When the Soaring Dragon Fell from the Sky

The year 1945 was an eventful one for the lands of French Indochina part of which was previously known as Vietnam. Within a matter of only a few months, Vietnam would experience a shift from French colony to nominally independent empire to a revolutionary republic and the end of an imperial dynasty which had ruled over all of Vietnam since 1802 and over the southern half of the country for far longer still. 1945 was the year that everything changed for Vietnam and then changed again, to the point that once these changes began, they seemed unable to stop. The unprecedented became standard procedure in a country which had, even in the colonial era, had much the same form of government for almost countless centuries.

French Indochina

At the beginning of the year, the three regions of Vietnam were still under effective French colonial rule but with the additional presence of the occupying forces of the Empire of Japan and under the direction of the French regime in Vichy. The system had not changed but changes there were nonetheless. The Japanese, for example, took great pleasure in emphasizing that, while the French colonial authorities remained, it was only because Japan allowed them to. They gave subtle encouragement to anti-French and generally anti-western sentiment and the Vietnamese began to pepper their speech with Japanese words and phrases rather than French ones and those who were already disposed to be anti-French took great pleasure in seeing the European population humiliated in numerous minor ways by the Japanese. For the Vietnamese monarchists who remained friendly with France, they were much happier with the state of affairs which prevailed after the establishment of the “State of France” based out of Vichy.

Maurras

The values of the French Republic had always been at odds with those of traditional Vietnam and its Confucian monarchy. Vichy France, however, was much more compatible and the French royalist author Charles Maurras became a popular figure in colonial Vietnam during this period. They emphasized the shared values of folk nationalism, sacred kingship and the centrality of the family which they both shared. The Vietnamese monarchists also hoped that, with this new French regime, the treaties which established the Franco-Vietnamese relationship, which were not that bad or unfair as written, would be more scrupulously adhered to by Vichy than they had previously been by Paris. It had always, previously, been a poisonous double-standard for the French in Vietnam who taught the Vietnamese in their schools about democracy, egalitarianism and brotherhood only to then expect these students to bow to their traditional monarch, respect their mandarins and accept a second-class status to the French themselves. Now, for a change, it seemed possible for the French and Vietnamese establishments to be more perfectly aligned in their outlook.

Unfortunately, this was an all-too fleeting state of affairs as the 1944 Allied invasion of France quickly resulted in the downfall of the Vichy regime and the Japanese no longer had any reason to tolerate the French presence in Indochina. Likewise, with the war situation going so bad for Japan, Tokyo was desperate to enlist more pan-Asian support for their war effort and the standard strategy for this was portraying the war not as “Axis vs. Allies” but as a racial war of Asians vs. Caucasians, an anti-colonial struggle to eradicate the forces of western civilization in East Asia. In 1945 Japan was well into their existing plan to supplant the French in Indochina and encourage the nations under French rule to rise up and fight alongside Japan or, as was more actually the case, to support and sacrifice for the Japanese war effort against the western powers. The Japanese had a pretender to the Vietnamese throne, an anti-French prince who had long resided in Japan, ready to go if he was needed but they preferred to work with the existing authorities if that was possible so as to avoid unnecessary infighting.

Imperial Japanese Army in Saigon

A key, though often overlooked figure in this transition, was Jean-Marie Yokoyama. A Japanese subject whose mother was French and who had himself married a French woman and who was Catholic. He worked in the Japanese consulate in Hanoi before being moved to Hue to coordinate with the Nguyen imperial court, a task to which he was well suited thanks to his French wife, giving him connections in Saigon as well. Still, the Vietnamese Emperor, Bao Dai, was unaware that anything momentous was on the horizon and, indeed, was away on a hunting trip when the Japanese launched their anti-French coup on March 9, 1945. Being already effectively in control of the country, most French forces surrendered without a struggle but those who tried to or who refused to surrender were massacred, some in very brutal ways. Nonetheless, when Emperor Bao Dai returned to the Forbidden City he learned that the French were gone and that Japan was now in control of the situation. On March 10, Ambassador Jean-Marie Yokoyama went to the Kien Trung Palace to advise the Emperor to declare Vietnamese independence and work in collaboration with Japan as a part of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. Given the situation, there was practically no other option for the Emperor but to comply, nor, frankly, was there any good reason for him to refuse.

