Page 7 - Vietnam Destination Guide - Alluring Asia

NGUYEN DYNASTY (1802-1945) Gia Long (reigned 1802-19) initiated a policy of massive Minh Mang was succeeded by Emperor Thieu Tri reassertion of Confucian values and institutions in order (reigned 1841-47), who expelled most of the foreign to consolidate the dynasty's shaky position of the elite. missionaries. He was followed by Emperor Tu Duc He also began a large scale program of public works (reined 1848-83), who continued to rule according to (dikes, canals, roads, ports, bridges, land reclamation) to conservative Confucian precepts and in imitation of rehabilitate the country, which had been devastated by Qing practices in China. Both responded to rural unrest almost three decades of warfare. The Mandarin Road with repression. linking the national capital, Hue, to both Hanoi and Saigon was constructed during this period, as was a FRENCH RULE (1859-1954) string of star-shaped citadels - built according to the Ever since Pigneau de Behaine's patronage of Nguyen principles of the French military architect Vauban - in Anh in the late 18th century and his son Canh's provincial capitals. All these projects imposed a heavy appearance at Versailles in 1787, certain segments of burden on the population in the form of taxation, French society had retained an active interest in military conscription and corvee (forced labor). Indochina. But it was not until the Revolution of 1848 and the advent of the Second Empire that there arose a Gia Long's son, Emperor Minh Mang (reigned 1820-40), coalition of interest - Catholic, commercial, patriotic, worked to consolidate the state and establish a strong strategic and idealistic (fans of the mission civilisatrice) - central government. Minh Mang was profoundly hostile with sufficient influence to initiate large-scale, long-term to Catholicism, which he saw as a threat to the colonial efforts. Confucian state, and he extended this antipathy to all Western influences. Seven missionaries and an France's military activity in Vietnam began in 1847, unknown number of Vietnamese Catholics were when the French navy attacked Danang harbor in executed in the 1830s. Serious uprisings broke out in response to Thieu Tri's actions against Catholic both the north and south during this period, growing missionaries. In 1858, a joint military force of 14 ships progressively more serious in the 1840s and 1850s. To from France and the Spanish colony of the Philippines make matters worse, the civil unrest in the deltas was stormed Danang after the killing of several missionaries. accompanied by smallpox epidemics, tribal uprisings, As disease began to take a heavy toll and the expected drought, locusts and - most serious of all - repeated support from Catholic Vietnamese failed to materialize, breaches in the Red River dikes, the result of the force left a small garrison in Danang and followed government neglect.