that Emperor Tu Duc would be the one to do it, so he was chosen to inherit the throne instead of the crown prince. Yet, the very fact that the eldest son was passed over in favor of the younger angered the most strict adherents of Confucianism among the mandarinate. It did not take long for rebellions to break out, united by the figure of Prince Hong Bao though it included dissidents from various different backgrounds whose ultimate aims were often at odds with each other. For example, alongside strict Confucianists were Christian converts who hoped that Hong Bao would show them favor, there were those peasants who had fell afoul of crop failure or some less than perfect local official and even a few die-hard Le Dynasty loyalists still lingering around.

Fortunately, for peace and order, imperial troops quickly crushed the rebellion and Prince Hong Bao was arrested. Emperor Tu Duc was inclined to inflict the legal punishment for treason but his mother, the powerful Empress-Dowager Tu Du, persuaded him to show mercy. In any event, it did not finally matter as the prince committed suicide in prison. The throne was secured but it was an inauspicious start to the reign of Emperor Tu Duc. In all the years since his reign, the image of Emperor Tu Duc has been subject to a great deal of distortion by many people. Contemporary foreign accounts tended to portray him as brutal, cruel and close-minded. However, the truth was exactly the opposite. Emperor Tu Duc was an upstanding Confucian monarch, a great scholar and generally was in every way what a good, traditional Asian emperor was expected to be according to time-honored values. Much of the “bad press” Emperor Tu Duc has been subjected to involves his treatment of the Christian minority. This is worth considering since it was, to some extent, the treatment of Christians that was used as a pretext for the French Emperor Napoleon III invading Vietnam and setting the course for the eventual French colonization of all of Indochina. Despite what many say, Emperor Tu Duc was not completely intolerant of Christianity though, like most Confucianists, he was wary of it.

Previously, Emperors Minh Mang and Thieu Tri had tried to discourage Christian missionaries from coming to Vietnam but it was to no avail. Emperor Tu Duc was not completely intolerant as is proven by the fact that he had Christians included in the highest levels of his government. Probably the best known was Nguyen Truong To, a Catholic mandarin who was allowed to travel to Rome for an audience with the Pope and who brought back books from Europe on Christianity which were translated into Vietnamese. Certainly, if Emperor Tu Duc had been mindlessly opposed to all Christians he would never have allowed this. It was only when the safety of the throne and the stability of the empire were under threat that the Emperor took drastic measures against the Christians. It was only after it was discovered that a French priest had been involved in a plot to overthrow Emperor Tu Duc that action began to be taken.

Moreover, this was not an isolated incident. There had been missionary involvement, possibly backed by the French government, in several coup attempts and there had been many Christians involved in the initial rebellion against him when Emperor Tu Duc took the throne. It is unfortunate that the missionaries and converts did not refrain from involving themselves in politics in this way rather than working to show that they were loyal and that Catholicism did not contradict being a loyal subject of the Emperor. Yet, all too often many were inclined to join in subversive activity in the hope (usually naïve) that a new ruler would be more favorable and give greater privileges to Catholics. The result was that in 1848, at a time when it was hoped that France would be too busy in Europe to meddle in southeast Asia, Emperor Tu Duc decreed that all Vietnamese Catholic converts must renounce Christianity and return to their traditional beliefs or be branded as heretics and lose all privileges. He also cracked down on French and Spanish missionaries which brought western opinion down against Emperor Tu Duc, most having never heard of the previous intrigues against the Emperor by spiritual men trespassing into temporal affairs. The devoutly Catholic French Empress Eugenie (who was Spanish by birth) championed the cause of intervention and soon French troops were landed in the far south, Cochinchina, and began attacking north.

French land at Danang

Emperor Tu Duc responded to this attack by ordering military conscription and establishing a system for formal military training. Unfortunately, what few modern weapons the Nguyen armies had at the start of their reign had been lost or sold and the zeal and courage of the Vietnamese forces proved insufficient against the modern weaponry of France. In fact, more French troops died from disease and the sweltering climate than from the Nguyen armies. More French troops landed in the north and Emperor Tu Duc had no choice but to appeal to his nominal overlord, the Qing Emperor of China, for protection. The result was the 1884-85 Sino-French War and, unfortunately for Vietnam, it was the French who emerged victorious. The result was China washing its hands of Vietnam and France, which already claimed the south as a colony, claiming north and central Vietnam as French protectorates. In spite of these many disasters, Emperor Tu Duc was determined to fight on but, unfortunately, another rebellion broke out in the north. The Emperor decided it would be better to come to terms with France rather than risk a rebel victory that might bring down the dynasty altogether. So, he diverted his troops to crush the rebellion and signed an agreement with the French. The result was Vietnam being divided into the French colony of Cochinchina in the south and the French protectorates of Tonkin (the north) and Annam (central Vietnam). Emperor Tu Duc retained his throne but, with the liberal interpretation the French applied to the protectorate treaty, the effect was that the authority of the Emperor hardly extended beyond the walls of the “Great Within”. Emperor Tu Duc died on July 17, 1883, according to one contemporary, cursing the invaders with his last breath.