Flag of the Empire of Vietnam

The following day, at an official ceremony, Emperor Bao Dai declared all the treaties with France to be nullified and proclaimed the independence of the Empire of Vietnam (Ðe quôc Viêt Nam) as well as pledging his support for the Empire of Japan and the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. After failing to make contact with a royalist and nationalist mandarin named Ngo Dinh Diem (future first President of South Vietnam), the Japanese settled on Tran Trong Kim as prime minister. There was a flurry of excitement and activity, at least on a bureaucratic level, as the newly reunited Empire of Vietnam began to take shape on paper. French street names were replaced with those of Vietnamese heroes, a new government framework was drawn up and a new national flag was designed; yellow with three red stripes. The Japanese, on the grounds that they were fighting for the Vietnamese, stripped the country for the sake of their war effort, contributing to a devastating famine which greatly diminished the popularity of the new imperial government and helped boost the reputation of the communist-led Vietminh resistance movement as it broke into storehouses to distribute rice to the starving peasants.

This was the guerilla movement led by the shadowy, Marxist, revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, at the time still better known by his previous alias Nguyen Ai Quoc (‘Nguyen the Patriot’) and, because they promised to rescue downed Allied pilots and opposition to Japan, which also enjoyed the support of the American OSS, forerunner of the modern CIA. This cost them very little as there were few American pilots that needed rescuing and the Japanese were clearly about to lose the war anyway. They denounced the new regime as stooges pandering to an Asian master in place of a European one and, given that Japan had dismantled the French colonial military establishment, they had no reason to fear it. Their reach and influence spread rapidly throughout the few months that the Empire of Vietnam existed. Each passing week brought Japan closer to defeat and the nominally independent Vietnamese empire closer to total isolation and inevitable collapse.

Emperor Bao Dai

That collapse seemed imminent by July when the Allies issued their demand for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese, something no one expected to have happened if there was any doubt about an Allied victory. As such, the disintegration of the Empire of Vietnam began with many officials abandoning their posts and with the Kim government becoming increasingly unable to find anyone willing to accept any position within the regime. The Vietminh became increasingly brazen with mass public gatherings often punctuated by the raising of the Vietminh flag, red with a single yellow star in the center. By the first week of August, revolution was breaking out in the north and the empire was rapidly coming apart. Tran Trong Kim was no longer able to lead an effective government and Emperor Bao Dai found no one willing to serve in a new one. That was August 7 and on August 8 the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria, ending the last, and extremely naïve, Japanese hope for a Soviet-mediated negotiated peace. When, on August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, it became clear to all that Japan was finished and the Empire of Vietnam was doomed.

Japanese surrender in Saigon

Ton Quang Phiet, a prominent official of the Vietminh, immediately began pressing the Emperor’s secretary, Pham Khac Hoe, to advise Bao Dai to abdicate in favor of Ho Chi Minh, someone the Emperor had never heard of though they did ultimately determine that this was the same man who had previously been known as Nguyen Ai Quoc. By the following week, the Emperor’s newly appointed representative to the south, Nguyen Van Sam, was delayed in taking up his post in Saigon as the Vietminh launched a general uprising throughout the country upon word that the Empire of Japan had surrendered. This caused another division in the country which was already being partitioned, in a way, by the Allied plan to have the Chinese take the surrender of Japanese forces in the north and British imperial troops to take those in the south. The Japanese were split over what to do in the meantime and the division was based on the conflicting political narratives of what Japan had been fighting for. Some, who held to traditional authority, opposed communism and wished to remain loyal to the regime they had previously supported, wanted to shore up the Empire of Vietnam as best they could, some making a token effort to free imperial officials who had been arrested by the Vietminh. Others, however, who saw the war as a racial struggle, liberated Vietminh sympathizers, turned their weapons over to them and even joined their ranks. Most did not find any welcome but, all the same, several hundred Japanese stayed behind to fight alongside the Vietminh in the upcoming war to expel the French.

