Nguyễn Phúc Ánh

Biography

Descent and Youth

Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, originally named Nguyễn Phúc Noãn and also known as Nguyễn Phúc Chủng, was the third son of Nguyễn Phúc Luân and of Nguyễn Thị Hoàn, a grandson of lord Nguyễn Phúc Khoát of the Nguyễn house of Quảng Nam. The official Nguyễn histories record that when Nguyễn Phúc Khoát died in 1765, the heir Nguyễn Phúc Hạo having died before him, his testament named Nguyễn Phúc Luân as successor, but that the powerful minister Trương Phúc Loan altered the testament and raised the young sixteenth son Nguyễn Phúc Thuần in his place; some historians hold that the naming of Nguyễn Phúc Luân may be a claim that emerged only after the Nguyễn dynasty was founded in the nineteenth century, and that Nguyễn Phúc Khoát designated Nguyễn Phúc Thuần with Nguyễn Phúc Dương as an alternative. In the disorders that followed, Nguyễn Phúc Dương's standing far exceeded that of Nguyễn Phúc Thuần, while Nguyễn Phúc Ánh was an inconspicuous figure among the princes. He was four when his grandfather died, was confined in the palace with his father and lost his father not long afterwards. Nguyễn Phúc Thuần was a thoughtless youth and the all-powerful Trương Phúc Loan greedy and cruel, so that the people were discontented.

In 1771 the three Tây Sơn brothers, Nguyễn Nhạc, Nguyễn Lữ and Nguyễn Huệ, rose in revolt and were at once answered throughout the southern lands; in 1774 the Trịnh lord of the north, Trịnh Sâm, seeing the south in disorder, sent Hoàng Ngũ Phúc south, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh fled south to Gia Định with the prince of Định, Nguyễn Phúc Thuần. He was then given the office of palace commissioner and command of the left wing guards, and the Nguyễn records say that although young he produced remarkable plans, was respected by the generals and valued by the prince. In 1777, when Nguyễn Nhạc sent Nguyễn Huệ and Nguyễn Lữ against Gia Định, the fifteen-year-old Nguyễn Phúc Ánh was sent to recruit troops at Ba Bồ; soon afterwards Nguyễn Phúc Dương and many princes and ministers were captured and killed at Long Hồ, the retired king fled to Cần Giờ and was carried off by Nguyễn Phúc Ánh's eastern troops to Cần Thơ, and was then captured and killed by Nguyễn Huệ at Long Xuyên. Many Nguyễn princes perished, but Nguyễn Phúc Ánh escaped.

He fled to Rạch Giá, where the Catholic priest Paul Nghị hid him, and then to Hà Tiên, where he met Bishop Pigneau de Béhaine of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. Warned by Paul Nghị, Pigneau avoided the Tây Sơn in Cambodia and came to his aid; Nguyễn Phúc Ánh promised that if he recovered power he would grant the free preaching of Christianity, and Pigneau was persuaded. They went into the forest together to avoid the Tây Sơn and fled to the island of Thổ Châu. After destroying the old Nguyễn regime, Nguyễn Huệ and Nguyễn Lữ left the governor Điêu in charge of Gia Định and returned to Quy Nhơn; learning that the main Tây Sơn force had left, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh returned from Thổ Châu to Long Xuyên with his followers and rose against the Tây Sơn. Nguyễn Văn Nhân and Dương Công Trừng brought him to Sa Đéc, the remaining Nguyễn forces rose in answer, and Đỗ Thanh Nhân, Lê Văn Quân, Nguyễn Văn Hoằng, Tống Phúc Khuông and Tống Phúc Lương drove out the governor and retook Gia Định. The old Nguyễn power was restored and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, then only seventeen, was raised by the generals as commander-in-chief and regent.

First Restoration and the Government at Gia Định

Nguyễn Nhạc sent troops against him, but they were beaten off by Đỗ Thanh Nhân with the eastern army; Nguyễn Phúc Ánh seized the chance to send Lê Văn Quân in a counter-attack and took the two prefectures of Bình Thuận and Diên Khánh. In domestic affairs he restored the household offices of the Nguyễn lords, fixed tax schedules to pay the army and built warships for the coming struggle. With Pigneau's help the old Nguyễn made large numbers of new weapons, including grenades; Pigneau also bought three Western warships from the Portuguese and engaged the French adventurer Manuel as captain. The Nguyễn power grew strong again, the districts round Gia Định were recovered, and the Tây Sơn campaigns against it repeatedly failed. It even intervened in the Cambodian civil war: in 1779 the pro-Siamese Ang Non II came to the Cambodian throne, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh sent Đỗ Thanh Nhân and Hồ Văn Lân against him, killed him and installed the pro-Vietnamese Ang Eng, leaving Hồ Văn Lân in Cambodia.

In the first month of 1780 Nguyễn Phúc Ánh formally took the royal title, being known as the Nguyễn king; he used the Lê era name Cảnh Hưng and revived the seal of the Nguyễn lords. The next year, however, fearing that Đỗ Thanh Nhân's merit overshadowed his own, he had him killed by Tống Phúc Thiêm, whereupon the eastern army went over to the opposition and the Nguyễn fell into disorder. The Siamese king Taksin, learning of this, sent the brothers Chakri and Surasi against Cambodia, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh sent Nguyễn Hữu Thụy to help; since Taksin distrusted Chakri and imprisoned his family, Chakri made peace with Nguyễn Hữu Thụy and swore brotherhood with him, and when a mutiny broke out in Siam he returned, killed Taksin and the leaders of the coup and became king as Rama I. The Nguyễn thereby consolidated their ascendancy in Cambodia.