In the years since, many accounts have been unfairly critical of Emperor Tu Duc. He was the longest reigning emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty and had to deal with problems and enemies of a sort no previous monarch had ever had to face. He was highly educated, intelligent and refined, devoted to the Confucian moral code and the traditional rites. Because of an affliction with smallpox as a child he was unable to have children of his own, though he had many wives and concubines. He was an accomplished poet and probably the most literary of any Vietnamese monarch. A French official who met him was surprised that he was so different from the beast he was portrayed as, describing his delicate manners, soft voice and comparing his features to those of an ancient pharaoh. If a wise and upright ruler had been all that was called for, the reign of Tu Duc would have been very different but, instead, his reign saw rebellion, invasion and ultimately the first beginnings of what would become the era of French colonial rule.

Monarch (sort of) Profile: Nguyen Duc Duc

This profile was a rather difficult one to decide to do for the simple reason that the monarch known as Duc Duc was hardly a monarch at all. Amongst the illustrious sovereigns of the Nguyen Dynasty who reigned over Vietnam, his name is not always included as an official emperor. Even his name, Duc Duc, says something about his status as, obviously, he was never given a reigning name or era name as other emperors are commonly known by. However, despite being nominal Emperor of the Great South for a mere three days, Nguyen Duc Duc is often listed amongst the ranks of the Nguyen Dynasty emperors (whether he should be or not) and it is important to understand his story as it gives one a greater insight into the wider history of the last dynasty to reign over Vietnam during the critical period of turmoil and confusion following the death of the great but tragic Emperor Tu Duc. Given that, it is worth taking the time to become familiar with the story of the “3-day king” Duc Duc. He ended up being more significant to history than one would at first assume.

Tomb of Duc Duc

The future fifth Nguyen emperor (if one chooses to count him) was born Nguyen-Phuc Ung Ai sometime in 1852. He was the son of Prince Kien Thoai Vuong, the fourth brother of Emperor Tu Duc. When he was seventeen years old, in keeping with custom, he was renamed Prince Nguyen-Phuc Ung Chan. Under other circumstances his life would have probably been rather uneventful, however, he became much more important due to the fact that Emperor Tu Duc, because of a childhood affliction with smallpox, was unable to have children. In order to secure the succession Emperor Tu Duc decided to adopt the offspring he could not have on his own. However, to be on the safe side, he adopted three of his nephews rather than just one. This secured the succession but also proved to be less than ideal in the long-run. The three he chose were the future emperors Kien Phuc, Dong Khanh and, of course, Duc Duc. Most of the last 60 years of the Nguyen reign over Vietnam would be dominated by the family lines of two of these young princes and, as such, there was some tension between the rival branches of the family. Because of this, the history of Duc Duc can be somewhat confusing with two very different versions being told, one by the allies of his line and the other by its opponents. Obviously, one would portray him in a positive light and the other in a negative light.

According to the pro-Duc Duc line faction, Emperor Tu Duc had always intended for Duc Duc to be the one who immediately succeeded him on the Golden Dragon Throne. Others would dispute this but, just to further complicate matters, Emperor Tu Duc had also chosen three regents to oversee things after he was gone while his nephews were too young to rule. These were Tran Tien Thanh, Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet; who would go on to play a large role in Vietnamese history, particularly Tuong and Thuyet. Others, not of the pro-Duc Duc camp, hold that rather than the elder Duc Duc it was the youngest of the three, Kien Phuc, portrayed as the more upright and virtuous of the youths, whom Tu Duc wished to succeed him. The factions of the other two candidates have left behind accounts which portray Tu Duc as being troubled by the character and untraditional behavior of Duc Duc. Whereas the venerable monarch surrounded himself with priests and scholarly mandarins, Duc Duc, the other factions claim, too often associated with the likes of gamblers, singers, actors and other such entertainers.

Altar to Duc Duc

Today, these people would be considered celebrities but, in those days, such “celebrities” were seen as being not far above prostitutes and charlatans on the social ladder and not at all the sort of people that proper ladies or gentlemen were to associate with. Nonetheless, we are told that certain highly influential ladies at court, and there were certainly plenty of those behind the walls of the “Dai Noi” (Great Within) in those days, preferred Duc Duc to be emperor. Supposedly, the will of Emperor Tu Duc named Kien Phuc as his preferred successor but these ladies; the powerful Empress-Dowager Tu Du and the consorts Trang Y and Hoc Phi threw their support behind Duc Duc when Emperor Tu Duc died in July of 1883.

