Gia Long

Emperor of Vietnam (r. 1802-1820)

• Born: February 8, 1762
• Birthplace: Phu Xuan (now Hue), Vietnam
• Died: January 25, 1820 or February 3, 1820
• Place of death: Hue, Vietnam

The only Nguyen prince who survived his family’s massacre by Tay Son rebels, Gia Long fought the Tay Son for twenty-five years until achieving a victory that reunified Vietnam and allowed him to found Vietnam’s last imperial dynasty. While reorganizing his domain on a conservative Confucian and Chinese model, he increased its power in Southeast Asia and kept at bay Western imperialist nations. However, he was unable to spur economic growth and earned a reputation for cruelty.

Early Life

Emperor Gia Long (zih-ah long, northern Vietnamese pronunciation; yih-ah long, southern pronunciation) was born Nguyen Phuc Anh in Phu Xuan, the capital of the Nguyen lords who ruled southern Vietnam. His father, Chuong Vo, was the legitimate heir of his grandfather Nguyen Phuc Khoat, the first Nguyen lord to become king in the south. However, when Ahn was three years old, his royal grandfather decided to disinherit his father. The grandfather then appointed his twelve-year-old son by a favorite new concubine, Nguyen Phuc Thuen, who was to rule as Denh Vuong, or King Denh.

When Anh’s grandfather died in 1765, the teenage King Denh’s maternal grandfather, Truong Phuc Loan, became regent. Anh’s father was thrown in jail, where he died two years later, but Ahn was left alive. In 1771, while Anh was receiving the classical education that befitted a young Vietnamese noble, the Tay Son Rebellion broke out. Rebel success led to an invasion of the south by the Nguyen’s northern rival, the Trenh king. Breaking a century-old peace, a Trenh army besieged Phu Xuan, where Anh lived. Even surrendering the regent did not lead the Trenh to withdraw from the south. In early 1775, the Trenh occupied Phu Xuan. Anh fled with his uncle south to Gia Denh (close to modern Saigon), only to have to flee once more, as the Tay Son looted that city before being driven out in early 1776.

Life’s Work

In 1777, Nguyen Anh became the sole surviving Nguyen heir, when the Tay Son conquered Gia Denh, killing King Denh and most of Anh’s Nguyen relatives. Anh escaped into the swamps near Cambodia, where in October, 1777, he was saved by Pierre Joseph Georges Pigneau de Béhaine, the Roman Catholic bishop of Adran. After the Tay Son leaders withdrew, Anh led a force that recaptured Gia Denh late in 1777. During the following year, he concluded a peace treaty with Thailand. He married, and in 1779 his first son, Nguyen Phuc Cenh, was born.

In 1780, while he was only eighteen years old, Nguyen Anh proclaimed himself king of southern Vietnam. His claim was contested by the Tay Son, whom he would fight over the next twenty-two years. At the beginning of this struggle, the Tay Son repeatedly drove Anh out of Gia Denh. By 1783, he was in Thailand with his wife, mother, sister and son. Late in 1784, he sent Cenh with Bishop Pigneau to get French military aid, and accepted the help of a Thai army to fight the Tay Son. In Vietnam, Tay Son leader Nguyen Hue defeated Anh’s army on February 19, 1785. Nguyen Anh fled to Thailand but returned in August, 1787. Three months later, on November 28, 1787, Bishop Pigneau signed a treaty in Paris that would give France military bases and commercial privileges in Vietnam in exchange for giving Anh military aid.

After Nguyen Anh captured Gia Denh in September, 1788, France decided not to honor its treaty with him. Bishop Pigneau gathered a private army and landed with two warships in Vietnam on July 24, 1789. With his southern base secure, Nguyen Anh fought a seasonal war from 1790 to 1799, sailing north in spring and returning in autumn. He also welcomed Laotian aid. In July, 1799, Ahn’s son Cenh took Qui Nhon, and on October 9, Bishop Pigneau died there of dysentery. The Tay Son besieged the city in April, 1800. In February, 1801, Anh defeated the Tay Son fleet, while Cenh died of a fever. On June 15, 1801, Anh suddenly captured Phu Xuan. As Qui Nhon fell to the Tay Son army, in September, 1801, the Tay Son forces were encircled. A desperate counterattack in March, 1802, failed, and they fled north.

On June 1, 1802, Nguyen Anh celebrated his victory and opened the Gia Long era, which combined the names of the southern capital city, Gia Denh (Saigon), and the northern capital Thang Long (Hanoi). Western historians generally call Anh “Emperor Gia Long” from that moment, but he was actually ruling as king.

