Background and establishment Origin of Nguyễn clan The Nguyễn clan, which originated in the
Thanh Hóa Province had long exerted substantial political influence and military power throughout early modern
Vietnamese history through one form or another. The clan's affiliations with the ruling elites dated back to the tenth century when
Nguyễn Bặc was appointed the first grand chancellor of the short-lived
Đinh dynasty under emperor
Đinh Bộ Lĩnh in 965. Another instance of their influences materializes through
Nguyễn Thị Anh, the empress consort of emperor
Lê Thái Tông; she served as the official regent of Đại Việt for her son, the child emperor
Lê Nhân Tông between 1442 and 1453.
Lê dynasty's loyal vassal In 1527,
Mạc Đăng Dung, after defeating and executing the
Lê dynasty's vassal, Nguyễn Hoằng Dụ in a rebellion, emerged as the intermediate victor and established the
Mạc dynasty. He did this by deposing the Lê emperor,
Lê Cung Hoàng, taking the throne for himself, effectively ending the once prosperous but declining
later Lê dynasty. Nguyễn Hoằng Dụ's son,
Nguyễn Kim, the leader of the Nguyễn clan with his allies, the
Trịnh clan remained fiercely loyal to the
Lê dynasty. They attempted to restore the Lê dynasty to power, igniting an anti-Mạc rebellion, in favor of the loyalist cause. Both the Trịnh and Nguyễn clan again took up arms in
Thanh Hóa province and revolted against the Mạc. However the initial rebellion failed and the loyalist forces had to fled to the kingdom of
Lan Xang, where king
Photisarath allows them to establish an exiled loyalist government in
Xam Neua (modern day Laos). The Lê loyalists under
Lê Ninh, a descendant of the imperial family, escaped to Muang Phuan (today
Laos). During this exile, the Marquis of An Thanh,
Nguyễn Kim summoned those who were still loyal to the Lê emperor and formed a new army to begin another revolt against Mạc Đăng Dung. In 1539, the coalition returned to Đại Việt beginning their military campaign against the
Mạc in
Thanh Hóa, capturing the
Tây Đô in 1543. File:VietnamMac1540.gif|Map of Vietnam from 1540 to 1592 during
Southern and Northern Dynasties period shows the division of
Đại Việt between .
Nguyễn's dominion in the south In 1539, the Lê dynasty was restored in opposition to the Mạc in
Thăng Long, this occurred after the loyalist's capture of Thanh Hoá province, reinstalling the Lê emperor
Lê Trang Tông on the throne. However, the Mạc at this point still controls most of the country, including the capital,
Thăng Long.
Nguyễn Kim, who had served as leader of the loyalists throughout the 12 years of the
Lê–Mạc War (from 1533 to 1545) and throughout the
Northern and Southern dynasties period, was assassinated in 1545 by a captured Mạc general,
Dương Chấp Nhất. Shortly after Nguyễn Kim's death, his son-in-law,
Trịnh Kiểm, leader of the Trịnh clan, killed Nguyễn Uông, the eldest son of Kim to take over the control of the loyalist forces. The sixth son of Kim,
Nguyễn Hoàng, fears that his fate will be like his elder brother; therefore, he tried to escape the capital to avoid the purges. Later, he asks his sister, Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Bảo (the wife of Trịnh Kiểm) to ask Kiểm to appoint him to be the governor of far-south frontier of Đại Việt,
Thuận Hóa (modern Quảng Bình to Quảng Nam provinces). Trịnh Kiểm, thinking of this proposal as an opportunity to remove the power and influence of Nguyễn Hoàng away from the capital city, agreed to the proposal. In 1558,
Lê Anh Tông, emperor of the newly-restored
Lê dynasty appointed
Nguyễn Hoàng to the lordship of the
Thuận Hóa, the territory which have been previously conquered during the 15th century from the
Champa kingdom. This event of Nguyễn Hoàng leaving Thăng Long laid the foundation for the eventual fragmentation and division of Đại Việt later down the road as the
Trịnh clan would solidify their power in the
North, establishing a unique political system where the
Lê emperors would reign (as figureheads) yet the
Trịnh lords would rule (wielding actual political power). Meanwhile the descendants of the Nguyễn clan, through the bloodline of Nguyễn Hoàng would rule in the
South; the Nguyễn clan, just like their Trịnh relatives in the north, recognize the authority of the Lê emperors over Đại Việt yet at the same time solely exercise political power over their own territory. The official
schism of the two families however, would not begin until 1627, the first war between the two.
Nguyễn Phúc Lan chose the city of
Phú Xuân in 1636 as his residence and established the dominion of the Nguyễn lord in the southern part of the country. Although the Nguyễn and Trịnh lords ruled as de facto rulers in their respective lands, they paid official tribute to the Lê emperors in a ceremonial gesture, and recognize Lê dynasty as the legitimacy of
Đại Việt. File:VietnamMac1560.gif|Map of Vietnam from 1569 to 1592 shows the division of
Đại Việt between domains of when
Nguyễn Hoàng was appointed as governor of
Thuận Hóa and
Quảng Nam .
Nguyễn-Trịnh confrontation Nguyễn Hoàng and his successors started to engage in
rivalry with the Trịnh lords, after refusing to pay tax and tribute to the central government in
Hanoi as
Nguyễn lords tried to create the autonomous regime. They expanded their territory by making parts of
Cambodia as a protectorate, invaded
Laos, captured the last vestiges of
Champa in 1693 and ruled in an unbroken line until 1776. File:Vietnam1650.GIF|Map of Vietnam from 1627 shows the division of
Đại Việt between .
