Long Gia

Long Gia , born with Hooted in 1762, known in its youth like Nguyễn Phúc Ánh , died at the same place the February 3rd 1820, lord of the South, first emperor of the Vietnam and founder of the imperial dynasty of the Nguyễn.

Biography

Long Gia is the imperial title which took the May 31st 1802, prince Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, of the powerful family of Nguyễn, for her reign, during the unification of the empire of Vietnam. This one then extends from the border of Lang Its to the point of That Mau on the Golfe of Siam. “Long Gia” results from the combination of “Gia”, of “Gia Ðình”, the old name of Saigon and “Length”, of “Long Thăng”, the old name of Hanoï ( Hà-Nội ).

At 16 years, its family (which, since the 15th century, reign in the name of the dynasty of the the on the steps of the South Vietnam) was reversed by the Tây Sơn, and all her parents are killed. It takes refuge in the delta of the Mekong and traverses all the Cochinchine, gaining the nickname of “general Gia Ðình”. In 1802, it seizes the power and reunifies Vietnam, separated by the civil war since the 17th century. To avenge the members of its family killed by Tây Sơn, it makes torture and put at dead its enemies, like general the Bùi Thị Xuân, the son of the emperor Quang Trung, king Nguyễn Quang Toản, etc For political reasons, it does not hesitate either to kill people who served it with devotion when he was still a young prince, Nguyễn Văn Thành or Ðặng Trẫn Thường. For this reason one often compares it with Lưu Bang, the large emperor of the Han having held the same treatment with regard to his former fellow travellers. Nevertheless, it can show justice and of ptié: having learned that Nguyễn Văn Thành was in fact innocent of the crime which one showed it, it gives the order to release its family and restores with this one all the confiscated goods and titles.

One finds also his attachment deep with the life of his subordinates through the message which he had addressed to his brother-in-law, the general Võ Tánh charged to defend Which Nhon, or with the bishop Pigneau de Béhaine, his spiritual father and his military adviser, through the ceremony organized with died of this last. He was also a tempting warrior. Its regards towards the queen Ngọc Bích, the last girl of the last king of the dynasty the, woman of its adversary, young king Canh Thình (wire of king Quang Trung) is exemplary. It becomes then her first concubine, and has two boys of them. It is in its honor that was born this Vietnamese saying;:

“Số đâu mà số lạ lùng

Idiot vua mà lấy hai chồng làm vua<

(the fate is so odd

the girl of the king is married twice with two kings). ”

In 1787, a treaty combining the France and Vietnam is initialed with Versailles by the count de Vergennes and the count de Montmorin for the king Louis XVI, and by its son Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh assisted of the bishop of Adran, Pierre Joseph Georges Pigneau de Behaine. In spite of the treaty, the collaboration of a great number of French officers in its rows, and the interest which it carries to sciences and technology of the Occident, Gia Long continuous to adopt a very ambiguous policy towards Europeans, in particular towards the missionaries.

Through the construction of the City crimson, the maintenance of the system of the mandarins, the reform of the code as of based on that of the Qing in China, it seems an admiror of the dynasty of the Ming and Qing, a convinced Confucianist and an emperor rather reactionary. At the end of its reign, it thus starts a policy of fold by choosing like successor prince Nguyễn Phúc Ðảm, supported by the majority of the mandarins Confucianists, instead of the children of prince Cảnh, prematurely died of disease. This prince, known under the name of reign Minh Mạng, does not hesitate thereafter to make die the children and the woman of Cảnh (Mỹ Ðường) and gives one to Europeans, at the French government to intervene in particular militarily, by following a deliberately anti-Western policy and anti-catholic and while thus joining again with a policy of alignment on the guiding lines of the Chinese policy.

Nguyên Anh could have become a large emperor, with the image of a Meiji Japanese. It had the advantage of being surrounded by a great number of French, including his particular doctor. It had a spirit very open to the Western technical projections. There Vietnam lost a beautiful occasion to enter one era of modernization.

Indeed, whereas it strongly modernized its armament (the fortresses of style Vauban which strews the country go back to its time, and the empire counted more parts of gun ery than the France at the same period), it was baited to destroy the traditional structures of the Vietnam to align them on those of the China:

loss of the legal personality for the women and prohibition of the access to education (prohibition to learn how to them to read and write), at the civil and military civil service posts (previously only the stations of Eunuque of Imperial palace were reserved for men),
establishment of an obligatory military service for the men from 16 to 60 years, one 6 months duration per annum, out of their areas of dwelling, involving a strong destructuration of the families, which remain at the thank you of the civils servant (since the women do not have any more any legal right, the families are thus under direct supervision of the administration)
legalization of the commercial Esclavage whereas it was previously primarily a substitute sorrow with the Capital punishment
destruction of the structure in “3 armies” which allowed a certain independence of the populations (closes possible revolts vis-a-vis the possible abuses controlling) but also a good resistance to the invasions (the totality of the population was militarily formed since childhood by the system of the “3 armies”)
establishment of a code the “Hoàng Việt luật lệ” directly inspired of the code Chinese of the Qing.

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