Phú Quốc, Côn Đảo and Exile

After the defeat on the Nhị Kỳ river in the third month of 1782 Nguyễn Phúc Ánh abandoned Gia Định for Phú Quốc, but his supporters kept up the fight: in the tenth month of the same year Chu Văn Tiếp rose at Phú Yên and his brother Nguyễn Phúc Mân rose in support, Gia Định was recovered and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh was brought back. In the second month of the following year the Tây Sơn attacked again, fought with the river at their backs at Tứ Kỳ and destroyed the Nguyễn army; Nguyễn Phúc Mân died and the commanders Dương Công Trừng and Nguyễn Hoàng Đức were captured, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh fled again to Phú Quốc. Nguyễn Huệ, hoping to destroy him at a stroke, attacked Phú Quốc in the sixth month; Nguyễn Phúc Ánh fled to Côn Đảo, and when Nguyễn Huệ attacked that island too, many of his ships were lost in a storm and he had to withdraw. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh returned to Phú Quốc by way of Thổ Châu. His remnant had no grain and lived on wild tubers; Pigneau was then preaching at Chanthaburi in Siam, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh sent to him with plans to send his eldest son Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh to France, but the winds were contrary and the party could not leave. He also sent Chu Văn Tiếp to Siam for help; at the end of 1783 Chu Văn Tiếp reached Bangkok and was received by Rama I, who sent the general Chichitto with a fleet to bring Nguyễn Phúc Ánh over. The Siamese fleet reached Hà Tiên in the second month of the following year and discussed joint action against the Tây Sơn; Nguyễn Phúc Ánh went with the Siamese army to Bangkok, recruited there the old followers who had fled to Siam, and was received by Rama I with great ceremony, the king promising to send troops to restore him.

The Siamese Intervention and the Defeat at Rạch Gầm

In 1784 Nguyễn Phúc Ánh and his followers attacked Gia Định; Rama I first sent forces through Cambodia under the regent Chaophraya Abhaibhubejhr and in the seventh month sent the generals Chưong and Sưong with twenty thousand men and three hundred ships from Bangkok. The Siamese army swept through Rạch Giá, Ba Thắc, Trà Ôn, Bình Thủy and Sa Đéc; Lê Văn Quân came over to Nguyễn Phúc Ánh at Trà Tân, the Nguyễn commander Chu Văn Tiếp was killed attacking Bình Thủy and Lê Văn Quân took his place, and the Tây Sơn commander Trương Văn Đa withdrew from Gia Định and sent Đặng Văn Chân to Quy Nhơn for help. Nguyễn Nhạc sent Nguyễn Huệ, who camped at Mỹ Tho and several times attacked the Siamese stockades and then withdrew, afterwards sending the Siamese general rich presents and asking him not to interfere in the civil war; the general gladly accepted, which made the Siamese army more careless and bred suspicion between the allies. Nguyễn Huệ then drew them on and destroyed them at Rạch Gầm and Xoài Mút in the fourth month of 1785: the Siamese fled through Cambodia with only two or three thousand survivors, the Nguyễn army was almost annihilated and Nguyễn Văn Uy killed, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh escaped with a few confidants to Chợ Lớn and thence into Siam, sending for his mother and household. Nguyễn Huệ returned to Quy Nhơn, leaving Đặng Văn Chân at Gia Định, which later became the appanage of the Tây Sơn prince Nguyễn Lữ.

Bangkok and the Treaty of Versailles

In Bangkok many old Nguyễn supporters came to him; Rama I settled the Vietnamese in a separate village on the plain outside the city, then called Long Khâu and known to Thais today as the Gia Long village, where they farmed while keeping their ambitions alive. Rama I housed him there because he saw that Nguyễn Phúc Ánh still had some strength and meant to use it for his own purposes, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, well aware of this, took an active part in Siamese campaigns: in the Burmese-Siamese war of 1785 he sent Lê Văn Quân and Nguyễn Văn Thành, and afterwards helped Siam beat off Malay pirates. His followers fought bravely and Rama I rewarded them richly, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh used the money to build warships.

He was also urgent in seeking French support. At his insistence Pigneau left in 1785 with his eldest son Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh, carrying a letter to Louis XVI and Ánh's jade seal, which showed that Pigneau had full powers. Before leaving, Pigneau sent Spanish Dominicans to Manila to seek help from the Spanish government of the Philippines, but they were detained and killed by the Tây Sơn. In February 1785 the party reached Pondicherry, the capital of French India, where Pigneau found that France took little interest in Vietnam and sent to the Portuguese senate at Macao for help; in 1786 a Portuguese envoy came to Bangkok and concluded an alliance promising fifty-six Western warships, and the next year the Portuguese António came from Goa with Western soldiers and ships. Rama I was much displeased, and to avoid his suspicion Nguyễn Phúc Ánh was forced to decline the Portuguese aid; after this he was no longer trusted by the Siamese.

In June 1786 Pigneau's party left Pondicherry for France, reached Paris in February 1787 and met Louis XVI, the naval minister the Marquis de Castries and the foreign minister the Comte de Montmorin, concluding on 21 November the Treaty of Versailles: France promised four warships and 1,900 soldiers, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh the cession of Đà Nẵng and Côn Đảo and trading privileges for the French. In December the party left France on the Dryade for Pondicherry, only to learn there that France faced a severe financial crisis and was close to bankruptcy; the governor of French India, the Comte de Conway, refused aid on that ground, and Pigneau used his own connections to recruit French officers and buy French weapons, ammunition and ships. Because of the French Revolution France in the end gave no substantial help, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh accordingly refused to carry out the promises of the treaty.