Tây Sơn–Nguyễn war (1771–1802) The end of the Nguyễn lords' reign The 17th-century war between the Trịnh and the Nguyễn ended in an uneasy peace, with the two sides creating de facto separate states although both professed loyalty to the same
Lê dynasty. After 100 years of domestic peace, the Nguyễn lords were confronted with the
Tây Sơn rebellion in 1774. Its military had had considerable losses in manpower after a series of campaigns in Cambodia and proved unable to contain the revolt. By the end of the year, the Trịnh lords had formed an alliance with the Tây Sơn rebels and captured Huế in 1775. Nguyễn lord,
Nguyễn Phúc Thuần fled south to the
Quảng Nam province, where he left a garrison under co-ruler
Nguyễn Phúc Dương. He fled further south to the
Gia Định Province (around modern-day Ho Chi Minh City) by sea before the arrival of Tây Sơn leader
Nguyễn Nhạc, whose forces defeated the Nguyễn garrison and seized Quảng Nam. In early 1777 a large Tây Sơn force under
Nguyễn Huệ and
Nguyễn Lữ attacked and captured Gia Định from the sea and defeated the Nguyễn Lord forces. The Tây Sơn received widespread popular support as they presented themselves as champions of the Vietnamese people, who rejected any foreign influence and fought for the full reinstitution of the Lê dynasty. Hence, the elimination of the Nguyễn and Trinh lordships was considered a priority and all but one member of the Nguyễn family captured at Saigon were executed.
Nguyễn Ánh escapes In 1775, the 13-year-old
Nguyễn Ánh escaped and with the help of the Vietnamese Catholic priest Paul Hồ Văn Nghị soon arrived at the
Paris Foreign Missions Society in
Hà Tiên. With Tây Son search parties closing in, he kept on moving and eventually met the French missionary
Pigneau de Behaine. By retreating to the
Thổ Chu Islands in the Gulf of Thailand, both escaped Tây Sơn capture. Pigneau de Behaine decided to support Ánh, who had declared himself heir to the Nguyễn lordship. A month later the Tây Sơn army under Nguyễn Huệ had returned to
Quy Nhơn. Ánh seized the opportunity and quickly raised an army at his new base in
Long Xuyên, marched to Gia Định and occupied the city in December 1777. The Tây Sơn returned to Gia Định in February 1778 and recaptured the province. When Ánh approached with his army, the Tây Sơn retreated. By the summer of 1781, Ánh's forces had grown to 30,000 soldiers, 80 battleships, three large ships and two Portuguese ships procured with the help of de Behaine. Ánh organized an unsuccessful ambush of the Tây Sơn base camps in the
Phú Yên province. In March 1782 the Tây Sơn emperor
Thái Đức and his brother Nguyễn Huệ sent a naval force to attack Ánh. Ánh's army was defeated and he fled via Ba Giồng to Svay Rieng in Cambodia.
Nguyễn–Cambodian agreement Ánh met with the Cambodian King
Ang Eng, who granted him exile and offered support in his struggle with the Tây Sơn. In April 1782 a Tây Sơn army invaded Cambodia, detained and forced Ang Eng to pay tribute, and demanded, that all Vietnamese nationals living in Cambodia were to return to Vietnam.
Chinese Vietnamese support for Nguyễn Ánh Chinese migration to Vietnam intensified with and after the 1679 migration of a large group of people from southern China who were the remnants the resistance to the
Qing dynasty. They were led by the Long Mon army. They offered submission to the Nguyễn lord. This was accepted and they were allowed to settle and to explore the south. They set up businesses and trade. In the Saigon area the Chinese settled in Ban Lan (
Biên Hòa, NE of Saigon) and the nearby Cu Lao Pho islet. The latter became a bustling trading port. In 1775 the Tây Sơn and the Thinh (the lords of Northern Vietnam) were allies. They attacked the Nguyễn lords in
Hội An who had fled there after the capture of their capital,
Huế. The Trinh army destroyed much of the commercial district. Only religious structures were spared. Many Nguyễn elite members and many and wealthy Chinese merchants fled south to the Saigon and
Chợ Lớn. This led to many wealthy Chinese to actively support the Nguyễn lords. When the Tây Sơn recaptured Saigon in 1778, the Emperor Thái Đức (Nguyễn Nhạc) saw the ethnic Chinese in Cu Lao Pho as an important logistical base for Anh. The Tây Sơn destroyed the town "removing all houses, bricks and stones, and transporting them to
Quy Nhơn (central Vietnam). The bodies of Chinese were thrown in the river. The survivors had to take refuge in Chợ Lớn. In 1782, when Nguyễn Ánh escaped to Cambodia and the Tây Sơn seized the Saigon area again. During the battles, the Tây Sơn grand admiral
Phạm Ngạn was killed in an ambush at Tham Lương Bridge by the Hoà Nghĩa army. This was military group formed by ethnic Chinese that fought for the Nguyen lords. Thái Đức had a close relationship with him (his daughter was married to him) and was angry. According to the Đại Nam thực lục, the official history of the Nguyễn dynasty, thinking that the Hoa Nghia army was full of ethnic Chinese, he ordered to capture them in Gia Dinh (Saigon) regardless of whether they were soldiers or civilians. In Chợ Lớn, goods from Chinese merchants were scattered in the streets. Tens of thousands of people were killed. The town was rebuilt. High embankment were erected and it was renamed Tai-Ngon (embankment). Nguyễn Ánh returned to Giồng Lữ, defeated Admiral Nguyễn Học of the Tây Sơn and captured eighty battleships. Ánh then began a campaign to reclaim southern Vietnam, but Nguyễn Huệ deployed a naval force to the river and destroyed his navy. Ánh again escaped with his followers to
Hậu Giang. Cambodia later cooperated with the Tây Sơn to destroy Ánh's force and made him retreat to
Rạch Giá, then to
Hà Tiên and
Phú Quốc.
