Phan Dinh Phung
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- This is a Vietnamese name; the family name is Phan. According to Vietnamese custom, this person properly should be referred to by the given name Phùng.
| Phan Đình Phùng | |
|---|---|
 Phan Đình Phùng, 19th century Vietnamese scholar and anti-colonial revolutionary |
|
| Alternate name(s): | Phan Dinh Phung |
| Date of birth: | 1847 |
| Place of birth: | Dong Thai, Ha Tinh, Vietnam |
| Date of death: | January 21, 1896 |
| Place of death: | Nghe An Province, Vietnam |
| Movement: | Can Vuong |
| Major organizations: | Nguyen Dynasty |
| Notable prizes: | 1st place, Metropolitan imperial examinations, 1877 |
| Religion: | Confucianism |
| Footnotes: | Censorate of Emperor Tu Duc |
Phan Đình Phùng (1847 – January 21, 1896) was a Vietnamese revolutionary who led rebel armies against the French colonial forces in Vietnam. He was the most prominent of the Confucian court scholars who were involved in anti-French military campaigns in the 19th century and was cited after his death by 20th century nationalists as a national hero. Born into a family of mandarins from Ha Tinh Province, Phùng continued his forbears' tradition and placed first in the metropolitan imperial examinations in 1877. Phùng quickly rose under Emperor Tu Duc of the Nguyen Dynasty, gaining a reputation for his stance against corruption. Phùng was appointed to the censorate, a position that allowed him to criticise his fellow mandarins and even the emperor.
Upon Tu Duc's death, Phùng nearly lost his life during a power struggle in the imperial court. The regent Ton That Thuyet discarded Tu Duc's will of succession, and killed two boy Emperors in the space of a year. Phùng resisted Thuyet's activities and was stripped of his honours and exiled from the court to his home province. At the time, France had just conquered Vietnam and made it a part of French Indochina. Along with Thuyet, Phùng organised rebel armies as part of the Can Vuong movement, which sought to expel the French and install the boy Emperor Ham Nghi at the head of an independent Vietnam. This campaign continued for three years until 1888, when Ham Nghi was captured and expelled by the French. Phùng and his military assistant Cao Thang continued their guerrilla campaign, but they became increasingly worn down by the militarily-superior French. Eventually, the decade-long guerrilla campaign wore down Phùng, and he died from dysentery as the French surrounded his forces.
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[edit] Court official
Born in the village of Dong Thai in the northern central coast province of Ha Tinh, Phùng came from a village that had a reputation for producing high mandarins. The village had produced senior imperial officials from the time of the Le Dynasty. The Phan family had twelve consecutive generations of successful mandarinate graduates before Phùng. Of Phung’s brothers, three lived to adulthood and all passed the imperial examinations and became mandarins. Phùng himself gave early indications of a distaste with the classical curriculum required of an aspiring mandarin. He nevertheless persevered with his studies, passing the regional exams in 1876 and then topping the metropolitan exams the year after.[1]
Phùng was never to be known for his scholarly abilities; it was ultimately his personal reputation that saw him quickly rise under Emperor Tu Duc. His first appointment was as a district mandarin in Ninh Binh province, where he punished a Vietnamese Catholic priest on charges of harassing local non-Catholics (with tacit support from French missionaries). Amid the diplomatic controversy that followed, he avoided blaming the unpopular alliance between Vietnamese Catholics and the French on the nature of Catholicism itself, stating that it had arisen out of the military and political vulnerabilities of Vietnam’s imperial government. Despite this, the Hue court eventually removed him from his post.[2]
Phùng was transferred to the court as a member of the censorate (Do Sat Vien). He earned the enmity of many but the trust of the Emperor by revealing to Tu Duc that the vast majority of the court mandarins were making a mockery of a royal edict to engage in regular rifle practice. He was later dispatched by Tu Duc on an inspection trip to northern Vietnam. His report led to the ousting of many officials who were deemed to be corrupt or incompetent, including the removal of the viceroy of the northern region.[2] He rose to become the Ngu Su, meaning Imperial Censor. The position allowed him to criticise other royal officials and even the Emperor for misconduct. Phùng openly criticised Ton That Thuyet, the foremost mandarin of the court, whom Phùng believed to be rash and dishonest.[3]