The King's Knight

On August 17 it became clear who held control of the situation when a political demonstration of Empire of Vietnam bureaucrats, celebrating the unity and independence of Vietnam, was co-opted by the Vietminh. In Hue, even within the Holy Citadel and Forbidden City, people started to abandon their posts. Soldiers of the Imperial Guard looked on while young revolutionaries pulled the imperial standard down from the “King’s Knight”, the large flag pole across from the Ngo Mon Gate, replacing it with the red flag. The tutor to the little Prince Imperiale Bao Long suggested to Emperor Bao Dai that he go to the imperial tombs and rally loyalists there but, remembering his history as a schoolboy in France, Bao Dai refused, recalling what fate had befallen the French Royal Family after they tried to flee from the Revolution. On August 22, the Japanese colonel commanding the (now surrendered) garrison offered to deploy his forces to defend the Holy Citadel but, again, Emperor Bao Dai refused, knowing what fate would surely befall him if the Japanese began shooting down Vietnamese people on his behalf.

More demands came in from various revolutionary groups and committees demanding the Emperor’s abdication and on August 23, at the last cabinet meeting the Emperor would preside over, it was decided that Bao Dai would abdicate, handing power over to the Vietminh in exchange for a guarantee that the lives and property of the Nguyen Dynasty would be respected. The Emperor also wanted an orderly transfer of power with a formal ceremony to mark the occasion and for the imperial flag to fly one last time. When Phan Khac Hoe returned with word that the Vietminh accepted this arrangement, he found the palace resembling an odd sort of temple, echoing with the Buddhist prayers of the Dowager Empress-Mother and her attendants and the Catholic prayers of the Empress Nam Phuong and her attendants. The same day the end of the imperial system was announced at a huge gathering in the local sports stadium. By the following day, perhaps because there was no longer an immediate threat of violent mobs storming the “Great Within”, Emperor Bao Dai began to have second thoughts and many members of his family urged him to cancel the agreement but, neither the Emperor nor any of those who objected, could come up with a viable alternate plan.

A Vietminh demonstration in 1945

Emperor Bao Dai wrote out his formal edict of abdication in which he criticized his own shortcomings, urged unity and support for the new regime, asking only in return that the new government care for the tombs and temples of the Nguyen Dynasty. The edict was posted and many people were moved by it, so much so in fact that the Vietminh authorities warned the court against any further utterances which might arouse loyalist sympathy among the people. This was important as many of the leaders of the Vietminh, all of whom were members of the Indochinese Communist Party, had been just as displeased by the imperial edict. They wanted Bao Dai to denounce his imperial ancestors and the monarchy in general while also wanting to ignore him completely on the grounds that they recognized him as nothing more than a front-man for first the French and then the Japanese, possessing no real power to hand over to them. The public reaction, particularly in the area around Hue and central Vietnam, showed the communists that many remained loyal to the dynasty and the traditional beliefs it embodied which persuaded them that it was better to go along with the imperial court so long as they were surrendering and not risk causing unnecessary problems.

Tran Huy Lieu, Deputy Chairman of the National Liberation Committee, was sent down from Hanoi to Hue to accept the abdication of the Emperor in a formal ceremony. He left early on August 27 but did not arrive in Hue until August 29, stopping frequently along the way to give speeches to assembled crowds of locals, though some clearly did not understand the scale of the changes taking place, speaking of a “new dynasty” or asking who exactly was going to be the new emperor. When he did arrive, Lieu informed the court that the government intended to care for the dynastic tombs and temples but that the Imperial Family would have to vacate the palace, keeping only their personal effects, as all property would be confiscated by the revolutionary government. He did agree to raise the imperial flag one last time prior to lowering it forever and the imperial court allowed their cortege to pass through the central gate to the Holy Citadel, an honor traditionally reserved only for the Emperor, the French Governor-General and the representative of the Emperor of China previously.

Bao Dai in traditional regalia

On August 30, 1945 crowds gathered before the Holy Citadel, the “Yellow Imperial City” to watch the historical hand-over. Lieu and his party arrived, drove just inside and were greeted by Prince Nguyen Vinh Can, the Emperor’s cousin, and Phan Khac Hoe. They climbed the steps to the top of the Ngo Mon Gate where Emperor Bao Dai waited for them, wearing his traditional robes for the last time. Tran Huy Lieu, using loud speakers, addressed the crowd first, informing them that Ho Chi Minh would be reading out their declaration of independence in Hanoi in three days (a declaration which was almost a verbatim copy of the American declaration of independence). At that, Emperor Bao Dai, in his most solemn and ceremonial tone, read out his message of abdication. The crowd was uproarious but even many of those who cheered admitted to mixed feelings at the scene. For the ordinary Vietnamese people, it was the first time they had ever heard the Emperor speak and it was to bring thousands of years of imperial tradition to an end. The imperial dragon flag was lowered from the “King’s Knight” and once again replaced by the red flag of the Vietminh. The Emperor then handed over the imperial sword and seal, emblems of the authority of the Nguyen Dynasty, which Lieu held up to be seen by the crowd in a rather triumphal display.