Return to Gia Định, 1787–1789

Meanwhile his supporters in Vietnam wrote to tell him of the Tây Sơn disorders and the conflict between Nguyễn Huệ and Nguyễn Nhạc, and he learned that Đặng Văn Chân, holding Gia Định, had taken the main army to Quy Nhơn. In the seventh month of 1787 he left a letter for Rama I and slipped away from Bangkok with his followers. Their plan was discovered and reported to the finance minister and through him to Rama I and Prince Surasi, who pursued them in anger; at dawn he saw the boats at the mouth of the bay, and thinking capture certain death prepared to kill himself before his companions stopped him, but in the end the Vietnamese got away. He reached Phú Quốc, was brought by Hà Hỷ Văn, a Tiandihui leader who had fled Vietnam, to Long Xuyên, and was joined by the Tây Sơn commander Nguyễn Văn Trương with three hundred men and fifteen ships, while Nguyễn Văn Nhân and others brought their old followers over. The Tây Sơn prince Nguyễn Lữ, holding Gia Định, was greatly alarmed and left the grand guardian Phạm Văn Tham to hold the city while he withdrew to Biên Hòa. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh forged a letter from Nguyễn Nhạc to Nguyễn Lữ saying that Phạm Văn Tham was an agent and had it delivered to Phạm Văn Tham, who marched under a white flag to Biên Hòa to clear himself; Nguyễn Lữ, seeing the white flag, thought he had surrendered, abandoned the city in panic and fled to Quy Nhơn. Phạm Văn Tham fell back on Gia Định, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh besieged it without success and with heavy losses until Võ Tánh came over to him and his strength recovered; in the seventh month of 1788 he defeated Phạm Văn Tham's force and retook Gia Định, and the next year forced the surrender of the remnant at Bà Thắc. He then sent Nguyễn Văn Nhàn to Siam to announce the victory and thank Rama I for his help.

The Government at Gia Định and Western Military Reform

At Gia Định Nguyễn Phúc Ánh straightened out the administration, forbade gambling and sorcery, redrew the administrative districts, made laws and reformed taxation and farming. He applied the principle of soldiers in farming, appointing Trịnh Hoài Đức, Lê Quang Định, Ngô Tùng Châu, Hoàng Minh Khánh and eight others as agricultural officers to encourage farming and open waste land and to enlist those unwilling to farm as soldiers; he also promoted foreign trade, buying metals abroad for weapons and lowering tariffs so that foreign ships came to Gia Định. After a year and more of recovery his power grew. On 14 July 1789 Pigneau and Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh returned to Gia Định on the French ship Méduse with French guns and ammunition, accompanied by the French naval officers Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau, Philippe Vannier and Jean-Marie Dayot, whom Nguyễn Phúc Ánh made officers and who oversaw the casting of Western weapons and warships. According to Western sources Olivier de Puymanel, an officer of the Dryade, deserted to him and trained his infantry and artillery, bringing Western infantry practice to Vietnam, while Dayot and Chaigneau trained the navy; by 1790 his army included fifty thousand Vietnamese soldiers in British-style uniforms drilling in European fashion with modern weapons, and by 1792 his navy had two European warships and fifteen frigates, so that in both services he was stronger than the Tây Sơn. He also built fortresses on the Western model, Puymanel and Théodore Leblanc building the first, the Bát Quái or Gia Định citadel, in 1790.

The Campaigns of the 1790s

In the fourth month of 1790 he sent Lê Văn Quân with five thousand men against Bình Thuận, which was taken with Võ Tánh and Nguyễn Văn Thành in the van; but the quarrel between Lê Văn Quân and Võ Tánh allowed the Tây Sơn to retake it, Lê Văn Quân was besieged at Phan Rí and killed himself after being rescued by Nguyễn Văn Thành. Nguyễn Nhạc then joined the South China Sea pirates in fitting out a fleet at Thị Nại; Nguyễn Phúc Ánh struck first, sending Nguyễn Văn Trương, Nguyễn Văn Thành, Dayot and Vannier from the Cần Giờ mouth in the third month of 1792 with the monsoon to burn the Tây Sơn stockade at Thị Nại and withdraw unmolested, only nine Tây Sơn ships surviving. Nguyễn Huệ, already ill, grew worse on hearing of Nguyễn Phúc Ánh's growing strength and died soon afterwards, his ten-year-old son Nguyễn Quang Toản succeeding him.

In the third month of 1793 Nguyễn Phúc Ánh made his eldest son Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh crown prince and marshal with command at Gia Định, sent Tôn Thất Hội, Nguyễn Hoàng Đức and Nguyễn Văn Thành north to take Bình Thuận, and took the fleet against the coast, seizing Diên Khánh, Bình Khang and Phú Yên in the fifth month; a Western-style citadel was built at Diên Khánh as the key position, and the land and river forces then joined to attack Quy Nhơn, where the Tây Sơn crown prince Nguyễn Văn Bảo was beaten; in this fighting the Nguyễn army used Western explosive shells for the first time. Nguyễn Nhạc appealed to the Phú Xuân court, and Nguyễn Quang Toản sent Phạm Công Hưng, Nguyễn Văn Huấn, Lê Trung and Ngô Văn Sở with seventeen thousand infantry, eighty elephants and Đặng Văn Chân with thirty ships; Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, unable to hold, returned to Gia Định by Diên Khánh, leaving Nguyễn Văn Thành at Diên Khánh and Nguyễn Hoàng Đức at Bình Thuận, and in the eleventh month sent Pigneau, Phạm Văn Nhơn and Tống Phúc Khê with Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh to hold the Diên Khánh citadel. Meanwhile the Phú Xuân court swallowed the Quy Nhơn court's lands and reduced Nguyễn Văn Bảo to duke, passing to the offensive; in the third month of 1794 it sent Nguyễn Văn Hưng against Phú Yên and Trần Quang Diệu against Diên Khánh, where Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh and Pigneau held the citadel against a far larger force and called for help; Nguyễn Phúc Ánh came up with the main army and drove them off, then recalled Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh and put Võ Tánh in command at Diên Khánh, where he again held out the next year. In 1795 the Tây Sơn court fell into disorder, Bùi Đắc Tuyên and Ngô Văn Sở among its ministers being killed and Trần Quang Diệu stripped of military command, and the commanders turning on one another weakened it greatly; Nguyễn Phúc Ánh took the chance to build up his forces and in 1797 campaigned in person against Quy Nhơn, suddenly changing his plan on the way to attack Đà Nẵng, where the pirate leader Trần Thiêm Bảo sent Nguyễn Văn Ngũ to intercept him and he was forced to withdraw after hard fighting. The attempt failed, and the next year he sent Nguyễn Văn Thụy to Siam to ask for troops to harass the Huế and Nghệ An frontiers, and Ngô Nhân Tĩnh to the Qing court to restrain the Tây Sơn and seek news of the Lê pretender. The pirates, employed by the Tây Sơn, raided his coasts: in the seventh month of 1797 Trần Thiêm Bảo raided the ports of Bình Khang and Diên Khánh on a large scale, but the next year was beaten and driven away.

