In English-language writings on Vietnamese history, the Nguyễn Dynasty has long been depicted as resistant to reform. In this depiction, people like Emperor Tự Đức are said to have been so absorbed in the world of Confucian tradition that they did not recognize the need to change.
My suspicion is that this view of the past was probably first developed by French authors during the colonial period as a way to justify their rule, and it later fit the needs of twentieth-century Vietnamese nationalists as well, and has become part of the nationalist narrative of Vietnamese history.
In terms of English-language scholarship, I think that this view has persisted simply because there has been so little work done in English on the Nguyễn Dynasty, because when one looks at the historical record, it is clear that the depiction of the Nguyễn Dynasty as resistant to reform definitely needs to be revisited.
Take, for instance, the following example. In 1879 Emperor Tự Đức ordered some of his officials to fix the calendar. The reason why this was necessary was because the lunar calendar that the Nguyễn Dynasty employed has 11 fewer days per year than the solar calendar. To keep the calendar accurate so as to know when to plant crops, it is necessary to add an extra month, an intercalary month (閏月), about every three years.
This is what needed to be done in 1879, and Emperor Tự Đức ordered his officials to make the proper adjustments.
However, in doing so he also ordered that certain Western books be consulted as well and that these books be printed and distributed widely for officials and scholars to learn from.
What books did Emperor Tự Đức refer to? Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law (Vạn quốc công pháp 萬國公法), Benjamin Hobson’s Treatise on Natural Philosophy (Bác vật tân biên 博物新編), Daniel Jerome Macgowan’s The Navigator’s Golden Needle (Hàng hải kim châm 航海金針), and Warington Wilkinson Smyth’s A Treatise on Coal and Coal Mining (Khai môi yếu pháp 開煤要法).
These books were about much more than calendrical calculations, and Emperor Tự Đức clearly understood that.
Two years later, in 1881, he ordered that these same books be printed and distributed to academies across the kingdom.
While these books may not be familiar to many of us today, in the nineteenth century these were some of the most influential works for members of the reformist elite across East Asia, from the members of the Self-Strengthening Movement in China to the men behind the Meiji-era reforms in Japan.
Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law was particularly important. First published in 1836, it was translated into classical Chinese in 1864, after the Second Opium War, and was of critical importance in transforming the worldview of the Chinese elite at that time; from viewing their land as the one and only “Central Kingdom,” to understanding that it was merely one of many “sovereign nations” on the globe. (See Lydia H. Liu’s The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making for a sophisticated discussion of that transformation.)
The Chinese translation of Wheaton’s Elements of International Law was republished in Japan in 1865, a year after it was first published in China. While I have not been able to determine when it was first published in Vietnam, the other three books above appear to have first been published in 1877, so it is possible that Wheaton’s text was also published at that time.
This would put the introduction of such new ideas in Vietnam about a decade later than in China and Japan, but that is still more than two decades earlier than the time most historians believe Western ideas about such topics as international law and sovereignty were first introduced to the Vietnamese elite through the writings of reformers such as Phan Bội Châu and Phan Châu Trinh.
The Nguyễn Dynasty was clearly not resistant to change. To the contrary, by ordering that Wheaton’s Elements of International Law be distributed to academies in 1881, Emperor Tự Đức was clearly seeking to keep pace with the changes taking place in East Asia at that time.
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I think his reputation is actually well deserved, considering the fact that he did receive advice from reformers like Nguyễn Trường Tộ and before him, Phan Thanh Giản and Phạm Phú Thứ who went to France in 1863. Perhaps influenced by Trương Đăng Quế, he did not order any of the many reform measures proposed by the men above.
The fact that he ordered a new calendar as well as having some books printed in 1881 – near the end of his reign, after suffering humiliating defeats in Cochinchina and Tonkin – suggested exactly the same thing. With the French already colonized the entire Cochinchina and ready to take over Tonkin, that is what he did for “reform”?
It’s reform alright, it’s just too little, too late! He was the king/emperor since 1847! And died in 1883.
I get your point, but I think you are being unrealistic. Look around the region: the Qing Dynasty didn’t start to make reforms until after 2 humiliating defeats (the 1st and 2nd Opium War), and even then, the reforms are minimal. Japan didn’t start reforming until after it faced a humiliating threat. The Konbaung Dynasty didn’t start reforming until after it suffered two humiliating defeats (the 1st and 2nd Anglo-Burmese Wars) and had lost 1/2 of its empire. The Siamese didn’t start reforming until threatened by the British, etc.
None of the leaders of these places had the foresight to change before they suffered some serious defeat/humiliation. The Nguyen were part of the norm.
