Tu Duc

Emperor of Vietnam (r. 1847-1883)

• Born: September 22, 1829
• Birthplace: Hue, Vietnam
• Died: July 9, 1883
• Place of death: Hue, Vietnam

One of the best-educated emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty, Tu Duc worked to modernize Vietnam, improve education, and maintain his nation’s independence from Western powers. However, his edicts directly led to the loss of Vietnam’s independence.

Early Life

Tu Duc (tew dewc) was born Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Nham, the youngest son of Vietnam’s Emperor Thieu Tri. The emperor was considered to be the Son of Heaven, whose mandate was above law, and as a divine leader, he was often hidden from view. As a child of the emperor, Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Nham was also kept hidden from public view. He was a sickly child through some portion of his youth, as he suffered from smallpox.

Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Nham spent a large portion of time during his youth studying the arts and humanities. Emperors were required to uphold Confucian ideals because they were the supposed to promote “social happiness” and uphold the structure of Confucian society, which had four classes: Confucian scholars (Si), landlords (Nong), artisans (Cong), and merchants (Thuong). Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Nham was also expected to uphold Confucian ideals and was well versed in them. He excelled at the written and verbal, and showed an immense interest in poetry, philosophy, and history.

Under the principle of primogeniture, Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Nham was not in line to ascend his father’s throne; that was the destiny of his oldest brother, Hong Bao. However, Thieu Tri decided to do away with primogeniture and declared Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Nham his heir. When he died in 1847, eighteen-year-old Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Nham became Emperor Tu Duc.

Life’s Work

Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Nham ascended the throne as Tu Duc with some question of his legitimacy because his succession violated the old principle of primogeniture. In order to secure his legitimacy immediately, he sought China’s recognition and support. On September 10, 1849, he welcomed a Chinese delegate with great fanfare, a tactic that spurred some resentment among the Vietnamese people.

Tu Duc also encountered opposition from his brother Hong Bao, who had been passed over for the throne. At first, his brother supported his accession, but three years later he and his supporters revolted. One of Hong Bao’s supporters revealed the details of a planned coup, and Hong Bao was swiftly arrested and sentenced to execution. Dowager Tu Du, the mother of both Tu Duc and Hong Bao, ordered Hong Bao’s sentence reduced to life in prison, but Hong Bao later took his own life in a prison cell.

In 1864, Tu Duc began building a mausoleum for himself on the Perfume River, an action that created discontent. Doan Trung, the son-in-law of Tu Duc’s uncle Prince Tung Thien Vuong, took advantage of the discontent by planning another coup, this time to place Hong Bao’s son on the throne. On September 8, 1866, members of Doan Trung’s party took a blood oath and descended on Tu Duc’s palace. The rebels easily entered the palace and approached Tu Duc’s quarters. However, unfortunately for Doan Trung, one of his followers read an unfavorable horoscope and left the party to warn the emperor’s guards. As Doan Trung laid siege to the imperial quarters, troops arrived to protect the palace, and Doan Trung and his party were arrested. All the plotters were executed immediately, except for Doan Trung, who was tortured. When he refused to confess, every member of his entire famiy—except his wife, a cousin of the emperor—was beheaded.

In addition to these rebellions, Tu Duc faced uprisings from supporters of the Le Dynasty, which had formerly ruled Vietnam, in 1854, 1861 and 1862. In an effort to stop these rebellions, he sent Nguyen Tri Phuong to suppress all anti-Nguyen movements. Nguyen Tri Phuong accomplished that task with the defeat of Ta Van Phung in 1864.

Tu Duc was also concerned about what he regarded as the infiltration of his country by Christian missionaries, who threatened to disrupt Vietnamese life and undermine his status as the Son of Heaven. His concern was heightened by the fact that a Roman Catholic priest had been involved in the Hong Bao coup. He followed his father’s example by persecuting missionaries in order to drive them out of Vietnam. In 1848, near the beginning of his reign, he issued an edict that demanded Christian peasants to renounce their faith or faced being labeled heretics. Tu Duc gave members of the upper classes one month to renounce their Christian faith, under the threat of losing their rank and facing possible exile. After he issued these edicts, Christian-led rebellions arose in the northern provinces. A 1855 rebellion in Tongking moved Tu Duc to inflict harsher punishments on Christians and to execute Spanish and French missionaries.

Tu Duc’s decision came at an inopportune time. The French government was then moving to colonize Southeast Asia, and the execution of European missionaries in Vietnam increased public support for imperial expansion. In 1856, the French government demanded that Vietnam permit religious freedom and open trade, but Tu Duc refused. He continued his anti-Christian policies. In 1858, his execution of the Spanish missionary Monsignor Díaz provoked the Spanish and French governments to take military action. Vietnam was then plunged into the French Indochina War , which it could not win.