The Destruction of the Tây Sơn

In 1798 the long-dissatisfied duke Nguyễn Văn Bảo rebelled at Quy Nhơn and sent to Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, who sent Nguyễn Văn Thành to meet him, but the Tây Sơn caught and killed Bảo before the troops arrived; after the rising Nguyễn Quang Toản, suspicious and listening to slander, killed Lê Trung and Nguyễn Văn Huấn, and Lê Chất and others deserted, the officials and commanders becoming estranged. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh took the chance for a great northern campaign the next year: the Tây Sơn sent Trần Quang Diệu and Vũ Văn Dũng with the land forces and the pirate leader Phàn Văn Tài with the fleet, and when Vũ Văn Dũng met Nguyễn Văn Thành at Thạch Tân the two camped facing each other until a deer passing the Tây Sơn lines in the night started a cry of surprise, the rumour of a surprise attack spreading so that the Tây Sơn broke without fighting. The Nguyễn general Tống Phúc Lương beat the pirates and joining Nguyễn Phúc Ánh destroyed their coastal lairs one by one; Quy Nhơn became an isolated city and Lê Văn Thanh surrendered it, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh renaming it Bình Định and leaving Võ Tánh and Ngô Tùng Châu to hold it. In 1799 he sent Nguyễn Văn Thụy and Lưu Phúc Tường to Siam to ask for Cambodian and Vientiane troops against the Tây Sơn, which Rama I granted, the Cambodian regent sending five thousand men to Nghệ An.

In the first month of 1800 the Tây Sơn sent Trần Quang Diệu and Vũ Văn Dũng south again to recover Bình Định, with more than a hundred pirate ships; the Tây Sơn army besieged the city without assaulting it, hoping to starve Võ Tánh into surrender. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh came in person with eighty thousand sailors in twelve hundred ships, including four European warships, forty large warships and more than three hundred large rowing boats; he sent Vũ Di Nguy and Lê Văn Duyệt to drive Vũ Văn Dũng from Thị Nại and Nguyễn Văn Trương to defeat the pirates' attempt on his supplies, and took Quảng Nam and Quảng Ngãi; Nguyễn Văn Thụy and Lưu Phúc Tường brought in Vientiane troops, whose king Inthavong sent four thousand men, and the strongmen of the north rose for him. But the siege of Quy Nhơn could not be broken, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh ordered Võ Tánh to abandon the city; Võ Tánh refused and advised him instead to attack the Tây Sơn capital Phú Xuân, and Nguyễn Phúc Ánh accepted.

In the fifth month of 1801 Nguyễn Phúc Ánh reached the Tư Dung estuary, defeated Nguyễn Văn Trị and pressed on into the Nhượng estuary, where Nguyễn Quang Toản met him in person; by Chaigneau's account this was the bloodiest battle between the two sides, the field covered with corpses, and the Tây Sơn broke and scattered, the pirates with them being heavily beaten and the pirate chiefs Mạc Quan Phù, Liang Wengeng and Fan Wencai taken. Nguyễn Quang Toản fled north across the Linh river to the north, all his seals and insignia being captured, and his empress Lê Thị Ngọc Bình was taken and made a consort of Nguyễn Phúc Ánh. On the third day of the fifth month Nguyễn Phúc Ánh entered Phú Xuân and posted notices to calm the people, then sent Nguyễn Văn Trương and Lê Chất after Quang Toản, who escaped to the north and was brought by Nguyễn Quang Thùy to Thăng Long, where he changed the era name to Bảo Hưng. Trần Quang Diệu and Vũ Văn Dũng, hearing of the fall of Phú Xuân, tried to return but found the roads held by Lê Văn Duyệt, so they stormed Bình Định, where Võ Tánh and Ngô Tùng Châu killed themselves; making the city their base they attacked the surrounding Nguyễn towns without success.

In the first month of 1802 Nguyễn Quang Toản, established in the north, gathered the northern Tây Sơn forces for a last effort. The pirate chief Zheng Qi, who had returned to Guangdong, was persuaded by Trần Thiêm Bảo to bring two hundred ships to the north and declare for the Tây Sơn, and was made grand marshal at Thăng Long; but Trần Thiêm Bảo at once concluded that the Tây Sơn were doomed, abandoned his post and fled to China to submit to the Qing. With Zheng Qi's support Nguyễn Quang Toản led thirty thousand men south to the Linh river and posted Zheng Qi at the Nhật Lệ mouth, where the Nguyễn generals Nguyễn Văn Trương and Đặng Trần Thường were beaten back to Đồng Hới. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh came north in person, leaving Phạm Văn Nhơn and Đặng Trần Thường on the land route and Nguyễn Văn Trương on the water, and while Quang Toản besieged the Trấn Ninh rampart without success Nguyễn Văn Trương raided the Nhật Lệ mouth and destroyed Zheng Qi's pirates, whereupon the besieging army broke in panic and Quang Toản fled to Thăng Long; Trần Quang Diệu and Vũ Văn Dũng, learning of the defeat, abandoned Bình Định and marched north to join him but were beaten and captured on the way.