Nguyễn–Siam alliance Following consecutive losses to the Tây Sơn, Ánh sent his general
Châu Văn Tiếp to Siam to request military assistance. Siam, under
Chakri rule, wanted to conquer Cambodia and southern Vietnam. King
Rama I agreed to ally with the Nguyễn lord and intervene militarily in Vietnam. Châu Văn Tiếp sent a secret letter to Ánh about the alliance. After meeting with Siamese generals at
Cà Mau, Ánh, thirty officials and some troops visited
Bangkok to meet Rama I in May 1784. The governor of
Gia Định Province,
Nguyễn Văn Thành, advised Ánh against foreign assistance. (sitting, 2nd row) in audience with King
Rama I in
Phra Thinang Amarin Winitchai throne hall, Bangkok, 1782. Rama I, fearing the growing influence of the Tây Sơn dynasty in Cambodia and Laos, decided to dispatch his army against it. In Bangkok, Ánh began to recruit Vietnamese refugees in Siam to join his army (which totaled over 9,000). He returned to Vietnam and prepared his forces for the Tây Sơn campaign in June 1784, after which he captured Gia Định. Rama I nominated his nephew, Chiêu Tăng, as admiral the following month. The admiral led Siamese forces including 20,000 marine troops and 300 warships from the Gulf of Siam to
Kiên Giang Province. In addition, more than 30,000 Siamese infantry troops crossed the Cambodian border to
An Giang Province. On 25 November 1784, Admiral
Châu Văn Tiếp died in battle against the Tây Sơn in
Mang Thít District,
Vĩnh Long Province. The alliance was largely victorious from July through November, and the Tây Sơn army retreated north. However, Emperor Nguyễn Huệ halted the retreat and counter-attacked the Siamese forces in December. In the decisive battle of Rạch Gầm–Xoài Mút, more than 20,000 Siamese soldiers died and the remainder retreated to Siam. Ánh, disillusioned with Siam, escaped to
Thổ Chu Island in April 1785 and then to
Ko Kut Island in Thailand. The Siamese army escorted him back to Bangkok, and he was briefly exiled in Thailand.
French assistance The war between the Nguyễn lord and the Tây Sơn dynasty forced Ánh to find more allies. His relationship with de Behaine improved, and support for an alliance with France increased. Before the request for Siamese military assistance, de Behaine was in
Chanthaburi and Ánh asked him to come to
Phú Quốc Island. Ánh asked him to contact King
Louis XVI of France for assistance; de Behaine agreed to coordinate an alliance between France and Vietnam, and Ánh gave him a letter to present at the French court. Ánh's oldest son,
Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh, was chosen to accompany de Behaine. Due to inclement weather, the voyage was postponed until December 1784. The group departed from Phú Quốc Island for
Malacca and thence to
Pondicherry, and Ánh moved his family to Bangkok. The group arrived in
Lorient in February 1787, and Louis XVI agreed to meet them in May. File:Signatures of the 1787 Treaty of Versailles.jpg|Signatures on the 1787 Treaty of Versailles File:Pigneau de Behaine portrait.jpg|
Pigneau de Behaine, the French priest who recruited armies for Nguyễn Ánh during Ánh's war against the Tây Sơn On 28 November 1787, Behaine signed the
Treaty of Versailles with French
Minister of Foreign Affairs Armand Marc at the
Palace of Versailles on behalf of Nguyễn Ánh. The treaty stipulated that France provide four frigates, 1,200 infantry troops, 200 artillery, 250
cafres (African soldiers), and other equipment. Nguyễn Ánh ceded the
Đà Nẵng estuary and
Côn Sơn Island to France. The French were allowed to trade freely and control foreign trade in Vietnam. Vietnam had to build one ship per year which was similar to the French ship which brought aid and gave it to France. Vietnam was obligated to supply food and other aid to France when the French were at war with other East Asian nations. On 27 December 1787, Pigneau de Behaine and
Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh left France for Pondicherry to wait for the military support promised by the treaty. However, due to the
French Revolution and the abolition of the French monarchy, the treaty was never executed.
Thomas Conway, who was responsible for French assistance, refused to provide it. Although the treaty was not implemented, de Behaine recruited French businessman who intended to trade in Vietnam and raised funds to assist Nguyễn Ánh. He spent fifteen thousand francs of his own money to purchase guns and warships. Cảnh and de Behaine returned to Gia Định in 1788 (after Nguyễn Ánh had recaptured it), followed by a ship with the war materiel. Frenchmen who were recruited included
Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau,
Philippe Vannier,
Olivier de Puymanel, and
Jean-Marie Dayot. A total of twenty people joined Ánh's army. The French purchased and supplied equipment and weaponry, reinforcing the defense of Gia Định, Vĩnh Long, Châu Đốc, Hà Tiên, Biên Hòa, Bà Rịa and training Ánh's artillery and infantry according to the European model.
Qing China–Lê alliance against Tây Sơn , ruled the north (purple);
Nguyễn Nhạc the middle (yellow), and
Nguyễn Ánh the south (green). In 1786, Nguyễn Huệ led the army against the Trịnh lords;
Trịnh Khải escaped to the north but got captured by the local people. He then committed suicide. After the Tây Sơn army returned to Quy Nhơn, subjects of the Trịnh lord restored
Trịnh Bồng (son of
Trịnh Giang) as the next lord.
Lê Chiêu Thống, emperor of the Lê dynasty, wanted to regain power from the Trịnh. He summoned Nguyễn Hữu Chỉnh, governor of Nghệ An, to attack the Trịnh lord at the
Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long. Trịnh Bồng surrendered to the Lê and became a monk. Nguyễn Hữu Chỉnh wanted to unify the country under Lê rule, and began to prepare the army to march south and attack the Tây Sơn. Huệ led the army, killed Nguyễn Hữu Chỉnh, and captured the later Lê capital. The Lê imperial family were exiled to China, and the later Lê dynasty collapsed. At that time, Nguyễn Huệ's influence became stronger in northern Vietnam; this made Emperor Nguyễn Nhạc of the Tây Sơn dynasty suspect Huệ's loyalty. The relationship between the brothers became tense, eventually leading to battle. Huệ had his army surround Nhạc's capital, at Quy Nhơn citadel, in 1787. Nhạc begged Huệ not to kill him, and they reconciled. In 1788, Lê emperor Lê Chiêu Thống fled to China and asked for military assistance. The
Qianlong Emperor of the Qing ordered
Sun Shiyi to lead the military campaign into Vietnam. The campaign failed, and later on, the Qing recognized the Tây Sơn as the legitimate dynasty in Vietnam. However, with the death of Huệ (1792), the Tây Sơn dynasty began to weaken.