On July 22, 1802, Anh captured Thang Long. The captured Tay Son emperor had to witness Anh’s soldiers digging up the bones of Nguyen Hue and his brother and urinating on them before he himself was torn to pieces. The wife and daughter of the Tay Son general who had retaken Qui Nhon were stripped naked and publicly crushed to death. Afterward, Nguyen Anh made Phu Xuan his capital, naming it Hue. In 1803, the Chinese government recognized his government. He opened a mint and the National College at Hue and began issuing a new coinage. In 1804, he officially changed the name of his country from Dai Viet to Viet Nam. In his relations with Westerners, he remained cautious and did not give a trading post to the British in 1804.

In June, 1802, Anh assumed the name of Gia Long and proclaimed himself emperor of Vietnam. He then set about reorganizing his government along centralized lines. From the earlier Le emperors he adopted a system of six ministries. He created twenty-seven provinces, and updated land and population records. He kept a standing army of 113,000 men, 42,000 of whom were French trained, and 200 war elephants. His navy had 18,800 men. In 1812, he instituted a conservative law code that replaced the more progressive Heng Dec code, which had been in effect since 1483. The 398 articles of the Gia Long code were based on a Confucian Chinese model that was harsh on women’s rights and adequately adjusted to the needs of Vietnamese society.

In 1813, Gia Long intervened in Cambodia, leaving 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers in Phnom Penh. Meanwhile, he was growing weary of the increasing French presence in Vietnam. When the French warship Cybele arrived at Da Neng on December 30, 1817, to inquire about France’s treaty with him, Gia Long refused to meet its commander and indicated that he considered the treaty invalidated.

Gia Long decided to appoint his son by a favorite concubine as heir. He chose Nguyen Phuc Dem because of his strong Confucian beliefs, distrust of Europeans and rejection of Christianity. His son reigned as Emperor Minh Mang.

Gia Long died in Hue on either January 25 or February 3 of 1820. With his wife and concubines, among them Ngec Bich, the youngest daughter of the last Le emperor and former wife of the Tay Son emperor whom Gia Long had had executed, Gia Long had thirteen sons and eighteen daughters.

Significance

During a struggle of twenty-five years, Gia Long defeated the Tay Son and reunified Vietnam. He also founded a dynasty that would last until the abdication of Vietnam’s last emperor in 1955. Nevertheless, his national legacy is disputed. His deep conservatism and favoring of Confucian philosophy that legitimizes imperial and patriarchal rule led to the promulgation of a law code, which was used until 1880, that took away women’s rights and tried to impose a Chinese system on Vietnamese society. His alliance with foreigners is seen as problematical by modern Vietnamese historians. Using Thai soldiers to fight his Vietnamese enemies nearly ruined Vietnam.

Gia Long’s friendship with the French bishop Pigneau gave him access to Western military science and medicine. However, had his treaty with France become effective, the French would have gained Vietnamese land. The conservative economic policies of Gia Long did not promote modernization. Instead, they established state monopolies and based tax and labor burdens solely on the backs of peasants and commoners. Gia Long’s military was strong in Southeast Asia, and he manufactured modern guns for his navy. However, his military strategies remained conservative and static, and Vietnam eventually fell behind European and American advances.

After Gia Long died, his chosen successor, Minh Mang, quickly killed the wife and children of his dead stepbrother, Cenh. Throughout his own reign, which lasted until 1840, he lived up to his father’s trust to keep out Westerners and reject Christianity. However, his rule increasingly clashed with his people. Although Gia Long’s reign saw seventy-three recorded instances of uprisings and riots, that number more than tripled to 234 during his son’s reign.

Bibliography

Chapuis, Oscar. A History of Vietnam. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. Discusses Gia Long’s life in detail, beginning in the context of the Tay Son rebellion when he was still Nguyen Anh, and devotes a substantial part of one chapter to his reign. Contains useful maps.

Hall, Daniel George. A History of Southeast Asia. 4th ed. London: Macmillan Press, 1981. Still a standard work on the period, this general history’s chapter 24 thoroughly covers Gia Long’s life, arguing that he was no innovator as emperor.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2d ed. New York: Viking Press, 1997. Still the most widely available source in English, this story places Gia Long’s fight and reign in the context of rising European influence in Vietnam, focusing also on his French advisers. Includes a useful chronology.

Lamb, Helen. Vietnam’s Will to Live. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with Nguyen Anh’s use of French help to fight the Tay Son; his later disenchantment with the French is seen in the context of Vietnamese resistance to European colonialization.

Li, Tana. Nguyen Cochinchina. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998. Thorough discussion of the heterogeneous society of southern Vietnam where Gia Long was born and which served as his base while fighting the Tay Son rebellion, which is described as a local uprising against deteriorating Nguyen rule.