All I’m saying here is that the Nguyen Dynasty participated in the same effort to change as other places in Asia. What I think is unfair is that it does not get credit for that. Yes, of course reforms were limited and ineffective at that time, but that applies to the reforms that took place basically everywhere.
Nonetheless, a phenomenon like the Self Strengthening Movement in China is usually written about as “the beginnings of reform in China.” There is nothing like that said about the Nguyen, but they weren’t all that different from other places.
From sending Phan Huy Chu to Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies in 1833 to publishing books like these in 1881. . . there is a long history there of trying to figure out what was going on in the world and to try to figure out what to do.
And the things that the people at the top were learning were all things that now form the foundation of Vietnamese knowledge about the world (the book on natural history, for instance, covers everything from modern ideas about geography, to astronomy, steam and electricity, etc.)
I think it is also interesting that a book on mining got published right at the time when the French were starting to make requests to open mines in the north (late 1870s). To me that’s a sign of not being behind the times. The Nguyen were trying to figure out what those people were up to.
Finally, these books were all initially published in Hai Duong by one of the officials who traveled to France with Nguyen Thanh Gian – Phạm Phú Thứ.
https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%E1%BA%A1m_Ph%C3%BA_Th%E1%BB%A9
So how long is a reasonable and realistic period of time between defeat/contact with a Western/European powers and reform?
In 1847, the French came and destroyed the entire Vietnamese fleet while Tự Đức’s own dad, Thiệu Trị, was the king. Did that give him any hint about the French might? What did he do from the time he became king until the French came again in 1858? Any reform? Apparently not, for he was still too busy writing poems!
And if we talk about the Nguyễn Dynasty and not just Tự Đức, remember that this is a dynasty that came to power with the help of Western technology. Gia Long was a student of the French/European ship building. He also had many French subordinates/advisers. That was before the turn of the 19th century (he became king in 1802). Did he then bring reforms to his new country after he united the country, or did he choose to turn back to the Chinese model? A clear sign of this was when he chose Prince Đảm (Minh Mạng0, who was educated by Confucian scholars selected by Gia Long, to be his successor.
Why is that? Perhaps because he wanted stability and more importantly, longevity for his dynasty, but of course that came with the cost of risking the advancement of his own country.
It would be reasonable/understandable if he did not have any contacts with the Westerners. In his case, it is not, considering how much contacts he had with the French.
So if we want to go into the specifics, that’s what happened in Vietnam with the Nguyễn. Did other countries in Asia have the same experience like Gia Long’s? If they all did, then perhaps your conclusion is correct that it was the norm. However, it would still not be reasonable, considering the circumstances.
One of the things that Japanese reformers during the Meiji period supposedly realized was that places like America and Europe had only recently industrialized (or started to industrialize). That supposedly made them realize that reform was possible because Europe and the US had been a lot like agricultural Japan not that long before (and in many areas, still were).
As for Gia Long, what exactly were the reforms that he should have brought in the first two decades of the 19th century? About the only major model for something different than a purely agricultural society in the world at that time was the beginnings of the industrial revolution in the UK that was largely based on textile production.
I don’t think Gia Long had any Brits working for him, but if the French guys who were making European-style forts for him somehow knew about what was happening in England and told him, should Gia Long have ordered that sheep be imported to produce wool textiles? Or should he have ordered that rice fields be converted to cotton fields?
The plantations that were established in European colonies in Southeast Asia didn’t come into being until the second half of the nineteenth century, so that wasn’t an option either.
So what exactly were the reforms that the Nguyen emperors didn’t take? Ok, they could have done more to modernize their military, but the military was pretty effective at putting down the many rebellions that plagued the kingdom, so it probably would not have seemed all that necessary when they were succeeding at their main task.
And again, the Japanese, Chinese and Burmese didn’t start doing this seriously until about the 1870s, and the Thai were even later, around the 1880s.
Gia Long didn’t even directly control the Red River and Mekong deltas. Minh Mang brought those areas under the central control of the Nguyen court. That was a pretty massive reform.
So when you look at what they did, and what was possible, and what others did, then I think the Nguyen ends up looking pretty normal. However, that is not how they have been treated by historians. I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.
King Mindon in Burma worked hard in the 1860s (after 2 defeats and losing 1/2 the country) to set up factories, modernize the military, open a Western school for the elite, etc. And he had the good fortune of living in a place where cotton can grow, and he got a great price for it as the Civil War in the US had driven up the price of cotton on the world market. So he had $$$ to pay for his reforms.
That guy was both smart and lucky, and did all the right things, but Burma still ended up getting completely conquered and colonized by the British.
So we can blame people for not doing something, but we need to be aware of what was actually possible at the time, and then we also need to realize that even doing the most of what was possible still might not have been enough.