Franco–Nguyễn alliance against Tây Sơn Nguyễn Ánh's counter-attack Ánh began to reorganize a strong armed force in Siam. He left Siam (after thanking King Rama I), and returned to Vietnam. During the 1787 war between Nguyễn Huệ and Nguyễn Nhạc in northern Vietnam, Ánh recaptured the southern Vietnamese capital of Gia Định. Southern Vietnam had been ruled by the Nguyễns and they remained popular, especially with the ethnic Chinese.
Nguyễn Lữ, the youngest brother of Tây Sơn (who ruled southern Vietnam), could not defend the citadel and retreated to
Quy Nhơn. The citadel of Gia Định was seized by the Nguyễn lords. In 1788 de Behaine and Ánh's son, Prince Cảnh, arrived in Gia Định with modern war equipment and more than twenty Frenchmen who wanted to join the army. The force was trained and strengthened with French assistance.
Defeat of the Tây Sơn After the fall of the citadel at Gia Định, Nguyễn Huệ prepared an expedition to reclaim it before his death on 16 September 1792. His young son,
Nguyễn Quang Toản, succeeded him as emperor of the Tây Sơn and was a poor leader. In 1793, Nguyễn Ánh began a campaign against Quang Toản. Due to conflict between officials of the Tây Sơn court, Quang Toản lost battle after battle. In 1797, Ánh and Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh attacked
Qui Nhơn (then in
Phú Yên Province) in the Battle of Thị Nại. They were victorious, capturing a large amount of Tây Sơn equipment. Quang Toản became unpopular due to his murders of generals and officials, leading to a decline in the army. In 1799, Ánh captured the citadel of Quy Nhơn. He seized the capital (
Phú Xuân) on 3 May 1801, and Quang Toản retreated north. On 20 July 1802, Ánh captured
Hanoi and end the
Tây Sơn dynasty, all of the members of the Tây Sơn was captured. Ánh then executed all the members of the Tây Sơn dynasty that year.
Imperial rule (1802–1883) Overview In Vietnamese historiography, the independent period is referred to as the
Nhà Nguyễn thời độc lập period. During this period the Nguyễn dynasty's territories comprised the present-day territories of
Vietnam and parts of modern
Cambodia and
Laos, bordering
Siam to the west and Manchu
Qing dynasty to the north. The ruling Nguyễn emperors established and ran the first well-defined imperial administrative and bureaucratic system of Vietnam and annexed Cambodia and
Champa into its territories in the 1830s. Together with Chakri Siam and
Konbaung Burma, it was one among three major Southeast Asian powers at the time. The emperor Gia Long was relatively friendly toward Western powers and Christianity. After his reign of
Minh Mạng brought a new approach, he ruled for 21 years from 1820 to 1841, as a conservative and
Confucian ruler; introducing a policy of isolationism which kept the country from the rest of the world for nearly 40 years until the
French invasion in 1858. Minh Mạng tightened control over
Catholicism,
Muslim, and ethnic minorities, resulting in more than two hundred rebellions across the country during his twenty-one-year reign. He also further expanded Vietnamese imperialism in modern-day
Laos and
Cambodia. Minh Mạng's successors,
Thiệu Trị (r. 1841–1847) and
Tự Đức (r. 1847–1883) would be assailed by serious problems that ultimately decimated the Vietnamese state. In the late 1840s, Vietnam was struck by the global
cholera pandemic that killed roughly 8% of the country's population, while the countries isolationist policies damaged the economy. France and Spain declared war on Vietnam in September 1858. Faced with these industrialised powers, the hermit Nguyễn dynasty and its military crumbled, the alliance capturing
Saigon in early 1859. A series of
unequal treaties followed with first the
1862 Treaty of Saigon, and then the
1863 Treaty of Huế which gave France access to Vietnamese ports and increased control of its foreign affairs. The
Treaty of Saigon (1874) concluded the French annexation of Cochinchina that had begun in 1862. The last independent Nguyễn emperor of note was Tự Đức. Upon his death, a
succession crisis followed, as the regent
Tôn Thất Thuyết orchestrated the murders of three emperors in a year. This presented an opportunity to the French. The Huế court was forced to sign the
Harmand Convention in September 1883, which formalised the handover of
Tonkin to the French administration. After the
Treaty of Patenôtre was signed in 1884, France finished its annexation and partitioning of Vietnam into three constituent protectorates of
French Indochina, and turned the Nguyễn into a vassal monarchy. Finally, the
Treaty of Tientsin (1885) between the Chinese Empire and the French Republic was signed on 9 June 1885 recognizing French dominion over Vietnam. All emperors after
Đồng Khánh were chosen by the French, and only ruled symbolically.