For reasons that later became clear (such as an illicit relationship between the lady Hoc Phi and the regent Nguyen Van Tuong) the three regents decided to go ahead with the enthronement of Duc Duc as Emperor of Vietnam. Here, again, we have a bit of history that is disputed which is that, prior to his “coronation” Duc Duc requested that the lines designating Kien Phuc was heir to the throne be struck from the will of Emperor Tu Duc. Loyalists of the line of Duc Duc usually claim that this never happened as Duc Duc was the intended heir to begin with. However, this is the story told by those hostile to Duc Duc and, so it goes, the regents agreed for the sake of stability and unity in the country. However, when Emperor Duc Duc arrived for his formal enthronement with his retinue of unfashionable friends the regent Ton That Thuyet in particular was outraged and publicly read aloud the original will of the late emperor naming Kien Phuc as heir to the throne. Not surprisingly, chaos broke out and the ceremony was suspended pending an investigation into this controversy over the legitimate succession.

Tomb of Duc Duc

The supporters of Duc Duc tell quite a different story, however. According to them, and later revelations suggest that this may well have been the case, Duc Duc was quite upright and was only opposed by the regents because he had discovered their corruption as well as the affair between Tuong and Hoc Phi. In effect, they feared he would put a stop to their gathering of wealth and power if he actually became emperor and so they arranged a battery of false accusations to stop him. Nguyen Duc Duc was only nominally the emperor from July 19 to July 21, 1883 and as his enthronement ceremony was never finished, this is why he is often excluded from lists of the Nguyen dynasty emperors. The idea that he discovered the crimes of the corrupt regents and was kept from the throne for that reason is reinforced by the fact that he was immediately imprisoned, promptly declared guilty of a ridiculously deplorable list of charges and left to die in a slow and excruciating manner out of all proportion to the alleged crimes, even if he had been guilty. The “3-day king” ultimately died, probably from starvation, on October 6, 1883. He was hastily buried, unclothed, in an improper grave. When the loyal and upright mandarin Phan Dinh Phung protested against such outrageous treatment for a member of the dynasty he was banished by regent Thuyet.

However, Duc Duc was not completely forgotten. In 1889 his son came to the throne as Emperor Thanh Thai and early on he began construction of a formal imperial tomb for his late father which, though deteriorated, remains to this day. Emperor Thanh Thai and his son, Emperor Duy Tan, both were deposed by the French before their reigns came to a natural end so when Thanh Thai died his remains were laid to rest in the tomb he had built for his father Duc Duc. The grandson of the “3-day king” was first buried overseas but his remains were eventually allowed by the communist authorities to be returned to Vietnam for a former burial and he was, likewise, laid to rest in the tomb of his grandfather Duc Duc.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Hiep Hoa of Viet-Nam

Nguyen-Phuc Hong Dat, who would be the sixth emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam, was born Prince Nguyen-Phuc Ung Thang on November 1, 1847 in the Forbidden City of Hue. He was the youngest son of HM Emperor Thieu Tri and had a normal upbringing for a Nguyen prince, he was kept mostly in the comfortable seclusion of the “Great Within” and was given a traditional Confucian education by the appropriate mandarins. In 1865 he was raised to the rank of Duke of Lang and no one, in those days, expected there would be any chance that he would ever come to the throne. However, dramatic changes were coming for the ‘Land of the Ascending Dragon’ and coming very quickly. France was looking to offset British gains in the Far East and had taken an interest in Vietnam since the time of King Louis XVI. For Emperor Napoleon III the road to Indochina was paved by the many Catholic missionaries who had been at work in the country for some time. The Nguyen Dynasty first showed great tolerance and even favor to the Christians but the two sides eventually had their problems.

France rushed to defend the missionaries, there was a rebellion in Vietnam, land had to be ceded to France to end the war with them so the rebellion could be crushed and added to all this drama was the fact that Emperor Tu Duc had no sons. Upon his death the succession came to be manipulated by three regents and there were struggles for power and in 1883 Vietnam saw no less than three emperors take their turn on the Golden Dragon Throne. In the year of 1883 Vietnam was in the grip of an immense crisis. Earlier, the Vietnamese had called on Imperial China for help in dealing with the French but, to the shock of everyone in the neighborhood, the army of the massive Qing Empire was defeated by the French who then became the acknowledged masters of the region. The Vietnamese were somewhat divided over how to deal with this situation. Some wanted to ally with the French, survive by staying in their good graces, while others would have nothing to do with the “foreign devils” other than to destroy them and anything they brought with them, be it their trade goods or their religion.