Several times during the ensuing war, which lasted from 1858 until 1863, Tu Duc misinterpreted French actions with the result that each time Vietnam lost more territory. Often the French had to retreat because their troops were not physically prepared for the tropics, and Tu Duc repeatedly took their retreats as a sign of weakness. Early in the war Tu Duc won some victories by taking advantage of French inability to fight in heavy jungle. Despite France’s overwhelming advantages in modern weaponry and manpower, the Vietnamese stopped the French from advancing from Da Nang into Hue, the imperial capital, in 1858. However, that level of success was not repeated, and Tu Duc consistently lost territory as he refused to heed to French demands. In 1862, he was forced to sign the Treaty of Saigon, by which he relinquished his southern provinces and Cambodia to French control.

Despite the treaty, the Vietnamese still did not want France in their country, and several anti-French rebellions encouraged Tu Duc to send an embassy to Paris in 1863 to negotiate a new settlement. He wanted to buy back his southern provinces, known as Cochin-China, and offered to make Cochin-China a French protectorate, give the French special trade rights and commercial access, and pay an annual tribute to France. The French emperor, Napoleon III, initially accepted the offer, which was an important victory for Tu Duc, but later changed his mind.

The French presence in Vietnam also created other problems for Tu Duc. His persecution of Christians nurtured pro-French sentiments among Roman Catholic Vietnamese, and as France gained territory in Vietnam, uprisings in Tongking against him increased. In 1865, he sent a large force to Bac Bo in Tongking to crush a Christian-supported rebellion. However, that tactic only increased pro-French feelings, and soon Vietnamese Catholics began working for the French. At the same time, many peasants began to view Tu Duc as unworthy of his throne. Not only was he proving unable to protect their country from the French, but the country also experienced a high incidence of natural disasters and a cholera epidemic that killed more than one million people in 1865.

Although he was steadily losing public support and had no reason to think that he could be a match for French forces, Tu Duc continued to seek ways to overthrow the French. In 1873, when a French trader named Dupuis attempted to carry his wares up the Red River, Tu Duc declared his behavior a violation of the Treaty of Saigon. However, instead of carrying out their treaty responsibilities by removing Dupius, the French sought to open all rivers in Vietnam to trade. In 1874, Tu Duc was forced to sign another treaty that opened the Red River. However, he had no intention of honoring that treaty and continued persecuting Christians.

As a last option, Tu Duc renewed Vietnam’s vassal relationship with China. This move was a violation of the Treaty of Saigon that the French seized as an opportunity to take complete control of Vietnam. Tu Duc enlisted the bandit group Black Flags to disturb French commercial interests, but that move proved to be a terrible mistake. France then swiftly descended on Hanoi. It captured the city in 1882 and then extended conquests outward. On July 9, 1883, as the French were occupying his country, Tu Duc died in Hue.

Significance

Some scholars have suggested that if Tu Duc had been emperor without having to face the threat of French imperialism, he might have become a great ruler. However, his fervid desire to banish European influence from Vietnam was untimely and had drastic consequences. His policy of persecution was influenced by the Hong Bao revolt, and his refusal to abandon his policies ultimately led to the downfall of Vietnam. Although his policies were intended to drive out Western sway, they only hardened French resolve to control Vietnam. France already had economic interests in Vietnam, but the persecution and murder of French missionaries created French public support of an invasion of Vietnam.

Ultimately, Tu Duc’s policies not only provoked the French but also alienated his own people, particularly Christian Vietnamese. The result of his policies was that Vietnam lost its independence for the first time in nine hundred years.

Bibliography

Chapuis, Oscar. A History of Vietnam. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. General history of Vietnam that places Tu Duc’s reign in a larger context.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Chronicles France’s relationship with Vietnam and neighboring countries from the seizure of Cochin-China during Tu Duc’s reign until the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2d ed. New York: Viking Press, 1997. One of the most widely available English works on Vietnam. Includes a useful chronology.

Sardesai, D. R. Vietnam: Past and Present. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2005. A detailed discussion of the history of Vietnam with an emphasis on colonial expansion, the colonial period, and the rise of nationalism in Vietnam.

Tate, D. J. M. The Making of Modern South-East Asia: The European Conquest. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977. Detailed discussion of Tu Duc’s policies and actions regarding the French and how they directly affected Franco-Vietnamese relations.