Gia Long period Nguyễn Phúc Ánh united Vietnam after a three-hundred-year division of the country. He celebrated his coronation at Huế on 1 June 1802 and proclaimed himself emperor (), with the
era name Gia Long (嘉隆). This title emphasized his rule from "Gia" Định region (modern-day
Saigon) in the far south to Thăng "Long" (modern-day
Hanoi) in the north. Gia Long prioritized the nation's defense and worked to avoid another civil war. He replaced the feudal system with a reformist
Doctrine of the Mean, based on
Confucianism. The Nguyen dynasty was founded as a
tributary state of the Qing Empire, with Gia Long receiving an imperial pardon and recognition as the ruler of Vietnam from the
Jiaqing Emperor for recognizing Chinese
suzerainty. The envoys sent to China to acquire this recognition cited the ancient kingdom of
Nanyue (Vietnamese:
Nam Việt) to Emperor Jiaqing as the countries name, this displeased the emperor who was disconcerted by such pretentions, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh had to officially rename his kingdom as
Vietnam the next year to satisfy the emperor. The country was officially known as 'The (Great) Vietnamese state' (
Vietnamese: Đại Việt Nam quốc), Gia Long asserted that he was reviving the bureaucratic state that was built by emperor
Lê Thánh Tông during the fifteenth-century golden age (1470–1497), as such he adopted a Confucian-bureaucratic government model, and sought unification with northern literati. To ensure stability over the unified kingdom, he placed two of his most loyal and Confucian-educated advisors,
Nguyễn Văn Thành and
Lê Văn Duyệt as
viceroys of Hanoi and Saigon. From 1780 to 1820, roughly 300 Frenchmen served Gia Long's court as officials. Seeing the French influence in Vietnam with alarm, the
British Empire sent two envoys to Gia Long in 1803 and 1804 to convince him to abandon his friendship with the French. In 1808, a British fleet led by
William O'Bryen Drury mounted an attack on the Red River Delta, but was soon driven back by the Vietnamese navy and suffered several losses. After the Napoleonic War and Gia Long's death, the British Empire renewed relations with Vietnam in 1822. During his reign, a system of roads connecting Hanoi, Hue, and Saigon with postal stations and inns was established, several canals connecting the Mekong River to the
Gulf of Siam were constructed and finished. In 1812, Gia Long issued the Gia Long Code, which was instituted based on the Ch'ing Code of China, replaced the previous Thánh Tông's 1480 Code. In 1811, a
coup d'état broke out in the
Kingdom of Cambodia, a Vietnamese tributary state, forcing the pro-Vietnamese King
Ang Chan II to seek support from Vietnam. Gia Long sent 13,000 men to Cambodia, successfully restoring his vassal to his throne, and beginning a more formal
occupation of the country for the next 30 years, while
Siam seized northern Cambodia in 1814. Gia Long died in 1819 and was succeeded by his fourth son,
Nguyễn Phúc Đảm, who soon became known as Emperor
Minh Mạng (r. 1820–1841) of Vietnam.
Rise and expansion under Minh Mạng Minh Mạng was the younger brother of prince
Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh and fourth son of Emperor Gia Long. Educated in Confucian principles from youth, Minh Mạng became the Emperor of Vietnam in 1820, during a deadly
cholera outbreak that ravaged and killed 200,000 people across the country. His reign mainly focused on centralizing and stabilizing the state, by abolishing the Viceroy system and implementing a new full bureaucracy-provincial-based administration. He also halted diplomacy with Europe, and cracked down on religious minorities. Minh Mạng shunned relations with the European powers. By 1824, after the death of
Jean Marie Despiau, no Western advisors who had served Gia Long remained in Minh Mạng's court. The last French consul of Vietnam, Eugene Chaigneau, was never able to obtain audience with Minh Mạng. After he left, France ceased attempts at contact. In the next year he launched an anti-
Catholicism propaganda campaign, denouncing the religion as "vicious" and full of "false teaching." In 1832 Minh Mạng turned the
Cham Principality of Thuận Thành into a Vietnamese province, the final conquest in a long history of
colonial conflict between Cham and Vietnam. He coercively fed lizard and pig meat to Cham Muslims and cow meat to Cham Hindus in violation of their religions to forcibly assimilate them to Vietnamese culture. The first Cham revolt for independence took place in 1833–1834 when
Katip Sumat, a Cham mullah who had just returned to Vietnam from
Mecca declared a holy war (
jihad) against the Vietnamese emperor. The rebellion failed to gain the support of the Cham elite and was quickly suppressed by the Vietnamese military. A second revolt began the following year, led by a Muslim clergy named
Ja Thak with support from the old Cham royalty, highland people, and Vietnamese dissents. Minh Mạng mercilessly crushed the Ja Thak rebellion and executed the last Cham ruler
Po Phaok The in early 1835. In 1833, as Minh Mạng had been trying to take firm control over the six southern provinces, a large
rebellion led by
Lê Văn Khôi (an adopted son of the Saigon viceroy
Lê Văn Duyệt) broke out in
Saigon, attempting to place Minh Mang's brother
Prince Cảnh on the throne. The rebellion lasted for two years, gathering much support from Vietnamese Catholics, Khmers, Chinese merchants in Saigon, and even the Siamese ruler
Rama III until it was crushed by the government forces in 1835. In January, he issued the first country-wide prohibition of Catholicism, and began persecuting Christians. 130 Christian missionaries, priests and church leaders were executed, dozens of churches were burned and destroyed. , 1838.
War with Siam and invasion of Cambodia Minh Mạng also expanded his empire westward, putting central and southern Laos under Cam Lộ Province, and collided with his father's former ally –
Siam, in Vientiane and Cambodia. He backed the revolt of Laotian king
Anouvong of
Vientiane against the Siamese, and seized
Xam Neua and
Savannakhet in 1827. In 1834, the Vietnamese Crown fully annexed Cambodia and renamed it to
Tây Thành Province. Minh Mạng placed the general
Trương Minh Giảng as the governor of the Cambodian province, expanding his forcible religious assimilation to the new territory. King
Ang Chan II of Cambodia died in the next year and Ming Mang installed Chan's daughter
Ang Mey as Commandery Princess of Cambodia. Cambodian officials were required to wear Vietnamese-style clothing, and govern in Vietnamese style. However the Vietnamese rule over Cambodia did not last long and proved draining to Vietnam's economy to maintain. Minh Mạng died in 1841, while a Khmer uprising was in progress with Siamese support, putting an end to the
Tây Thành province and Vietnamese control of Cambodia.
