Nguyen Lords
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The Nguyen Lords (1558 - 1775) were a series of rulers of Southern Vietnam. While they claimed to be the loyal followers of the Le Dynasty, in reality they were independent rulers in the south of the country. Their descendants later ruled the whole of Vietnam as the Nguyễn Dynasty and posthumously elevated their titles to emperors.
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The Nguyen-Trinh Alliance
The Nguyen Lords traced their decent from a powerful clan originally based in Thanh Hoa province. The clan supported Le Loi in his successful war of independence against the Ming Dynasty. From that point on, the Nguyen were one of the major noble families in Vietnam. Perhaps the most famous Nguyen from this time is Nguyen-thi-Anh, the Queen of Vietnam who ruled for nearly 20 years (1442 till 1459).In 1527 Mac Dang Dung replaced the last Le king Le Cung Hoang and started a new dynasty. The Trinh and Nguyen clans returned to Thanh Hoa province and refused to accept the rule of the Mac. All of the region south of the Red River was under their control but they were unable to conquer Hanoi for many years. During this time, the Nguyen-Trinh alliance was lead by Nguyen Kim, his daughter was married to the Trinh clan leader, Trinh Khiem.
In 1545 Nguyen Kim was assassinated. One logical successor to the leadership of the Nguyen-Trinh alliance was his eldest son, Nguyen Hoang but instead, Trinh Kiem took control. Nguyen Hoang was sent to the far south to take control over the province of Quang-nam, in what used to be Champa lands. Governing from the new city of Hue, the Nguyen clan, under Nguyen Hoang, slowly expanded their control to the south while the Trinh clan waged their war for control over the north of Vietnam.
In 1592 Hanoi was captured the last time by the Trinh army under Trinh Tung and the Mac king was executed. The next year, Nguyen Hoang came north with an army and money to help defeat the remainder of the Mac forces. But Nguyen Hoang refused to obey the orders coming from the new court at Hanoi.
Rising Tensions
In 1600, a new Le king took the throne, Lê Kinh Tông. The new king, like the previous Le kings, was a powerless figurehead under the control of Trinh Tung. Also, a revolt broke out in Ninh Binh province, possibly instigated by the Trinh. As a consquence of these events, Nguyen Hoang formally broke off relations with the Court, rightly argueing that it was the Trinh who ruled, not the Le King. This uneasy state of affairs continued for the next 13 years till Nguyen Hoang finally died in 1613. He had ruled the southern provinces for 55 years.His successor, Nguyen Phuc Nguyen, continued Nguyen Hoang's policy of essential independence from the Court in Hanoi. He initiated friendly relations with the Europeans who were now sailing into the area. A Portuguese trading post was set up in Hoi An. By 1615 the Nguyen were producing their own bronze cannons with the aid of Portuguese engineers. In 1620 the king was removed from power and executed by Trinh Tung. Nguyen Phuc Nguyen formally announced that he would not be sending any money to the Court nor did he acknowledge the new king as the king. Tensions rose over the next seven years till open warfare broke out in 1627 with the new leader of the Trinh, Trinh Trang.
The war lasted until 1673 when peace was declared. The Nguyen not only fought off the Trinh attacks but they also continued their expansion southwards along the coast, though the war slowed this expansion. Around 1620, Nguyen Phuc Nguyen's daughter married Chey Chettha II, a Khmer king. Three years later, 1623, the Nguyen formally gained permission for Vietnamese to settle in what would become the city of Saigon.
When the war with the Trinh ended, the Nguyen were able to put more resources into pushing supression of the Champa kingdoms and conquest of lands which used to belong to the Khmer Empire.
Wars with the Khmer
In 1714 the Nguyen sent an army into Cambodia to support Keo Fa who claimed the throne against Prea Srey Thomea (see also the article on the Dark ages of Cambodia). The army of Siam also got involved in the war, the Siamese sided with the Prea Srey Thomea against the Vietnamese (this was during the time of the Ayutthaya Kings of Siam). The Vietnamese won several battles against the Siamese (including the battle of Bantea Meas) but towards the end of 1717 they were losing. The war ended with negotiations and the Nguyen Lords gained control of more territory around the Mekong river.
Two decades later (1739) the Cambodian army attacked the Nguyen lands. The fighting lasted some ten years, but by end, the Cambodian army had been defeated and the Nguyen took more territory from them.
With Siam fighting a war with Burma, the Nguyen attacked Cambodia in 1755 and conquered even more territory from the ineffective Cambodian government. At the end of the war the Nguyen had a port on the Gulf of Siam (Ha Tien) and were approaching Phnom Penh.
Under a new king P'ya Taksin, the Siamese, joined by the remains of the Cambodian army, attacked the Nguyen in 1769. After some early success, the Nguyen were defeated and by 1773, faced with internal revolts, the Nguyen were forced to abandon some of their newly conquered territory. This war lead directly to the revolt of the Tay Son.
The Fall of the Nguyen Lords
In 1771 as a result of heavy taxes and defeats in the war with Cambodia, three brothers from Tay Son sparked a peasant uprising that quickly engulfed much of south Vietnam. In 1773 the Tay Son brothers captured Qui Nhon. In 1774, the Trinh, seeing their ancient enemies gravely weakened, ended the hundred year truce and launched an attack of their own from the north. The Trinh army captured the Nguyen capital in 1774 while the Nguyen fled south to Saigon. The Nguyen fought on against both the Trinh army and the Tay Son but their effort was in vain and in 1776, Saigon was captured and nearly the entire Nguyen family was killed, all except one nephew, Nguyen Anh who managed to flee to Siam.Nguyen Anh did not give up, and in 1780 he attacked the Tay Son army with a new army from Siam (he was allied with King Taksin). However, Taksin went insane and was killed in a coup. The new king of Siam, Chulaloke had more urgent affairs than helping Nguyen Anh retake Vietnam and so this campaign faltered. The Siamese army retreated, and Nguyen Anh went into exile. But he would be back.
Nguyen Foreign Relations
The Nguyen were somewhat more open to foreign trade and communication with Europeans than the Trinh. Accoding to Dupuy, the Nguyen were able to defeat initial Trinh attacks with the aid of advanced weapons they purchased from the Portuguese. The Nguyen also conducted fairly extensive trade with Japan ([Vietnamese trade with Japan]).The Portuguese set up a trade center at Faifo (present day Hoi An), just south of Hue in 1615. However, with the end of the great war between the Trinh and the Nguyen, the need for European military equipment declined. The Portuguese trade center never became a major European base (unlike Goa or Macao).
In 1640, Alexander de Rhodes returned to Vietnam, this time to the Nguyen court at Hue. He began work on converting people to the Catholic faith and building churches. After six years, the Nguyen Lord, Nguyen Phuc Lan, came to the same conclusion as Trinh Trang had, that de Rhodes and the Catholic Church represented a threat to their rule. De Rhodes was condemned to death but he was allowed to leave Vietnam on pain of death should he return.
List of the Nguyen Lords
- Nguyen Kim 1533-1545
- Nguyen Hoang 1558-1613
- Nguyen Phuc Nguyen 1613-1635
- Nguyen Phuc Lan 1635-1648
- Nguyen Phuc Tan 1648-1687
- Nguyen Phuc Tran 1687-1691
- Nguyen Phuc Chu 1691-1725
- Nguyen Phuc Thu 1725-1738
- Nguyen Phuc Khoat 1738-1765
- Nguyen Phuc Thuan 1765-1777
Sources
The Encyclopedia of Military History by R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy. Harper & Row (New York).
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