This, the effort to fend of France while struggling internally for power, was the cause of the rapid turnover in the imperial succession. After the death of Emperor Tu Duc the throne had gone to Nguyen Duc-Duc but he reigned for only three days, not long enough to even be given reign-name. To replace Duc-Duc (who would soon be murdered) the powerful regents Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet (Tran Tien Thanh being the less ambitious third), after a great deal of fretting and threats and arguments, decided to enthrone the 37-year-old cousin of the “3-Day King” and son of Thieu Tri. Prince Ung Thang was an upright man, not ambitious but very proud. He knew, as most at court did, of the dubious reputation of the regents and he had seen what sad fate had befallen his cousin Nguyen Duc-Duc. The Prince wanted nothing to do with the regents and their plots and schemes and the regents were not extremely enthusiastic about him either. However, the prince was finally persuaded to accept the throne by the very astute and very powerful Grand Empress Dowager Tu Du. She was the second wife of Emperor Thieu-Thri, mother of Emperor Tu Duc and the woman about whom it was said that she only had to lift her little finger and the whole world would tremble. So, with that, no matter how much the regents wanted to get rid of him and no matter how reluctant he was, the Prince took the reign-name of Hiep Hoa and was formally enthrone as the Son of Heaven and Emperor of the Great South on July 30, 1883.

Problems continued to fester between the pressure from France on one hand and the ambitious schemes of the regents on the other. It was on August 30, 1883 that Emperor Hiep Hoa saw the troublesome sign of a blue-hued sun, interpreted as foretelling doom. This omen soon proved correct as French ships under Admiral Courbet blocked the Perfume River leading to Hue and began bombarding the Vietnamese coast. By the power of canon France forced a protectorate treaty on the Emperor. Of course, they tried to be as civil as possible about the whole affair. Admiral Courbet told Emperor Hiep Hoa, “We have no intention to annex your country but you must accept our protection. This is the only way your dynasty can survive.” The Emperor did not need his court astrologers to tell him what that meant and Hiep Hoa had no choice but to sign the document, the Harmond Treaty, making France “protector” and master of Vietnam’s foreign relations.

Many of the mandarins at court were outraged by this and, even though they had done nothing to save the situation, blamed the Emperor for giving in to the French, totally ignoring the fact that the Emperor had little choice in the matter. But the blame was placed on him, particularly by the two most ambitious regents who portrayed themselves as the champions of national independence and the Emperor as the man who had given in to the “foreign devils”. They ignored their own inactivity, even ignored the French for the time being, and placed all responsibility on the Emperor. The regent Ton That Thuyet (who had brought down Emperor Duc-Duc) had sufficient power at court and audacity to insult Emperor Hiep Hoa to his face, in front of the entire court. When Hiep Hoa tried to assert his authority, the regent refused to kowtow to him, a shocking breach of protocol and defiance of imperial authority. This was serious and fearing (rightly so) for his life, Hiep Hoa had no one to turn to but the French protectorate for help. He had signed the treaty with the French and so now called on them to save him from the power-hungry regents. Unfortunately for the Emperor, Ton That Thuyet found out about his secret diplomatic dealings and on November 28, 1883 had the Emperor, Son of Heaven himself, arrested and confined.

For Hiep Hoa, all of his worst fears about taking the throne had been realized. A show trial was organized, in a strictly private, “closed court” session in which Ton That Thuyet charged his Emperor with all sorts of ridiculous things such as wasting government money, failing to follow the “advice” of the regents (in other words he refused to be ruled by them) and most seriously of plotting with the “foreign devils” by signing the Harmond Treaty with France. Naturally, no consideration was given to the fact that the Emperor had been almost literally forced at gunpoint to sign the treaty, neither was any consideration given to the fact that Vietnam would have faced certain destruction and defeat and the overthrow of the Nguyen Dynasty if they had refused to ‘play ball’ with France. But it was never meant to be a fair trial anyway and the result was a forgone conclusion. Regicide was not unknown but it was still considered an ugly business and best avoided but it effectively came to the same thing as Emperor Hiep Hoa was forced to commit suicide by taking poison. He was essentially given the option of taking the honorable way out rather than being executed. So it was that Emperor Hiep Hoa died on November 29, 1883 and afterwards all those who had been loyal to the Emperor were likewise murdered by Ton That Thuyet and Nguyen Van Tuong. When their fellow regent Tran Tien Thanh protested against such cruel and repressive measures the other two regents had him assassinated as well and the crisis in Vietnam continued.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Kien Phuc of Viet Nam

Prince Nguyen Cian Tong, Nguyen-Phuc U’ng Dang, was born on February 12, 1869 to Prince Nguyen-Phuc Hong Cai, Duke of Kien and the 26th child of Emperor Thieu Tri. At a young age he was adopted by his uncle Emperor Tu Duc (who was sterile and concerned about the succession) along with two other nephews, the future Emperors Nguyen Duc Duc and Dong Khanh. It was toward the end of the reign of Tu Duc that France was ceded control of Cochinchina (very southern Vietnam) and in the subsequent reign of Emperor Hiep Hoa a protectorate treaty was imposed on Annam (central Vietnam) of which the Emperor was supposed to remain in control of. The three powerful regents, Tran Tien Thanh, Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet, who had dominated the government since the death of Tu Duc, greatly opposed this (whether out of nationalistic fervor or worry over their own power remains debated) and, suffice it to say, Hiep Hoa soon turned up dead, followed not long after by the regent Tran Tien Thanh who thought his two companions had gone too far. All of this was timed so that the French Resident Superior in the Imperial City of Hue, Louis Eugene Palasne de Champeaux, was not present at the time.