On the second day of the fifth month of the first year of Gia Long (1 June 1802) Nguyễn Phúc Ánh abolished the Lê era name Cảnh Hưng and took the new era name Gia Long, and the Nguyễn dynasty, the last of Vietnam's traditional dynasties, came into being. Nguyễn Quang Toản still hoped for Qing support and sent Nguyễn Đăng 𨼪 to ask for help, while Nguyễn Phúc Ánh sent Trịnh Hoài Đức and Ngô Nhân Tĩnh to the Qing court with the captured Tây Sơn seals and the pirate chiefs Mạc Quan Phù, Liang Wengeng and Fan Wencai; the governor-general of Liangguang, Ji Qing, questioned the three and learned that the Tây Sơn had long supported the pirates, reported it to the Qing court, and the Jiaqing emperor in a fury ordered the Tây Sơn envoys driven out and the three men executed as rebels by slicing. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh then led the army north in person, the Tây Sơn governor of Thanh Hóa Nguyễn Quang Bàn surrendering his city, and swept on to take Thăng Long; Nguyễn Quang Toản fled with his kinsmen and ministers and was captured by peasants in Phượng Nhãn and brought to Thăng Long on the twenty-third day of the sixth month. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh remitted a year's taxes in the north, made Nguyễn Văn Thành governor-general of the northern citadel and set up the revenue, military and judicial bureaux there under Nguyễn Văn Khiêm, Đặng Trần Thường and Phạm Văn Đăng; he also had the Lê descendant Lê Duy 𬓲 preside over the sacrifices of the Lê house and the Trịnh descendant Trịnh Sửu over those of the Trịnh family, to conciliate their followers.

In the seventh month he returned to Huế and had the Tây Sơn rulers and ministers brought before the ancestral temple in a ceremony of triumph: Nguyễn Quang Toản and the princes Nguyễn Quang Duy, Nguyễn Quang Thiệu and Nguyễn Quang Bàn were sliced to death and their bodies torn by five elephants, the generals Vũ Văn Dũng and Trần Quang Diệu beheaded and exposed, and the civil ministers Ngô Thì Nhậm and Phan Huy Ích whipped before the Temple of Literature in Hanoi and released. Declaring that he was avenging nine generations, he had the bodies of Nguyễn Nhạc and Nguyễn Huệ dug up and their bones scattered, their skulls and Huệ's tablets being placed under a form of confinement whose name was changed in 1821. The unity of Vietnam after nearly thirty years of division was thus complete.

The Northern Citadel and the Provinces

After unification his first problem was the government of the north. The northern citadel comprised eleven districts, Sơn Nam Thượng, Sơn Nam Hạ, Sơn Tây, Kinh Bắc, Hải Dương, Tuyên Quang, Hưng Hóa, Cao Bằng, Lạng Sơn, Thái Nguyên and An Quảng; the Gia Định citadel comprised five, Phiên An, Biên Hòa, Vĩnh Thanh, Định Tường and Hà Tiên; and the court directly administered seven, Thanh Hoa, Nghệ An, Quảng Nghĩa, Bình Định, Phú Yên, Bình Hòa and Bình Thuận. The metropolitan region was under the court, the northern and Gia Định citadels were governed by governors-general and deputy governors-general, both generally soldiers of distinction, and the districts by resident governors, with prefectures, counties and districts below them. Judging that the northerners were "proud and stubborn" and hard to govern, he did not follow the precedent of earlier dynasties by making Hanoi the capital but chose Huế, the old seat of the Nguyễn lords, and in 1803 had Lê Chất, Phạm Văn Nhơn and Nguyễn Văn Khiêm build the Huế imperial city in the Chinese palace style as the administrative centre. To the various forces in the north he gave office: the eleven districts were divided into five inner and six outer, the inner governed by former Lê officials and the outer by local strongmen, an arrangement that lasted until the accession of Minh Mạng.

Fortresses, Weapons and Public Works

Following the French Vauban style he built nine citadels in all, at Bắc Ninh in the northern citadel, at Huế, Nghệ An, Thanh Hóa, Quảng Nghĩa, Khánh Hòa and Bình Định in the directly administered lands and at Vĩnh Long and Hà Tiên in the Gia Định citadel; Puymanel and Leblanc left Vietnam after the war and Vietnamese engineers used the plans of the Bát Quái and Diên Khánh castles to build them. Thinking that the country had only just been pacified and that the people would obey the court now, whereas after some years of ease they would resent being called out for great works, he carried out extensive building in his reign, repairing roads, establishing post stations, dredging rivers and building dikes. In armament the army used swords, sabres and bronze cannon as well as Western muskets, and three shooting grounds were set up at Huế for an annual exercise; but the court was strict with Western firearms, only five men in each company of fifty having muskets and each man being allowed six cartridges a year, with compensation required for any excess. He paid much attention to the defence of the ports, building batteries and inspecting passing ships and constructing great vessels to patrol the sea.

Land, Taxation and the Code

In taxation he fixed anew the laws on capitation and land tax: land was divided into three grades with the rate set by quality, and taxes were reduced where a district suffered disaster or where men were called out for roads, canals or city walls; the registers of adult males and of land were to be surveyed and compiled every five years, and the sale of public land, prevalent under the Lê, was forbidden, though public land might be rented for three years in an emergency, with penalties for overstaying. In 1803 he set up mints at Huế, Hanoi and Gia Định to cast Gia Long coins, in 1810 issued standard bronze measures of land to the districts and in 1813 standard balances to the offices and districts. In 1811 he abolished the Lê Hồng Đức code and commissioned Nguyễn Văn Thành to compile a new one; the result, the Gia Long code, in twenty-two books and 398 articles, was based on the Qing code and promulgated in 1815. Vietnamese historians have differed over it, Trần Trọng Kim holding it a slightly modified Qing code and others criticising it for its conservatism and the absolute power it gave the emperor.