Despite his prominent role in the decision making of the Nguyen Dynasty, little is known about Phung’s personal stance on Vietnamese relations with France.[2] In 1859, France had invaded Vietnam, beginning colonization of the southern Mekong Delta region. Three provinces were ceded in the 1862 Treaty of Saigon, and a further three in 1867 to from the colony of Cochinchina. During the period, there was debate in the Hue court on the best strategy to regain the territory. One group advocated regaining the land by military means, while another by diplomacy and giving financial and religious concessions. By the time of Tu Duc’s death in 1883, the whole of Vietnam was colonized, henceforth incorporated with Laos and Cambodia into French Indochina.[4]
Upon his death in 1883, the childless Tu Duc had named his nephew Kien Phuc to succeed him on the throne. However, the regent Thuyet instead enthroned Duc Duc as the new emperor. Phùng protested against the violation of the imperial succession and refused to sanction anyone other than the Kien Phuc. Phùng was lucky to escape a death penalty and was stripped of his positions.[2] Later, when Emperor Duc Duc was also deposed by the Thuyet and eventually murdered, he protested against this and was briefly imprisoned by Thuyet before being exiled to his home province.[2]
[edit] Revolutionary career
[edit] Can Vuong
Phùng rallied to the cause of the boy Emperor Ham Nghi after the 1885 fall of Huế by creating his own guerrilla army. Ham Nghi was the fourth monarch in little a year, after Thuyet had disposed of two boy rulers. Thuyet decided placed Ham Nghi at the head of the Phong Trao Can Vuong (Loyalty to the Emperor Movement), which sought to end French rule with a royalist rebellion. Phùng helped by setting up bases in Ha Tinh. Thuyet had hoped to secure support from the Qing Dynasty of China, but Phùng thought Vietnam’s best chance of effective support came from Siam. Gia Long, the founder of the Nguyen Dynasty and great grandfather of Tu Duc had married his sister off to the King of Siam. However, appeals for Siamese aid only amounted to a few pack trains of firearms and ammunition.[2]
In any case, the Can Vuong revolt started in July 1885 when Thuyet and Emperor Ham Nghi managed to escape north from Hue to a prepared mountain base near the border with Laos and the campaign was launched.[5] Phùng rallied support initially from his native village and set up his headquarters on Mount Vu Quang. The headquarters overlooked the French fortress at Ha Tinh on the central coast. His organization became a model for future insurgents. He divided his operational zone into twelve districts for flexibility.[3] Phùng initially used the local scholar gentry as his troop commanders. Their first notable attack was aimed at two nearby Catholic villages which collaborated with the French colonials. French troops arrived a few hours later and quickly overwhelmed the rebels and forced them to retreat to their home village, where the retribution was heavy. Phùng managed to escape but his elder brother was captured by the same former viceroy of northern Vietnam who had been criticized in Phung's report and removed from office by Emperor Tu Duc. The former viceroy was now a French collaborator, serving as the governor of Nghe An province.[2]
The strategy of attempting to coerce Phùng into capitulating was the classical strategy of using an old friend and fellow villager into penning an emotional and deeply Confucian appeal to Phùng to surrender to save his brother, his ancestral tombs and his entire village. Phùng was reported to have replied:[6]
From the time I joined with you in the Can Vuong movement, I determined to forget question of family and village. Now I have but one tomb, a very large one, that must be defended:the land of Vietnam. I have only one brother, very important, that is in danger: more than twenty million countrymen. If I worry about my own tombs, who will worry about defending the tombs of the rest of the country? If I save my own brother, who will save all the other brothers of the country? There is only one way for me to die now.[6]
He was later reported to have simply retorted, "If anyone carves up my brother, remember to send me some of the soup."[6]
This incident and Phung’s response are often cited as one of the reasons by Phùng was so admired by the populace and among future generations of Vietnamese anti-colonials and nationalists as adhering to the highest personal standards of patriotism. The incident was interpreted as his identification with a countrywide cause, far removed from the questions of family and region.[6]