Worried what would happen when the French learned that Hiep Hoa was dead, the regents hurriedly acted to choose a successor and the choice fell on the fifteen-year-old Prince-Phuc U’ng Dang. At a hastily organized ceremony on December 1, 1883 at five o’clock in the morning the teenager was enthroned as Emperor Kien Phuc of the Great South. Of course, when Resident Superior Champeaux returned to the capital he was outraged at what had happened and demanded an explanation for why a new monarch had been placed on the throne without France being consulted. He claimed that the Harmond Treaty that Hiep Hoa had signed required that new monarchs meet with French approval. He probably suspected what the real story was and was looking for any legal means to object because the Harmond Treaty was a pretty flimsy excuse since it granted France no rights or role at all in matters of the imperial succession. However, the regents responded with an even flimsier defense by claiming that since it was Hiep Hoa who had signed the treaty, and since he was now dead, the treaty was no longer valid.

Entrance to the tomb of Kien Phuc

Emperor Kien Phuc was in a precarious situation because of all of this as the French were not about to discount every agreement just because the last monarch had been murdered. Champeaux put French troops on the alert and sabers began to rattle, which seemed to have the intended effect. The same regents who had turned on the previous emperor for coming to an agreement with the French suddenly and quickly backed down from the threat of trouble and tried to smooth things over. They formally submitted a request to the French government that they recognize and approve of Emperor Kien Phuc, which they did. In general, as far as France was concerned, the new Emperor was a nonentity, too young and soon too ill to assert himself. It was Ton That Thuyet and Nguyen Van Tuong who, with their own circle of supporters, were really in control and they were rapidly becoming objects of distrust by the Imperial Family as much as the French.

During his short reign, Emperor Kien Phuc showed a great deal of potential and many Vietnamese historians have looked back at him as one of the great “might-have-been” cases in Nguyen Dynasty history. The scholars at court remarked on his great potential to be an effective and moral emperor, praising his upstanding character and later generations would surmise that he could have been a great, even legendary emperor were it not for the disadvantages of poor health and his domination by the corrupt regents Tuong and Thuyet. They remained in control even though, once Kien Phuc became emperor, the regent was supposed to be Prince Gia-Hung. During his time, Emperor Kien Phuc put his seal to a new treaty with the French (who were trying to remove all ambiguity after the earlier scare) which recognized Annam (central Vietnam) and Tonkin (north Vietnam) as protectorates of France.

What brought about his downfall remains somewhat disputed but the usual story involves Emperor Kien Phuc becoming a liability to the ruling clique represented by his adopted mother, Hoc Phi, who was the third wife of Emperor Tu Duc and who was having an illicit affair with the regent Nguyen Van Tuong. Later, some would even suspect that the queen and the regents were somehow intentionally keeping the young monarch weak and ill and there seems little doubt that he was chosen specifically as a figure who could be easily dominated. The matter came to a head when the morally upright monarch walked in on his adopted mother and Tuong in flagrante delicto in the palace one night. Outraged, he imprudently shouted at the two, “When I get well, I will chop off your heads down to the third generation”. Obviously, the regents were not going to allow the Emperor a chance to make good on his threat. So, as the story goes, Queen Hoc Phi put poison in the Emperor’s medicine soon afterward and after becoming violently ill the unfortunate Emperor Kien Phuc died on August 1, 1884.

This provoked outrage, both among the French and the Nguyen Dynasty. The head of the imperial family council, Prince Gia-Hung, began a secret investigation into the death of the emperor the following year but when Ton That Thuyet found out about this the prince was promptly exiled and thereafter mysteriously disappeared. All of these events convinced the French authorities that Tuong and Thuyet had to go and took action to remove them from power. They ensured, of course, that their authorities passed to the colonial authorities rather than to the next emperor but at least the era of royal assassinations was over. The ensuing struggle saw the outbreak of the Mandarins Revolt, the elevation of a more Franco-friendly monarch. The infamous “Year of the Three Kings” had passed but it would still be some time before Vietnam would again enjoy peace and tranquility.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Ham Nghi of Vietnam

The story of the eighth Vietnamese emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty is a real “rags to riches” story. 1883 had been the “Year of Three Kings” in Vietnam in which a group of powerful mandarins, feuding with each other and the rising power of the French in Vietnam had raised up and torn down three monarchs in succession after the death of the long-reigning Emperor Tu Duc. All of this confusion and turmoil allowed the French to gain a firmer foothold and following the death of Emperor Kien Phuc (who was probably assassinated) the French thought that a younger candidate for the throne would be in their best interest and so officials were dispatched to find the younger brother of Kien Phuc; Nguyen-Phuc Ung Lich. He had been born on July 22, 1872 in the Forbidden City in Hue, but there had never been any thought of him becoming emperor. His mother was a commoner and he lived, as a child, with her in relative poverty in the suburbs around Hue.