The Bureaucracy, Learning and Religion

The Nguyễn kept the Lê system of six ministries, each headed by a minister with assistant administrators, vice ministers and subordinate officers, and set up a court of inspection to remonstrate with the emperor and impeach ministers. In the palace he laid down that no empress should be created in the emperor's lifetime, only consorts and palace women of nine ranks, the mother of the successor being honoured as empress dowager on his accession and given the title of empress after her death. Having taken power by force, he had many soldiers among his chief ministers, but seeing that civil officials were also needed he restored the examinations abolished by the Tây Sơn, built temples of Confucius throughout the country, founded the National College at Huế and promoted Confucian learning and the study of the Four Books and Five Classics. He also patronised geography and history, the Hoàng Việt nhất thống dư địa chí and the Đại Nam hội điển sự lệ being compiled on his orders and the Đại Nam thực lục begun; his reign was also a period of literary activity, with much poetry and fiction including works in Nôm, the Đại Nam quốc sử diễn ca and the famous Tale of Kiều. In religion he favoured Confucianism while his heir Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh inclined to Christianity under Western influence, which displeased him and led to conflicts, sometimes violent; but he kept his promise to allow missionaries to preach freely, six French or Spanish missionaries being active in the Gia Long years, with three hundred thousand Christians in the northern citadel and sixty thousand in the Gia Định citadel, while he promoted Confucianism to limit their spread.

France, Britain, China and the Peninsula

Pigneau's attempt to bring Nguyễn Phúc Ánh into close relations and trade with the West ended with his death in 1799. Napoleon I wished to make Vietnam a French colony in the Far East against British power in India, but was occupied in Europe and the design lapsed with his exile. After the Bourbon restoration the French prime minister the Duke of Richelieu sent the Cybèle to Đà Nẵng with a fifty-two-gun frigate as a gift and a letter from Louis XVIII asking Nguyễn Phúc Ánh to carry out the Treaty of Versailles; holding that France had given no real help, he refused, returning the letter and the gift. In 1804 the Englishman John Roberts asked leave to establish a factory at Tra Sơn in Quảng Nam; since Nguyễn Phúc Ánh had bought arms from the East India Company at Madras and Calcutta he granted certain trading privileges in good faith, but the factory was refused and the English gifts returned, the privileges being ended by Minh Mạng in 1822.

With China, in 1803 he sent Trịnh Hoài Đức and Lê Quang Định to ask investiture, taking the "Nam" of Annam and the "Việt" of Yuechang to request the name "Nam Việt"; the Jiaqing emperor changed it to "Việt Nam", the origin of the country's present name, holding that the historical Nam Việt had been larger and included Guangdong and Guangxi and that Nguyễn Phúc Ánh held only the old Jiaozhi lands, and the order of the two characters was accordingly reversed; the Qing reply explained that putting "Việt" first showed that he had inherited the land of Yuechang before extending into Annam, that the name was both correct and auspicious and that it avoided confusion with the old "Nam Việt" of the two Guang. The next year the Jiaqing emperor sent the Guangxi judge Qi Busen to invest Nguyễn Phúc Ánh as King of Vietnam with a gold seal, and he came to Thăng Long to receive it, afterwards sending Lê Bá Phẩm and others to the Qing court to give thanks and tribute, a triennial tribute being agreed. In 1806 he held his enthronement and fixed the new name "Đại Việt Nam quốc", though the old "Đại Việt" continued in use until Minh Mạng abolished it in 1839.

With Siam, where he had been an exile and which had sent troops in 1784 and again in 1799, he exchanged envoys after founding the dynasty but ceased the tribute of gold and silver flowers recorded in the Thai chronicle as having been sent six times before his accession, and although the two states clashed over Cambodia in 1813 relations remained friendly in the Gia Long years. In Cambodia, made a vassal in 1779 and lost after 1782, he restored Ang Chan II in 1813 with Lê Văn Duyệt, leaving garrisons at Phnom Penh and Lvea Em and making the country a vassal again, while Siam withdrew after an exchange of protests, Cambodia paying tribute to both. In Laos, he sent the claimant Manhku Rajakoumane back to Chiang Khong in 1802 and in 1809 handed him over to the Qing at the Zhennan pass; with Vientiane, whose king Inthavong he had known in Siam, he assigned the Tran Ninh lands to that kingdom and supported Chao Noi on the throne of Tran Ninh.

His Last Years and Character

In his last years Nguyễn Phúc Ánh was suspicious of his ministers, and quarrels among them led to the deaths of Đặng Trần Thường and Nguyễn Văn Thành. Đặng Trần Thường, who had joined him at Gia Định and risen by his merits to be military commissioner and then minister of war in the north, lost favour when he was accused of honouring the Trịnh general Hoàng Ngũ Phúc as a spirit; Lê Chất, his enemy, accused him in 1813 of irregularities in his northern office, and the emperor had him dismissed and imprisoned, where in his resentment he wrote a fu comparing himself to Han Xin, and the emperor, enraged and unmoved by the crown prince's pleas, had him strangled after he refused to take his own life. Nguyễn Văn Thành, also an old follower, a soldier and a scholar with great merits against the Tây Sơn, governor-general of the north and later commander of the centre and compiler of the Gia Long code, had quarrelled with Lê Văn Duyệt and tried to have him assassinated; in 1817 his son Nguyễn Văn Thuyên wrote an arrogant poem which Lê Văn Duyệt denounced as treason, and the emperor had Nguyễn Văn Thành imprisoned, forced him to drink poison and had his son executed.