Decline of the Nguyễn dynasty Over the next forty years, Vietnam was ruled by two further independent emperors
Thiệu Trị (r. 1841–1847) and
Tự Đức (r. 1848–1883). Thiệu Trị or Prince Miên Tông, was the eldest son of Emperor Minh Mạng. His six-year reign showed a significant decrease in Catholic persecution. With the population growing fast from 6 million in the 1820s to 10 million in 1850, the attempts at agricultural self sufficiency were proving unworkable. Between 1802 and 1862, the court had faced 405 minor and large revolts of peasants, political dissents, ethnic minorities, Lê loyalists (people that were loyal to the old Lê Duy dynasty) across the country, this made responding to the challenge of European colonisers significantly more challenging. In 1845, the American warship
USS Constitution landed in
Đà Nẵng, taking all local officials hostage with the demands that Thiệu Trị free imprisoned French bishop
Dominique Lefèbvre. In 1847, Thiệu Trị had made peace with Siam, but the imprisonment of Dominique Lefebvre offered an excuse for French and British aggression. In April the French navy
attacked the Vietnamese and sank many Vietnamese ships in Đà Nẵng, demanding the release of Lefèbvre. Angered by the incident, Thiệu Trị ordered all European documents in his palace to be smashed, and all European caught on Vietnamese land were to immediate execution. In autumn, two British warships of
Sir John Davis arrived in Đà Nẵng and attempted to force a commercial treaty on Vietnam, but the emperor refused. He died a few days later of apoplexy.
Tự Đức, or Prince Hồng Nhậm was Thiệu Trị's youngest son, well-educated in Confucian learning, he was crowned by minister and co-regent Trương Đăng Quế. Prince
Hồng Bảo-the elder brother of Tự Đức, the primogeniture heir rebelled against Tự Đức on the day of his accession. This coup failed but he was spared execution on the intervention of
Từ Dụ, with his sentence being reduced to life imprisonment. Aware of the rise of Western influences in Asia, Tự Đức confirmed his grandfathers isolationist policy towards the European powers, prohibiting embassies, forbidding trade and contact with foreigners and renewing
the persecution of Catholics his grandfather had orchestrated. During Tự Đức's first twelve years, Vietnamese Catholics faced harsh persecution with 27 European missionaries, 300 Vietnamese priests and bishops, and 30,000 Vietnamese Christians executed and crucified from 1848 to 1860. In the late 1840s, another
cholera outbreak hit Vietnam, having travelled from India. The epidemic quickly spread out of control and killed 800,000 people (8–10% of Vietnam's 1847 population) across the Empire. Locusts plagued northern Vietnam in 1854, and a major rebellion in the following year damaged much of the Tonkin countryside. These various crises weakened the empire's control over Tonkin considerably. In the 1850–70s, a new class of liberal intellectuals emerged in the court as persecution relaxed, many of them Catholics who had studied abroad in Europe, most notably
Nguyễn Trường Tộ, who urged the emperor to reform and transform the Empire following the Western model and open Vietnam to the west. Despite their efforts the conservative Confucian bureaucrats and Tự Đức himself had a literal interest in such reforms. The economy remained largely agricultural, with 95% of the population living in rural areas, only mining offered potential to the modernist's dreams of a western-style state.
French conquest in 1859. . In September 1858, Napoleon III orchestrated a Franco-
Spanish army bombardment and invaded
Đà Nẵng to protest against the executions of two Spanish Dominican missionaries. Seven months later, they sailed to the south to attack Saigon and the rich Mekong Delta. The Alliance troops held Saigon for two years, while a rebellion of Lê loyalists led by Catholic bishop Pedro
Tạ Văn Phụng, who proclaimed himself to be a Lê prince, broke out in the north and escalated. Alongside the pretext of avenging the death of the missionaries the French invasion was designed to prove to Europe that France wasn't a second-rate power, and 'civilize' the area. In February 1861, French reinforcement and 70 warships led by General Vassoigne arrived and overwhelmed the Vietnamese strongholds. Facing the Alliance invasion and internal rebellion, Tự Đức chose to cede three Southern provinces to France to deal with the coinciding rebellion. on 20 September 1863 for peace treaty negotiation. 1st row from left to right: Ngụy Khác Đản,
Phan Thanh Giản Head of legation (middle) and Phạm Phú Thứ. 's court at the
Tuileries Palace (1863). In June 1862, the
Treaty of Saigon was signed, resulting in Vietnam losing three southern provinces;
Gia Định, Mỹ Tho, Biên Hòa which became the basis of
French Cochinchina. In the
Treaty of Huế (1863) the island of Poulo Condoræ would allow Catholicism, three ports would be open to French trade, and the sea opened to allow French expansion into
Kampuchea. and war reparations were required to be sent to France. Despite the religious elements of this treaty, France would not intervene in the Christian revolt in
Northern Vietnam, even with their missionaries urging them to. To the Queen dowager, Từ Dụ, the court, and the people, the 1862 treaty was a national humiliation. Tự Đức once again sent a mission to the French Emperor
Napoleon III, in which he called to revise the 1862 treaty. In July 1864, another draft treaty was signed. France returned the three provinces to Vietnam, but still held control over three important cities Saigon, Mỹ Tho, and Thủ Dầu Một. In 1866, France convinced Tự Đức to hand over the southern provinces of Vĩnh Long, Hà Tiên, and Châu Đốc.