When officials from the palace came and took the child in 1884 his mother was frantic, thinking he would be killed. Of course, he was not, and they washed him up, dressed him in yellow silk robes and enthroned him as the Emperor of Vietnam, the Son of Heaven. Despite his lack of a traditional education as princes normally were given the new boy-Emperor Ham Nghi was noted for his intelligence. Although he was too young to know everything that was going on he quickly came to understand that it was the French who were the new, real powers in the country. This was reinforced by certain officials around him, particularly the old regents Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet who were anxious to destroy the French presence to restore their own power. All this time they were secretly planning an uprising, fortifying a remote mountain stronghold to be their base and planning an attack on the French headquarters in Hue. They brought artillery into the Forbidden City and aimed their guns at the French garrison.

In reaction to this, the French stepped up their military patrols and kept an ever closer eye on the court officials and the young emperor which only increased his discontent at their presence. Finally, on the night of July 4, 1885 the regents launched their attack, which failed, but they broke into the imperial apartments, grabbed the little emperor and as many members of the family as they could and fled the Forbidden City to escape French retaliation. Not far from Hue most members of the family decided to go back to Hue and make their peace with the French, fearing that the rebels would not win and that the regents were not really fighting for the dynasty but for their own power. The regents issued their famous “Can Vuong” or “Save the King” decree, calling on the people to rise up against the French and rally to their young monarch in a war against the foreign presence in the country. Little Emperor Ham Nghi endorsed this but he really had very little to do with it, having been taken by force, but he was the figurehead for this massive revolt.

Back in Hue, with most of the Nguyen Dynasty around them, the French invoked the ancient law that Vietnam could not be one day without a king and they enthroned another prince as Emperor Dong Khanh. In his name a war was launched against the rebels under the nominal leadership of the rival Emperor Ham Nghi. Operating out of a base in the mountainous jungles near the Laos border the revolt became a guerilla war against the French colonial presence and, sadly in many cases, also a war against any foreign presence at all with many missionaries and Vietnamese Christians being killed. Some who fought in the name of Emperor Ham Nghi were simply vicious bandits but others, like the mandarin Phan Dinh Phung, were very upright, patriotic and loyal men who commanded very disciplined and well organized military forces. Ultimately, however, they were no match for the Vietnamese loyal to Emperor Dong Khanh and the superior military forces of France.

With the war going badly the young emperor was abandoned by the regents and had only Ton That Thiep (son of Ton That Thuyet) and a few servants in a small house near the Nai River with some Muong guards. One of these betrayed him to the French and he was captured and turned over to the colonial authorities on November 2, 1888 after many years of conflict. He refused to betray any of those who had fought for him and some wanted him killed, but, the French reasoned that this might cause further violence and he might prove useful in the future. So, the former Emperor Ham Nghi was exiled to Algeria on December 12, 1888 and he spent most of the rest of his life there. On November 4, 1904 he married a French lady named Marcelle Laloe by whom he had three children; Prince Minh Duc, Princess Nhu May and Princess Nhu Ly. Later, when the officials of another boy-emperor tried to launch a rebellion against the French in World War I there was some talk of restoring Ham Nghi to the throne, but nothing came of it. He died on January 14, 1943 and was buried in France. In 2000 Vietnamese Communist officials approached the last surviving daughter about moving his remains back to Vietnam but permission was evidently refused.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Bao Dai of Vietnam

The last Emperor of Vietnam was born Prince Nguyen-Phuc Vinh Thuy on October 22, 1913 to the soon-to-be Emperor Khai Dinh, a man who was brought to the throne after an attempted royal coup by his predecessor. Khai Dinh pursued a policy of peaceful cooperation with the French colonial authorities and his young son had hopes placed in him, in Indochina and Europe, to be the future ideal monarch who would embody the best of Franco-Vietnamese partnership. At the age of 9, after a traditional education in the palace, he was sent to France to attend school and learn according to modern, western standards. In 1926 his father died and the teenage royal was hurriedly shipped back to Vietnam for his formal enthronement as emperor, taking the name Bao Dai meaning “keeper of greatness”. Once done he promptly returned to France to finish his education.

He stayed away longer than was required though the French authorities and the young monarch himself were in agreement on the issue. The conservative mandarins at court were not and worried that their “Son of Heaven” was being corrupted by western influences. While in France Bao Dai picked up a love for western sports, fast cars, gambling and French girls. When he did return to take up his royal duties he quickly annoyed the traditionalist mandarins and consorts by declaring the start of a new era of reform. He abolished kowtowing, wore western clothes most of the time and announced that rather than keep a harem he would have only one wife to cut down on the intrigues and power struggles that had originated in that area in the past. He also carried out what some termed a coup, getting rid of the ‘old guard’ at court and bringing in a new cabinet of modern-minded nationalists.