Frenchmen such as Chaigneau, Vannier, Despiau and Barisy still held high office after the founding of the dynasty, with fifty guards and exemption from kneeling at court, but all felt frustrated, and soon after his death Chaigneau asked Minh Mạng for three years' leave and returned to France, other French officials resigning in turn. On the succession, after the death of Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh in 1801 he long delayed naming his grandson Nguyễn Phúc Mỹ Đường, because of the family's Western and Christian leanings and the boy's youth, and in 1815 made his Confucian-minded younger son Nguyễn Phúc Đảm crown prince, excluding Cảnh's line; though he had been helped by Westerners he held that they were "not of our kind and their hearts must be different", yet seeing Đảm's strong xenophobia and hostility to Christianity he warned him to respect Europeans, especially the French, but to grant them no privileges and never to cede land to France.

On 1 February 1820, gravely ill, he summoned the crown prince, his sons and the ministers Lê Văn Duyệt and Phạm Đăng Hưng and declared his testament, appointing the two ministers as regents; he died on the nineteenth day of the twelfth month at fifty-eight, having reigned eighteen years. His body was buried beside that of his first wife Tống Thị Lan, on the left of her mound, the two tombs being known together as the Thiên Thọ mausoleum; on the first day of the new year the crown prince took the name Nguyễn Phúc Kiểu and succeeded as Minh Mạng. In character he was direct and decisive, his civil and military officials speaking their minds before him, and he enjoyed both the pastimes of the scholar-official and such popular Vietnamese amusements as cock-fighting and the hát tuồng, in private being approachable, Lê Văn Duyệt once making a long joking speech to him about cock-fighting. He did not care for birth in employing men, Chu Văn Tiếp having been a horse trader and Lê Văn Duyệt a peasant, nor for race, his officers including the Frenchmen Chaigneau, Vannier, Dayot, Puymanel, Despiau and Leblanc, the Khmer Nguyễn Văn Tồn, the Chinese Hà Hỷ Văn, Hoàng Trung Toàn and Trương Công Dẫn and the Siamese Vinhly Malu, while surrendered officers of talent were also employed. He kept his word, allowing the missionaries to preach and granting the English trading privileges against his inclination; Minh Mạng abolished the English privileges in accordance with his instruction and later forbade Christianity. In the West of the time he was presented as a protector of Christians who promoted their faith in Vietnam, whereas in fact he favoured Confucianism and resisted Christianity in his heart.

Appraisals

Appraisals differ widely. The Quốc triều chính biên toát yếu, compiled in the Tự Đức period, says that he restored the dynasty with merit and virtue unmatched since antiquity, setting up walls and tombs, altars and temples, ranks and stipends, examinations and schools, laws and statutes, preserving the descendants of the Lê and Trịnh, continuing the families of his ministers, refusing the offerings of the Tây Sơn, guarding against Siam, winning over Cambodia and pacifying Vientiane, his scale of design being vast. The historian Trần Trọng Kim held him a ruler of ability and intelligence who fought the Tây Sơn for twenty-five years without losing heart, praised his capacity for great enterprise and his skill in using men, and credited him with restoring the old patrimony, unifying the country and carrying out reforms that made Vietnam stronger than ever before, while criticising the killing of his ministers in old age as resembling Han Gaozu's. Others, judging from an anti-colonial standpoint, condemn him severely for waging a "counter-revolutionary war" with foreign help to crush the peasant risings and for founding the last and most reactionary of Vietnam's dynasties, and others again hold that he had both faults and merits with the faults outweighing them, his merit lying in uniting a divided country and carrying out reforms, his faults in relying on France, invading Cambodia and ruling despotically and killing his ministers. The differences reflect the standpoints of the writers, and the entry sets them side by side.

Major Activities

The Three Phases of the Restoration

His restoration falls into three phases. From 1775 to 1783 he was a fugitive and an unsuccessful client of Siam, driven between Gia Định, Phú Quốc and Côn Đảo, his part chiefly that of a princely standard and an organiser of followers. From 1784 to 1788 he depended on foreign help and was defeated, the Siamese campaign collapsing at Rạch Gầm and Xoài Mút, after which he spent three years in Bangkok taking part in Siamese campaigns in return for resources while waiting for a change in Vietnam. From 1789 to 1802 he built up his own base, reforming the government at Gia Định, applying soldiers-in-farming, developing trade and importing Western weapons and training, winning the raid on Thị Nại in 1792 and the capture of Diên Khánh in 1793, entering Phú Xuân in 1801 and destroying the Tây Sơn in 1802. The phases show that success turned less on any single battle than on whether he could hold a stable rear with steady supplies and technical support.

Government, Land and Law

After unification he worked on the north and on institutions at the same time. In the north he employed former Lê officials and local strongmen over the five inner and six outer districts, restored the examinations, temples of Confucius and the National College, ordered the compilation of geographies and national histories, promulgated the Gia Long code, standardised coinage and measures, and concentrated military authority in the three guards of the capital and the headquarters of the five armies. Abroad he sought investiture from the Qing, restored Cambodia as a vassal by investiture and garrisons, maintained relations with Siam by embassies and marriage, and with Westerners both used their skills and guarded against them. These arrangements gave the new dynasty a comparatively centralised government and a fairly complete ceremonial framework, and left his son Minh Mạng the basis for further reorganisation.

Finance, Measures and Coastal Defence

Besides the registers of adult males and land and the three grades of land tax, he set up mints at Huế, Hanoi and Gia Định in 1803 to cast Gia Long coin, issued standard bronze land measures in 1810 and standard balances in 1813, so that coinage, measurement and weights were made uniform among the districts; the sale of public land was forbidden, with rental for three years permitted in emergencies and penalties for overstaying. At sea he built batteries at the ports, inspected passing ships and constructed great vessels for patrol, and against the South China Sea pirates he took a severe line, destroying their base at Jiangping in 1802 and beheading their chief Zheng Qi, after which their strongholds along the Vietnamese coast were cleared and the pirates withdrew to Guangdong.