That simple ceremony marked the end of the traditional monarchy in Vietnam. In the aftermath, Emperor Bao Dai, from that point known as “Citizen Vinh Thuy” received a message inviting him to Hanoi to serve as “Supreme Councilor” to the new government, an offer he was advised not to refuse, particularly considering the uncertainty that still remained regarding the dynasty. He and his family would be leaving but what would become of the Dowager Empress and the other wives of the previous monarch, Emperor Khai Dinh, who wished to remain in the “Great Within” which was their only home? There was even a wife of the Emperor’s grandfather, Emperor Dong Khanh, still living there. Their fate was still uncertain and they were entirely at the mercy of the new regime. Emperor Bao Dai, for his part, would go to Hanoi and take up his post with the new government but learned very quickly that it was an empty position and that the supposedly nationalist coalition of the Vietminh was nothing more than a front for the Communist Party. At the first available opportunity, a diplomatic mission to China, he would abandon the regime and take up residence in Hong Kong where he would remain until being restored as “Chief of State” by the French.

Communist display of the event

That restoration was not, however, a restoration of what had previously been the “Great South”. While it was effectively a monarchy in all but name, the “State of Vietnam” was certainly not the traditional monarchy which had always existed previously. That had ended in 1945 and it was to the detriment of Vietnam as well as countries far across the world that the Empire of Vietnam had not been maintained and supported. Not only was an ancient cultural, political and spiritual tradition lost but it would lead to partition, ideological conflict, republican infighting and horrific wars which would engulf Indochina for decades to come. Truly, everything had changed in Vietnam during 1945 and, ultimately, none of these changes were for the better.

An Overview of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam

The Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam has probably suffered from more unjust bad press than any other in the thousands of years of Vietnamese history. Part of this is because it was the last imperial dynasty, the most recent and thus the most intensely studied (though still nowhere near as much as it should be) and thus with greater coverage comes greater amounts of opinions and judgments, including negative and unfair ones. However, I have no doubt the biggest reason for the excessive and undue criticism of the Nguyen reign is simply because it was the last imperial dynasty and what came after it was a totally foreign system of government, based on a totally foreign ideology and, as in any such situation, those who usurped power from the Nguyen emperors had to make them look as bad as possible in order to justify their own treason and radical transformation of the “Land of the Soaring Dragon”. The last major force to stand by the Nguyen was the French but that was both a blessing and a curse as the Nguyen reign largely coincided with the period of French colonial rule and has, to date, remained tainted by it, whether rightly or wrongly.

Personally, I have a great deal of sympathy for the Nguyen Dynasty and not just because they were the last incarnation of traditional monarchy in Vietnam but because I have seen and known and talked to people on just about every side of the issue when the monarchy came down and Vietnam came apart. The Nguyen emperors, despite what their detractors say, were never negligent. One can look back with the benefit of hindsight and say they made mistakes but in every case one can see very easily, if one cares to, why they acted the way they did. The fact is that they were faced with a succession of insoluble problems that were unprecedented in the very long history of the Vietnamese nation. Once they became, not by choice, entwined with the French, it is also quite clear that the French made some serious errors in their approach to Vietnam. Yet, a careful study of those involved will show that many in the French colonial leadership were themselves acting in the way they thought best and were truly mystified by the increasing opposition to their presence in Vietnam.