Phan Thanh Giản, the governor of the three provinces immediately resigned. Without resistance, in 1867, the French annexed the provinces and turned their attention to the northern provinces. File:Prise de Saigon 18 Fevrier 1859 Antoine Morel-Fatio.jpg|Capture of Saigon by
Charles Rigault de Genouilly on 17 February 1859, painted by
Antoine Morel-Fatio. File:L'Illustration 1862 gravure L'expédition de Cochinchine - prise et incendie de Bien-Hao le 18 décembre 1861.jpg|Bombardment of
Biên Hòa (16 December 1861). File:French ships at Danang 1858.jpg|French warships
Siege of Tourane (
Đà Nẵng), September 1858. File:Prise de Bac-Ninh.jpg|Capture of
Bắc Ninh during the
Tonkin campaign. File:Capture ninh binh.jpg|The capture of
Ninh Bình by Aspirant Hautefeuille and his sailors File:Capture of Hai Duong 1873.jpg|French attack on the citadel of
Hải Dương. File:Taking-of-bac-ninh.jpg|Turcos and fusiliers-marins at Bắc Ninh, 12 March 1884 File:French artillery at Gia Cuc.jpeg|A French naval gun, deployed on a dyke, supports a marine infantry attack on the Vietnamese positions at Gia Cuc (Gia Quất) File:Warships at Thuan An.jpg|French warships deployed off the Thuận An forts, 18 August 1883 File:Attack on the Thuan An forts.jpg|The attack on the Thuận An forts, 20 August 1883 File:Prise de Son Tay.jpg|The capture of
Sơn Tây, 16 December 1883 File:Combat of Nam Dinh 19 July 1883.jpg|Capture of
Nam Định, 19 July 1883. File:CaptureNamDinh.jpg|French troops attack
Nam Định fortress. File:Hunghoa.jpg|
Capture of Hưng Hóa By the late 1860s, pirates, bandits, and remnants of the Taiping rebellion in China, fled to Tonkin and turned Northern Vietnam into a hotbed for their raid activities. The Vietnamese state was too weak to fight against the pirates. These Chinese rebels eventually formed their own mercenary armies as the
Black Flags had done and cooperated with local Vietnamese officials to interfere with French business interests. As France was looking to acquire Yunnan and Tonkin, when in 1873, a French merchant-adventurer named
Jean Dupuis was intercepted by local Hanoi authority, the
French Cochinchina government responded by sending out a new attack without talking with the Hue court. A French army led by
Francis Garnier arrived at Tonkin in November. Because local administrators had allied with the Black Flags and mistrusted of Hanoi governor
Nguyễn Tri Phương, in late November the French and Lê loyalists opened fire at the Vietnamese citadel of Hanoi. Tự Đức immediately sent delegations to negotiate with Garnier, but Prince
Hoàng Kế Viêm, governor of
Sơn Tây, had enlisted the Chinese Black Flags militia of
Liu Yongfu to attack the French. Garnier was killed on 21 December by the Black Flag soldiers at the . A peace negotiation between Vietnam and France was reached on 5 January 1874. France formally recognized Vietnam's full independence from China; France would pay off Vietnam's Spanish debts; French force returned Hanoi to the Vietnamese; the Vietnamese military in Hanoi had to disband and be reduced to a simple police force; total religious and trade freedom was ensured; Vietnam was compelled to recognise all six southern provinces as French territories.
End of independence (1874–1885) at
Thuận An fortress, August 1883. Just two years after French recognition, Tự Đức sent an embassy to Qing China in 1876 and re-provoked the tributary relationship with the Chinese (the last mission was in 1849). In 1878, Vietnam renewed relations with Thailand. In 1880, Britain, Germany, and Spain were still debating the fate of Vietnam, and the Chinese Embassy in Paris openly rejected the 1874 Franco-Vietnamese agreement. In Paris, Prime Minister
Jules Ferry proposed a direct military campaign against Vietnam to revise the 1874 treaty. Because Tự Đức was too preoccupied to keep the French out of his Empire without directly engaging against them, he requested assistance from the Chinese court. In 1882, 30,000 Qing troops flooded into the northern provinces and occupied cities. The Black Flags had also been returning, together, collaborating with local Vietnamese officials and harassing French businesses. In March, the French responded by sending a second expedition led by
Henri Rivière to the north to deal with these various problems but had to avoid all international attention, particularly from China. On 25 April 1882, Rivière took Hanoi without facing any resistance. Tự Đức informed the Chinese court that their tributary state was being attacked. In September 1882, 17 Chinese divisions (200,000 men) crossed the Sino-Vietnamese borders and occupied
Lạng Sơn, Cao Bằng, Bac Ninh, and Thái Nguyên, under the pretext of defending against the French aggression. File:1885 chromolithograph celebrating the French conquest in Indochina.jpg|Admiral
Amédée Courbet and Harmand at Huế, August 1883 File:Signature of 1883 Treaty of Hue.jpg|Signing of the Treaty of Huế, 25 August 1883 File:Thống-Chế đã nói - Đại-Pháp khắng khít với thái bình, như dân quê với đất ruộng.jpg|French propaganda painting in Hanoi, 1942 Backed by the Chinese army and prince Hoàng Kế Viêm, Liu Yongfu, and the Black Flags decided to attack Rivière. On 19 May 1883, the Black Flags ambushed and beheaded Rivière at the
Second Battle of Cầu Giấy. When news of Rivière's death reached France, there was immediate outcry and demands for a response. The French Parliament quickly voted for the conquest of Vietnam. Tens of thousands of French and Chinese reinforcements poured into the
Red River Delta. Tự Đức died on 17 July. Succession trouble temporarily paralyzed the court. One of his nephews
Nguyễn Phúc Ưng Ái was crowned as Emperor Dục Đức but was, however, imprisoned and executed after three days by the three powerful regents
Nguyễn Văn Tường,
Tôn Thất Thuyết and Tran Tien Thanh for unknown reasons. Tự Đức's brother
Nguyễn Phúc Hồng Dật succeeded on 30 July as Emperor Hiệp Hòa. The senior Censorate official of the court
Phan Đình Phùng denounced the three regents for their irregular handling of Tự Đức's succession. Tôn Thất Thuyết excoriated Phan Đình Phùng and sent him from the court to his home territory, where later he led a nationalist resistance movement against the French for ten years. To knock Vietnam out of the war, France decided to take a direct assault on the city of Huế. The French army split up itself into two parts: the smaller under General
