Nguyen Dynasty

The Nguyen Dynasty was the last imperial family to rule Vietnam. Its reign lasted for nearly 150 years from 1802 to 1945, although for much of this period they were subject to the control of foreign powers. Learn about the Nguyen Dynasty, their early history, their rise as the rulers of Vietnam, and their downfall.

Nguyen Dynasty Origins

The Nguyen Dynasty took power in Vietnam in 1802 after defeating the Tay Son Dynasty. However, the family's history and origins date too far before they became the rulers of Vietnam.

The Nguyen Dynasty and Medieval Vietnam

The Nguyen clan had established itself as an important family and had political influence dating to at least the 10th Century CE. By the 1500s, they were considered to be the dominant house in the south of Vietnam.

In the 1600s, the Nguyen fought a long war with the Trinh family, who had a controlling influence over the emperor at Hanoi. The wars ended in the 1670s with a stalemate. The Nguyen temporarily carved out a more or less autonomous kingdom in south-central Vietnam.

In 1771, the Tay Son family rebelled. The Tay Son executed all but one member of the Nguyen family in 1777, the 13-year-old Nguyen Anh.

The Tay Son were now the ruling family of all of Vietnam, establishing the Tay Son Dynasty. However, their reign would not last for very long.

Establishment of the Nguyen Dynasty

Nguyen Anh led forces against the Tay Son for the next three decades. He suffered numerous defeats but kept fighting. Cambodia, Siam, and ethnic Chinese who had immigrated to Vietnam and were mistreated by the Tay Son Dynasty supported Anh.

In 1788, Nguyen Anh successfully retook southern Vietnam. By 1793, he began a campaign to retake the throne, and finally defeated the Tay Son in July 1802 and established the Nguyen Dynasty as the imperial family of Vietnam.

Nguyen Dynasty Symbols

Learn about some of the Nguyen Dynasty's important symbols below.

Nguyen Dynasty Flag

The Nguyen Dynasty used a variety of flags during their rule. The original flag used to represent their nation diplomatically was a flag of a yellow field. After the establishment of the French Protectorate in 1885, diplomatically, they were represented with a yellow flag with a French Tricolor in the upper-left corner. However, the emperor was able to maintain his personal flags, which developed from a red field with a yellow stripe to a yellow field with a red stripe.

Nguyen Dynasty Coat of Arms

The Nguyen Dynasty coat of arms, like the Nguyen Dynasty flags, went through a series of developments over time–it almost always included a dragon, symbol of the dynasty.

Fig. 5 - One iteration of the Nguyen Dynasty Coat of Arms.

Nguyen Dynasty Clothing

The Nguyen Dynasty's clothing was heavily influenced by the clothing of the Chinese Qing Dynasty. They adopted gowns, tunics, and trousers of a similar style. Vietnamese peasants, common people, and women also adopted Qing Chinese style clothing throughout the Nguyen Dynasty's reign.

Fig. 6 - Vietnamese diplomatic delegation showing typical Nguyen Dynasty clothing.

A Summary of the Nguyen Dynasty's Reign

After coming to power in 1802, the Nguyen Dynasty reigned in Vietnam until 1945. However, after 1885, they ruled as a figurehead for the French colonial occupation of Vietnam, and the last years of their reign were marked by the Japanese occupation during World War II.

Rise and Decline

The Nguyen Dynasty at first was highly successful at expanding and carving out a larger empire in Southeast Asia. Tthey eventually entered into a period of decline that was both a cause and symptom of French incursions into Vietnam.

Expansion

Under Emperor Minh Mang, beginning in the 1820s, the Nguyen Dynasty underwent reforms to stabilize and strengthen the empire with more centralized control. Minh Mang also followed a closed-door foreign policy and minimized contact and relations with Europeans. This policy included the repression of Catholics, and Christianity was outlawed.

In 1834, the Nguyen Dynasty expanded westward into Cambodia, although their rule there would last less than a decade. However, in 1835, Minh Mang crushed a rebellion in the southern provinces, establishing firm control over them and seemingly consolidating imperial rule.