Having looked at all twelve (or thirteen depending on how one chooses to number them) emperors of the Nguyen dynasty, I hope it will be easier to see that the negative interpretation given to their reign is a largely unfair one. The Nguyen era was one of great color, drama, heroism and tragedy with the Vietnamese emperors increasingly without exception being forced to choose between a selection of bad options. Starting with Emperor Gia Long, we see a prince who endured incredible hardships, who showed extreme tenacity and who rose, like a phoenix from the ashes, to reunite his country and establish a powerful empire. Today, he is often criticized for not modernizing and strengthening his country in preparation for the arrival of the French. However, he had spent his entire life fighting and was finally victorious and he decided, not unreasonably, that his country needed stability, a return to traditional values and an emphasis on infrastructure rather than a powerful military. Even with this emphasis, given the amount of peasant unrest that occurred, it would seem hard for any reasonable observer to find much fault in his priorities.

Under Emperor Minh Mang, Vietnam, or “The Great South”, reached a high point in its long history, yet he as well as his successors Thieu Tri and Tu Duc have had their reigns tainted by the persecution of Christians. There were some horrific acts of persecution to be sure, however, the Nguyen emperors were not the bloodthirsty beasts they were often portrayed as. They didn’t really want to kill Christians, they simply wanted to frighten them into leaving their country, fearing, and not unjustly so, that the colonizers would come after the missionaries. The Nguyen emperors also knew the situation was dangerous and were not ignorant of world affairs which is why they tried to time crackdowns to coincide with events in Europe that, they hoped, would ensure the French were too involved elsewhere to move against them. Ultimately, as we know, this did not work and the French armies arrived.

At that point, under Emperor Tu Duc, the Vietnamese fought back fiercely and rightly so. The Christians in Vietnam had, all too often, strayed for spiritual matters into the political sphere and attached themselves to rebel groups or rivals for the throne. They should not have done this and to my mind have little room to complain when they were then treated as enemies by the imperial court. However, it was the native anti-Nguyen dynasty forces which really doomed independent Vietnam and they should be held to blame more than Tu Duc and his immediate successors. The Nguyen imperial armies were doing quite well against the French who had no experience fighting in Southeast Asia and were dropping like flies from disease and heat exhaustion in the sweltering country. However, a native rebellion which aimed to take down the dynasty then rose up and the emperor could not effectively combat both. He recognized that while the French were demanding certain concessions and favorable treatment and so on, they were not threatening to tear down the dynasty as the rebels were. Like any good Confucian, upholding filial piety, Tu Duc came to terms with the French and turned his army on the rebels to preserve his dynasty.

A period of chaos ensued caused by Tu Duc having no sons of his own and by the French pressing for greater control over more and more of the country. Vietnam had three emperors in one year, 1883, two of which were murdered and one forced to commit suicide. The French, of course, took full advantage of this confusion to strengthen their own position and were able to pose as the guardians of the emperors against the scheming mandarins who were trying to usurp or murder them. In the years that followed, some emperors opposed the French (Ham Nghi, Thanh Thai, Duy Tan) and all ended up exiled while others cooperated, albeit always more grudgingly than is generally known (Dong Khanh, Khai Dinh) and were able to retain their position. Personally, I can sympathize with both positions. On the one hand, the French were overreaching and many educated Vietnamese who appreciated the advancements France brought to their country still pressed for them to simply adhere to the protectorate treaty they had agreed to and to stop violating it. It is understandable that the Vietnamese would want to fight to restore their independence. However, they could never win and I can also understand those who cooperated with the French, who recognized that resistance would see them destroyed and that taking the time to strengthen the monarchy and use more subtle methods with the French to obtain similar goals was the wiser policy.

Looking particularly at the period of the last two Nguyen emperors, Khai Dinh and Bao Dai, both of whom were as cooperative as possible with the French, we can see that the French should have been more faithful to the protectorate treaty and stopped taking power in local government at the expense of the emperor. They assumed that the deference showed him and the sacrosanct nature of his spiritual position was sufficient to maintain his lofty place with the public. This was not so and the French had a hard time dealing with this, some sincerely wondering why the emperors were so unpopular with certain segments of society, it never even occurring to them that *they* were the reason and that monarchs who were most agreeable to the French were often the most ridiculed by the unhappy public.