Bouët stayed in Hanoi and waited for reinforcement from France while the French fleet led by
Amédée Courbet and Jules Harmand sailed to
Thuận An, the sea gate of Hue on 17 August. Harmand demanded the two regents Nguyễn Văn Tường and Tôn Thất Thuyết surrender Northern Vietnam, North-Central Vietnam (
Thanh Hoá,
Nghệ An,
Hà Tĩnh) and
Bình Thuận Province to French possession, and to accept a French résident in Huế who could demand imperial audiences. He sent an ultimatum to the regents that "The name Vietnam will no longer exist in history" if they did not comply with this. On 18 August, French battleships began shelling Vietnamese positions in the Thuận An citadel. Two days later, at dawn, Courbet and the French marines landed on the shore. By the next morning, all Vietnamese defenses in Huế were overwhelmed by the French. Emperor Hiệp Hòa dispatched mandarin Nguyễn Thượng Bắc to negotiate. On 25 September, two court officials, Trần Đình Túc and Nguyễn Trọng Hợp signed a twenty-seven-article treaty known as
Harmand Convention. The French were granted Bình Thuận; Đà Nẵng and Qui Nhơn were opened for trade; the ruling sphere of the Vietnamese monarchy was reduced to Central Vietnam while Northern Vietnam became a French Protectorate. In November, Emperor Hiệp Hòa and Trần Tiễn Thành were executed by Nguyễn Văn Tường and Tôn Thất Thuyết for their perceived pro-French sympathies. 14-year-old Nguyễn Phúc Ưng Đăng was crowned as Emperor
Kiến Phúc. After achieving peace with China through the
Tientsin Accord in May 1884, on 6 June the French Ambassador in China
Jules Patenôtre des Noyers signed with Nguyen Van Tuong the Protectorate
Treaty of Patenôtre, which confirmed French dominion over Vietnam. On 31 May 1885, France appointed the first governor of all Vietnam. On 9 June 1885, Vietnam ceased to exist after 83 years as an independent state. The leader of the pro-war faction, Tôn Thất Thuyết and his supporters revolted against the French in July 1885, but were forced to retreat to the Laotian highlands with the young emperor
Hàm Nghi (Nguyễn Phúc Ưng Lịch.) Meanwhile the French installed his pro-French brother Nguyễn Phúc Ưng Kỷ as emperor
Đồng Khánh. Thuyết called up the nobility, loyalists and nationalists to arm for the resistance against the French occupation (
Cần Vương movement). The movement lasted for 11 years (1885–1896) and Thuyết was forced to exile in China in 1888.
French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin (1883–1945) The
1883 Treaty of Huế led to the rest of Vietnam becoming French protectorates, divided into the
Protectorates of Annam and
Tonkin. The terms were, however, considered overly harsh in French diplomatic circles and never ratified in France. The following
1884 Treaty of Huế provided a softened version of the previous treaty. The
1885 Treaty of Tientsin, which reaffirmed the 1884
Tientsin Accord and ended the
Sino-French War, confirmed Vietnam's status as French protectorates and severed Vietnam's tributary relationship with the Qing dynasty by requiring that all of Vietnam's foreign affairs be conducted through France. After this the Nguyễn dynasty only nominally ruled the two French protectorates. Annam and Tonkin were combined with Cochinchina and the neighboring
Cambodian protectorate in 1887 to form the Union of
French Indochina, of which they became administrative components.
World War I While seeking to maximize the use of Indochina's natural resources and manpower to fight World War I, France cracked down on Vietnam's patriotic mass movements. Indochina (mainly Vietnam) had to provide France with 70,000 soldiers and 70,000 workers, who were forcibly drafted from villages to serve on the French battlefront. Vietnam also contributed 184 million
piastres in loans and 336,000 tons of food. These burdens proved heavy since agriculture experienced natural disasters from 1914 to 1917. Lacking a unified nationwide organization, the vigorous Vietnamese national movement failed to use the difficulties France had as a result of the war to stage significant uprisings. In May 1916, sixteen-year-old emperor
Duy Tân escaped from his palace to participate in an uprising of Vietnamese troops. The French were informed of the plan, and its leaders were arrested and executed. Duy Tân was deposed and exiled to the island of
Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Nguyen Dong Xi had died of pneumonia.
World War II Nationalist sentiment intensified in Vietnam (especially during and after the First World War), but uprisings and tentative efforts failed to obtain concessions from the French. The
Russian Revolution greatly impacted 20th-century Vietnamese history. For Vietnam, the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939 was as decisive as the 1858 French seizure of Đà Nẵng. The
Axis power of
Japan invaded Vietnam on 22 September 1940, attempting to construct military bases to strike against
Allied forces in Southeast Asia. This led to a period of Indochina under
Japanese occupation with the cooperation of the
collaborationist Vichy French, who still retained the administration of the colony. During this time the
Viet Minh, a communist resistance movement, developed under
Ho Chi Minh from 1941, with
allied support. During 1944–1945
famine in northern Vietnam, over one million people starved to death.
Empire of Vietnam (1945) In March 1945, after the
liberation of France and heavy setbacks in the war, the Japanese in a last ditch effort to gather support in Indochina
overthrew the French administration, imprisoned their civil servants and proclaimed independence for
Cambodia,
Laos and Vietnam, which became the
Empire of Vietnam with
Bảo Đại as its Emperor. The Empire of Vietnam was a
puppet state of the
Empire of Japan. This ended the 143-year reign of the Nguyễn dynasty. Bảo Đại was later restored to power by the French to become head of state of the
State of Vietnam in 1949 until the country became a
republic in 1955; however, this period is not considered as part of the Nguyễn dynasty. == National administration ==