Fig. 7 - Map showing the greatest territorial expansion of the Nguyen Dynasty in 1840.

Decline

Wars drained the Nguyen Dynasty's armies. The two emperors that succeeded Minh Mang had rules that were marked with internal rebellions, the loss of the conquered areas in Laos and Cambodia, outside agitation from French, British, and American forces, and a vicious cholera outbreak in the late 1840s.

French Conquest

Beginning in 1858, partly as a reaction against the mistreatment of Europeans and Catholics and partly out of imperial ambition, the French began to attempt to open up Vietnam to colonial influence.

Through a series of treaties signed under military pressure, France gradually gained land from the Nguyen Dynasty, as well as special trade rights and privileges. By 1867, they controlled most of southern Vietnam, including Saigon.

Fig 8 - French and Vietnamese forces engage in battle.

Conflict broke out in 1873 when a French merchant was captured by pirates operating out of the Gulf of Tonkin. A short-lived peace agreement was signed in 1874, but fighting soon broke out again. In April 1882, the French took Hanoi, and by 1884, the French had conquered nearly all of Vietnam.

The French appointed the first governor of the colony in May 1885, officially ending Vietnam as an independent state.

Status of the Nguyen Dynasty Under French Colonial Rule

The French had established protectorate status over Vietnam. The Nguyen Dynasty remained as emperors, but with only nominal control over affairs in Vietnam, which in 1887 became part of the larger colony known as French Indochina.

Nguyen Dynasty Army

The Nguyen Dynasty army dates to its establishment in 1558. It consisted of infantry, marines, and artillery. During the conflicts of the 1600s, it exceeded 100,000 men and received firearms from Portuguese traders.

After their defeat at the hands of the Tay Son Dynasty, the Nguyen Dynasty Army had been almost completely destroyed. However, Nguyen Anh rebuilt it with the support of Chinese fighters as well as some help from French military advisors.

After the establishment of the Nguyen Dynasty in 1802, a standing army and divisions of Imperial Guards constituted the Nguyen Dynasty army. It was famous in this period for employing war elephants, which remained in use until the 1885 French conquest.

Fig 9 - An elephant during a Nguyen Dynasty Army Parade.

By the late 1800s, they were poorly equipped with outdated arms. This made them easy for the French colonial forces to defeat. After the French established control, the Nguyen Dynasty army was renamed the Indigenous Guard and numbered approximately 10,000.

Japanese Occupation and End of the Nguyen Dynasty

After the outbreak of World War II, the Japanese invaded Vietnam in 1940, setting up an occupation government in collaboration with Nazi-occupied Vichy France. The Japanese occupation was harsh, and it is at this time that a nationalist resistance movement led by communist Ho Chi Minh, known as the Viet Minh, emerged.

In March 1945, Japan, trying to head off the resistance, declared the independent empire of Vietnam under Emperor Bao Dai, but the state was essentially a puppet government. After Japan's surrender, Bao Dai abdicated, leading to the temporary creation of a truly independent Vietnam under Ho's leadership.

Dai signed an agreement with the French, who sought to reassert their colonial authority, to be head of state of a State of Vietnam that was part of France. The Viet Minh continued to fight against the French and Dai's puppet regime in the First Indochina War, which planted the seeds of what became the Vietnam War.

After the 1954 Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into a North and South, Dai lost elections to Ngo Dinh Diem as leader of South Vietnam in 1955.

Fig. 10 - Bao Dai, the last emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty.

Nguyen Dynasty Descendants

After the elections of 1955, Bao Dai went to live in exile in France. In 1972, in the midst of the Vietnam War, he did speak out against US military presence and called for national reconciliation. He was, however, largely unpopular in Vietnam, where he was seen primarily as a French puppet. He died in 1997 in Paris.

Dai's children have continued to live in Western Europe and are not involved in Vietnamese politics. There are thought to be thousands of Nguyen Dynasty descendants still living in Vietnam, although the royal family has no special status today.