When the traditional monarchy came to an end, in the last year of World War II, the dynasty was again placed in an impossible position. Starting out under the control of the French, they were then offered independence under the control of the Japanese. Realistically, there was nothing the emperor could do but go along with this and take the opportunity that presented itself. The brief months of the Japanese-sponsored Empire of Vietnam, offered immense promise if only it had been adhered to and maintained. By the time it was established, the Japanese were clearly fighting a losing battle and would soon be gone. If all had come together at that point, Vietnam could have emerged as an independent power, maintaining their existing, traditional system (which, to their credit, the French had never done away with) and avoiding the decades of fratricidal warfare that followed. However, that was not to be and, again, it was through no fault of the dynasty.

The French Republic had done themselves no favors by inculcating the educated Vietnamese with the perverse values of the Revolution. The Vietnamese could see as well as anyone that, not only did “liberty, equality and brotherhood” run contrary to their own traditional form of government but the French republicans themselves did not live up to it in their dealings with the Vietnamese. During the war years, prior to the Japanese takeover, there was a much more harmonious situation between the values espoused by Vichy France, particularly the writings of Charles Maurras, and the traditional values of Imperial Vietnam. That, however, proved short-lived. Added to this volatile situation was the American OSS, forerunner of the CIA, which showed its usual lack of foresight in arming and training the VietMinh dissidents with the intention of their fighting the Japanese. As it happened, they had little need to ever fight the Japanese who were soon withdrawn but this communist-led movement would go on to bring down the traditional monarchy in the “August Revolution” of 1945 and thereafter plague the French and later the Americans in the new form of the VietCong.

Emperor Bao Dai gave up his throne in 1945, having little to no choice given the situation but soon realized that the new republican government, led by Ho Chi Minh, was a total lie and he soon escaped from them. When the French returned, the former Emperor and the forces of France were undoubtedly on the side of the angels and though the French could have handled things better, they were undone by a lack of devotion to the struggle at home where they were undermined by pro-communist elements as well as a lack of solidarity and sufficient support from the British and Americans on the world stage. The French war in Vietnam was far more critical than the one fought later by the United States. It was that war which determined whether or not the communist clique in North Vietnam would be recognized as a legitimate government and which determined whether or not the Nguyen dynasty would continue to play a leadership role in Vietnam.

For a very realistic and dispassionate look at the opportunity that was squandered by those who refused to support the last Emperor of Vietnam, I highly recommend the book “Background to Betrayal” by Hilaire du Berrier, written by an American who does not hesitate to point out the mistakes made by his own countrymen in Indochina. When the French war did come to an end, America and Emperor Bao Dai were on the same side and both boycotted the peace agreement, rightly seeing it as nothing more than the prelude to an unopposed communist takeover of the country. The U.S.A. did not, as we know, keep faith with Vietnam, though they fought the good fight there, and after the downfall of Nixon the Democrats took control of Congress and refused to keep faith with South Vietnam altogether, abandoning the regime they themselves had first sponsored. The Emperor, the last reigning member of his dynasty, was powerless and exiled, able to do no more than urge his people to stop killing each other and come together but it was too late for that. The poison of revolutionary republicanism and western political ideologies had done their work well and few even bothered to listen to him.

All in all, the story of the last imperial dynasty in Vietnam is a tragic one more than anything else. Should the country ever come to its senses and return to its traditional ways, it would be keeping with precedent to elevate a new dynasty. However, I have a hard time imagining that because the Nguyen have been treated so unfairly. It would be my wish to see them restored, to see the narrative corrected and all those who spread the lies and slander about them to be forced to recant. That, however, is indulgent fantasizing, which I freely admit. As stated at the outset, those who maintain the “official” historical accounts of the Nguyen today are those who usurped and displaced them and so their narrative is unlikely to ever change. However, I hope people will at least be able to see that their view is tainted by self-preservation and will take a fresh look and a more dispassionate one at the last imperial dynasty of Vietnam, to whom the Vietnamese owe everything from their national dress to the very name of their country, and realize that they were, on the whole, a dynasty of patriots who did the best they could under very difficult and unprecedented conditions.

Emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty

I     Gia Long
II    Minh Mang
III   Thieu Tri
IV   Tu Duc
       Duc Duc
V    Hiep Hoa
VI   Kien Phuc
VII  Ham Nghi
VIII Dong Khanh
IX   Thanh Thai
X    Duy Tan
XI   Khai Dinh
XII  Bao Dai


"The sky is still there. 
So are the Earth and the dynasty.
We wish long life to the Emperor"

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.