Gia Long

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Gia Long (1762-1820), born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, was an emperor of Annam. He founded the Nguyễn Dynasty, the last of the Vietnamese dynasties.

His uncle, Nguyễn Phúc Thuần (Dul Tung), lost his throne as feudal lord of southern Vietnam during the Tây Sơn peasant rebellion led by the brothers Nguyễn Huệ, Nguyễn Nhạc and Nguyễn Lữ in 1777. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh was the only member of the Nguyễn family that survived the Tay Son victory in 1777. Ánh fled to Thailand and returned later with a Thai army in an attempt to restore himself to power by force in 1785. He was defeated by Nguyễn Huệ and forced to go into hiding again. On Phú Quốc island he was helped by the French priest, Pigneau de Behaine, who helped Ánh make an alliance with the French king, Louis XVI, with the hope of helping him take control of Vietnam.

With the help of Behaine, Ánh gained many French mercenaries, modern western weapons, naval ships and French military advisors to teach his troops. He returned to Vietnam, taking Saigon in 1788, Qui Nhon in 1799, Huế in 1801 and finally the capital Hanoi in 1802.

In June, 1802 he proclaimed himself Emperor Gia Long and was recognized by China in 1804. He moved the capital to the city of Huế and named the country "Nam Viet", which was eventually changed by the Chinese to the modern name, "Viet Nam".

Emperor Gia Long built a palace and fortress in Huế that was intended to be a smaller copy of the Chinese Forbidden City in the 1800s. In English it is called the "Imperial City". The name of the inner palace complex in Vietnamese is translated literally as "Purple Forbidden City", which is the same as the Chinese name for the Forbidden City in Beijing.

To his Tây Sơn enemies, Gia Long was typically cruel, having them tortured, the bodies of their dead ancestors desecrated before them and executed; but to his friends he was very rewarding. He generally tolerated foreign presence in Vietnam and gave many of his French supporters high offices and titles in Vietnam. He also built the Mandarin's Road and abolished all of the reforms made by the Tây Sơn, reverting back to the Confucian monarchy copied from the days of Ming China. His legal code was almost a total copy of that used by the Qing dynasty in China at that time. The new capital city, protocol and court dress were all taken directly from Ming Dynasty styles. He also continued to have trouble with dispersed peasant revolts and claimants to the former Lê Dynasty claiming the throne. These events also caused him to turn against the foreign presence in Vietnam in his final years.

Preceded by Tây Sơn Dynasty

Nguyen Dynasty 1802-1822

Succeeded by Emperor Minh Mạng