The Pirates and Relations with the Qing

The pirates of the South China Sea, known as the "black-hulled sea bandits", were a distinctive element in his long struggle with the Tây Sơn, employed by the latter to raid his coasts: in 1797 Trần Thiêm Bảo raided the ports of Bình Khang and Diên Khánh and was beaten off the next year; in 1800 they supplied more than a hundred ships to the Tây Sơn expedition and fought for them in the decisive battle at Phú Xuân in 1801, where Mạc Quan Phù, Liang Wengeng and Fan Wencai were taken; in 1802 Zheng Qi brought two hundred ships to the north for the last Tây Sơn effort while Trần Thiêm Bảo went over to the Qing. In the same year Nguyễn Phúc Ánh sent Trịnh Hoài Đức and Ngô Nhân Tĩnh to the Qing court with the captured seals and the three pirate chiefs, whose interrogation by the governor-general of Liangguang revealed the Tây Sơn's long support of the pirates and led the Jiaqing emperor to execute them and expel the Tây Sơn envoys. The transfer of the pirates thus helped him obtain investiture: in 1803 he sent Trịnh Hoài Đức and Lê Quang Định to request it and was granted the name "Việt Nam", and the next year Qi Busen invested him as king with a gold seal at Thăng Long, after which he sent tribute and thanks and a triennial tribute was agreed, holding his enthronement in 1806 under the name "Đại Việt Nam quốc". The exchanges served both to obtain the suzerain's recognition and to align the two states on the problem of maritime order.

Institutional Legacy and Sources

The institutions of his reign long outlasted him: the six ministries and the court of inspection were kept by later Nguyễn reigns, while the headquarters of the five armies, the three guards of the capital and the rotation of district troops in three shifts concentrated military authority in the court; the five-yearly registers of adult males and land and the three grades of land tax gave the state regular knowledge of population and land; and the 398 articles of the Gia Long code remained the basis of justice in the earlier Nguyễn period. The restored examinations, temples of Confucius and National College, together with the geographies, the Đại Nam hội điển sự lệ and the Đại Nam thực lục compiled on his orders, left a body of official documents for the later study of the Nguyễn and of earlier geography and history, and the making of the code and the working of the registers are principal sources for the land and taxation relations of the later Vietnamese feudal period. In historical terms he ended nearly thirty years of division and war and founded the last of Vietnam's traditional dynasties; assessments of his merits and faults differ, but that he "united a divided Vietnamese society" is accepted by most of them.

The External Factor in His Struggle

External factors were always important in his more than twenty years of struggle: the two Siamese expeditions of 1784 and 1799 ended respectively in defeat and in support, French aid came only in the form of officers, weapons and training because of the revolution and financial crisis at home, and there were also Portuguese promises of warships, contacts between Bangkok and Macao, and followers from the Chinese coast and from the Khmer. None of these altered the balance of forces by themselves; the decisive turn lay in his building a stable rear at Gia Định. In the later 1790s the Tây Sơn court, in disorder, killed its ministers one after another, while his army gained the initiative through Western drill and fortress defence, completing the northern campaign in 1801 and 1802. External help thus supplied the conditions, while his internal organisation decided the outcome.

Personal Relations

• Grandfather: Nguyen Phuc Khoat, Lord Vo
• Father: Nguyen Phuc Luan
• Mother: Nguyen Thi Hoan
• Uncle: Nguyen Phuc Thuan, Lord Dinh
• Younger brother: Nguyen Phuc Man
• Eldest son: Nguyen Phuc Canh
• Son: Nguyen Phuc Dam, the Minh Mang Emperor
• Pigneau de Behaine: bishop of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, ally and adviser
• Paul Nghi: Catholic priest who saved his life
• Do Thanh Nhon: meritorious commander, later killed
• Le Van Quan: commander, later committed suicide
• Nguyen Van Thanh: commander
• Nguyen Van Nhan: commander
• Chau Van Tiep: commander, killed in battle
• Vo Tanh: commander
• Trinh Hoai Duc: agricultural official
• Nguyen Nhac, Nguyen Hue, and Nguyen Lu: Tay Son dynasty
• Truong Phuc Loan: powerful official
• Rama I: king of Siam
• Louis XVI: king of France

Historical Assessment

Qing Period and Contemporary Views

• Dai Nam Thuc Luc praised him as “brilliant and divinely martial, recreating the rivers and mountains,” celebrating his unification.
• The Qing Jiaqing Emperor's investiture edict described him as “reverently obedient to the Celestial Court and capable of continuing the succession of his forebears,” recognizing his legitimacy.
• Former officials of the Tay Son regime often denounced him as one who “borrowed the power of foreign barbarians to harm his own compatriots,” viewing him as a traitor.

Nguyen Dynasty Period

• The official Nguyen history Dai Nam Thuc Luc portrayed him as a ruler who restored the dynasty, emphasizing the legitimacy of his recovery of former Nguyen possessions.
• The Minh Mang Emperor honored him with the temple name Shizu and treated him as the founder of the Nguyen dynasty.
• Some Confucian officials criticized his heavy reliance on Western foreigners and regarded it as opening the way to “changing the civilized by means of the foreign.”

Colonial Period

• French colonial writers presented him as a “pro-French ruler,” emphasizing his cooperation with Pigneau de Behaine as part of a colonial argument for legitimacy.
• Vietnamese nationalists, by contrast, described him as a “traitor” because the Treaty of Versailles promised territorial concessions.

Modern Period

• Vietnamese historians generally recognize his achievement in unifying Vietnam while criticizing his reliance on foreign powers and suppression of the Tay Son movement.
• Western scholars such as George Coedès have described him as an astute politician skilled at exploiting external rivalries.
• Chinese scholars often focus on his tributary relationship with the Qing and regard it as a representative case of the tributary system.