However, his effort at reform and modernization, first welcomed by the French, was soon frustrated by them. He found that he was to be given no real authority to govern his country as he saw fit and, denied power, many of his new government resigned in disgust; notably the pro-independence Catholic mandarin Ngo Dinh Diem. Disheartened by this, Emperor Bao Dai devoted his time to hunting trips, parties and enjoying himself, living, he said, like an exile in his own country. He also married the beautiful and devoutly Catholic daughter of a southern family; Empress Nam Phuong. The marriage was somewhat problematic due to the religious differences and was not always happy as it soon became clear that while the Emperor might restrict himself to having only one wife that did not mean he had adopted a truly monogamous life. Still, he secured the succession by having 2 sons and 3 daughters by his wife.

During World War II the French government in Vichy granted Japan permission to occupy Vietnam without so much as informing Emperor Bao Dai. Returning to the Forbidden City to find Japanese soldiers on guard he was faced with an accomplished fact and to remain on his throne required a level of cooperation with the Japanese. In 1945 the Japanese carried out a coup against the French colonial forces and at their urging Emperor Bao Dai formally repudiated all past treaties with France and declared the independence of the Empire of Vietnam as part of Japan’s “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. Yet, the Rising Sun of Japan was rapidly setting by that time and after only a few months a communist organized revolution had broken out in the north in August. The communist leader Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi, easily sweeping aside adherents of the recently established Empire of Vietnam which still existed almost exclusively on paper.

Emperor Bao Dai warned the French that the colonial era was over and their rule would never be restored and he desperately tried to obtain foreign recognition for his struggling monarchy but none was forthcoming. The fact that the communists were the only major force to oppose the Japanese gave them considerable prestige with the Allies and Bao Dai was assured that his association with the Japanese had made him ‘untouchable’. After the reds had effectively taken over all of north and central Vietnam anyway an ultimatum was delivered to Bao Dai calling upon him to abdicate. Remembering his French education he had no desire to end up like King Louis XVI and knew any opposition to the revolution would be futile. His own imperial guards had stood silently while communists tore down the yellow dragon flag and raised the red banner in its place right in front of the Forbidden City. Bao Dai quickly arranged a formal ceremony, donned his imperial robes and solemnly handed over his sword and seal to the representatives of the new government. In the eyes of many this occasion marked the passing of the Mandate of Heaven from the Nguyen dynasty to the regime of Ho Chi Minh.

At first Bao Dai, then officially known as “Citizen Vinh Thuy” went to Hanoi to serve as an advisor to the new regime which at that stage still claimed to be nationalist but which was communist dominated. Although Ho was very respectful the former Emperor soon saw what was really going on and left the country, going into exile in Hong Kong. Around this same time the French began trying to reestablish their colonial rule in Indochina, not recognizing either of the “independent” governments that had been proclaimed since their overthrow by the Japanese. The French had dealt with uprisings before and were, at first, not too concerned. However, they soon realized they were going to have a major war on their hands if they were going to reestablish colonial rule or even any sphere of influence in Indochina. The world (dominated by the USA and USSR after World War II) had turned against the idea of colonial empires and France needed someone they could trust to lead an opposition government against the communist regime of Ho Chi Minh.

The former Emperor Bao Dai was the logical choice. Although distrusted by many he did have close ties to France, was supported by monarchists and regardless of his abdication at least had some status of legitimacy. Thus in 1949 he was installed (not officially restored as emperor) as the “Chief of State” of the State of Vietnam based out of Saigon. However, total independence, often promised, was not completely delivered and the former emperor was soon back in the south of France leaving affairs of state in the hands of the French and his ministers. The communist regime denounced him as a traitor and even sentenced him to death in absentia. The U.S. was bankrolling the French war effort against the communist VietMinh and despite sending $4 million a year to Bao Dai himself never fully supported his regime or held out much hope for its success. The primary U.S. agent in South Vietnam, OSS (later CIA) Colonel Edward Lansdale had no use for the former emperor and was eager to see Ngo Dinh Diem in charge of Vietnam.

As the French war came to a close Bao Dai was forced to name Diem prime minister in the hope that this would ensure continued U.S. support for South Vietnam. Diem had long monarchist and nationalist credentials but despite his pledges of loyalty soon came into conflict with the Chief of State. The austere Catholic Diem was as far from Bao Dai in character as two men could be and the pair were often referred to as the ‘monk and the playboy’. Aside from his rather indulgent lifestyle Diem disapproved of the rather loose governing style of the former emperor who based his power on a coalition of autonomous local powers allowing groups like the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects, the Binh Xuyen in Cholon and others to manage their own affairs so long as they fought the communists and paid tribute to the former emperor. When Diem tried to crack down on these groups and centralize power the appeals went out to Bao Dai in France who attempted to recall Diem.

Knowing he would be dismissed, in 1955 Diem (on the advice of Lansdale) arranged a referendum that would put the choice to the public: retain the former emperor or make Diem president of a new Republic of Vietnam. With his own men in charge of the polling places and Bao Dai unable to campaign on his own behalf there was to be no doubt about the outcome of the “vote”. Bao Dai protested but could do more and when a ridiculously large majority came back in favor of Diem he resigned once again and formally ended, for good this time, his political role in Vietnam. His former wife, the beloved Empress Nam Phuong, having died Bao Dai married again in 1972 to a French girl, Monique Baudot, converted to Catholicism and settled down to a quiet life in exile. He tested the waters of the expatriate community once or twice over the succeeding years but found little support for the monarchy since every regime since agreed on vilifying the Nguyen and the emperor himself even if they agreed on absolutely nothing else. He died in Paris in 1997 passing his legacy on to his eldest son the Prince Imperiale Bao Long.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Dong Khanh of Vietnam

Prince Nguyen Canh Tong was born on February 19, 1864 the son of Prince Nguyen-Phuc Hong Cai. His uncle, the Emperor Tu Duc, was the longest-reigning emperor of the Nguyen dynasty and was known for his numerous beautiful wives and concubines. However, a bout with smallpox as a child had left Tu Duc sterile and so he adopted three nephews to secure the succession, the eldest of which was Nguyen Canh Tong whom he elevated to the rank of Duke of Kien Giang. It is still debated by Vietnamese historians which nephew Tu Duc intended to be his immediate successor but in the tumultuous year of 1883 one crisis after another following the death of Tu Duc made it become known as the “Year of the 3 Kings” as Nguyen Duc Duc, Emperor Hiep Hoa, Emperor Kien Phuc and Emperor Ham Nghi all gained the throne and lost it.

On July 4, 1885 an anti-French uprising was launched by the regents of Vietnam and the reigning boy-Emperor Ham Nghi fled (or was kidnapped) to be the figurehead of their movement. Citing Vietnamese law that the country could not be one day without a king the French, with the support of most of the royal family, enthroned Nguyen Canh Tong as Emperor Dong Khanh. This was a difficult and delicate time for the Nguyen dynasty as Emperor Dong Khanh knew that it was only because of the French that he had achieved the throne. As a result, he determined from the start to be friendly and cooperative (if not always enthusiastic obviously) with the French as their destinies were bound together.

Emperor Dong Khanh dispatched loyal Vietnamese troops (under his father-in-law General Nguyen Than) to assist the French in suppressing the anti-French uprising known as the Mandarins Revolt. Since the rebellion was aimed at foreigners the Christian community was often singled out for persecution, perhaps even more so after Emperor Dong Khanh issued an edict of religious toleration for the first time since the reign of the first Nguyen Emperor Gia Long. It was an attack by rebel forces on the Catholic Church at Tra Kieu which led to the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose miraculous intercession ensured a victory for the forces of Emperor Dong Khanh. To this day the second most enduring Christian icon in Vietnam is Our Lady of Tra Kieu.

The French did give Dong Khanh some concessions for his cooperation, but in reality the changes were merely administrative rather than a real change in sovereignty. Whereas the French praised Emperor Dong Khanh very highly for his friendly attitude he was less popular with his own people as a result. He undertook a tour of north-central Vietnam at the behest of the French to promote Franco-Vietnamese cooperation but was met with such hostility that he was forced to call it off and return to the Forbidden City in an armed fleet of junks. It was also during this time that the French Union of Indochina was formally established, creating one colonial entity of Laos, Cambodia and the three areas formerly known as Vietnam; Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina. The rebel forces were finally defeated but Emperor Dong Khanh (in whose name the often brutal suppression was carried out -increasingly his unpopularity) did not live to see it.

Emperor Dong Khanh, long troubled by illness and dependence on medication, died on January 28, 1889. His relatively short reign being taken by many as a sign of divine disfavor. For France at least he had been the ideal colonial monarch in the grand, worldwide French imperial system. He had carried out his moral and spiritual duties as Vietnamese emperor and the Son of Heaven while maintaining a policy of peace and friendship with the French who handled all major political decisions. They were troubled though by the fact that half of his eight children died very young and that the Emperor, before his life was cut short, suffered from various illnesses and hallucinations. Because of this, they were reluctant to allow his son and heir to succeed him on the throne. They decided to go in a different direction but would eventually come to regret the move. In time though his son would come to the Golden Dragon Throne as would his grandson who would go down in history as the last Emperor of Vietnam. Even after the era of the republic the line of Emperor Dong Khanh continued for a time as it was his great-granddaughter who would become famous as Madame Nhu, the “Dragon Lady” of South Vietnam.