His men were well-trained and disciplined, and the military inspiration behind his band of rebels derived from Cao Thang, a bandit leader who was protected from royal forces by Phung’s brother a decade earlier.[1] They operated in the provinces of Thanh Hoa in the north, Ha Tinh, Nghe An and Quang Binh.[3] In 1887, Phùng concluded that his tactics were misguided and order Cao Thang and his other subordinates to cease open combat and resort to guerrilla tactics. They built up a network of base camps, food caches, intelligence agents and peasant supply contacts. Phùng traveled to the north in the hope of organizing strategy and tactics with other leaders. In the meantime, Cao Thang led a force of around a thousand men with some five hundred firearms between them.[6] Cao Thang was able to produce around 300 rifles by disassembling and copying captured French weapons of the 1874 model. Vietnamese artisans were captured for the purpose of creating such replica guns. According to French officers who later captured some of the Vietnamese copies, the weapons were proficiently reproduced. The only details in which they were regarded as defective were in the tempering of the springs, which were improvised with umbrella spokes, and the lack of rifling in barrels, which curtailed range and accuracy.[7]
[edit] After Can Vuong
In 1888, Ham Nghi was betrayed and captured by the French, who deported him to Algeria.[8] Phùng and Cao Thang fought on in the mountainous areas of Ha Tinh, Nghe An and Thanh Hoa. Fifteen more bases along the mountain complemented the headquarters at Vu Quang. Each of the bases had a subordinate commander and between one and five hundred men. The operations were funded by the villagers in these provinces, who were levied with a land tax in both silver and rice. Local bases were supported by nearby villages and excess funds were sent to Vu Quang. Cinnamon bark was foraged and sold, while lowland peasants donated their spare metals to produce weapons.[7]
When Phùng returned from the north in 1889, his first order was for his rebels to track down the Muong who betrayed Ham Nghi and execute them. Having done this, he commenced a series of small unit attacks on French installations through the summer of 1890, which proved indecisive. The French relied mostly on district and provincial colonial units to man their perpetually increasing line of local forts, which were normally under the command of a French lieutenant. In late 1890, a French effort to move into the low lying villages and isolate them from the rebel bases in the mountains failed. In the spring of 1892, a major French sweep of Ha Tinh failed, and in August Cao Thang seized the initiative with a bold counterattack on the provincial capital. The rebels broke into the jail and freed their compatriots, killing a large number of the Vietnamese soldiers who defended the jail as members of the French colonial forces. This caused the French to intensify their efforts to combat Phùng, and a counteroffensive was conducted throughout the remainder of 1892, forcing the rebels to retreat back into the mountains. Two of their bases fell and steady French pressure began to break the covert resistance links with lowland villages. This compounded the problems of securing food, supplies, intelligence data and recruits. A ring of French forts continued to be erected, increasingly pinning down the rebels. The only notable positive for Phung’s forces in this period was the acquisition of gunpowder supplies from Siam. This enabled them to mix foreign and local powder on a 50:50 proportion, rather than the previous weak mixture of 20:80.[9]
In mid 1893, Cao Thang proposed a full scale attack on the provincial seat of Nghe An and the surrounding posts. The plan proposed to Phùng included diversions to the south and the training of almost two thousand men in conventional military tactics. Phùng reluctantly approved the plan, skeptical of its viability. The troops were eager, but after overpowering several small posts en route, the main force was pinned down in an attack on the French fort of No on September 9, 1893. Cao Thang was mortally wounded along with his brother while leading a risky frontal attack with 150 men, and the forces retreated in disarray. Phùng took the loss of his accomplice as a significant one, admitting as much in his eulogy and funeral oration for Cao Thang.[10] According to the historian David Marr, there was evidence that Phùng clearly realized the advantages and limitations of prolonged resistance. Although he might have doubted that he or any other revolutionary could expel the French colonials in his lifetime, he thought it important to keep the French under pressure and to demonstrate to the Vietnamese people that there was an alternative to what he felt was a defeatist attitude from the Hue court.[11]
[edit] Downfall
Hoang Cao Khai, the French-installed viceroy of Tonkin, perceived Phung’s intent to a degree that his French masters did not. Khai hailed from a scholar gentry family in the same village as Phùng. Khai became the main backer of a determined effort to crush Phung’s rebels decisively, and he used every means available:political, psychological and economic.[11] By late 1894, suspected rebel sympathisers in the lowlands and relatives of insurgents were intimidated and several more insurgent commanders had been killed. Communications were disrupted, and the rebel hideouts became increasingly insecure. In an attempt to force him to surrender, the French arrested his family and desecrated the tombs of his ancestors, and had the remains put on display in Ha Tinh.[3][11]
Khai had a message delivered to Phùng via one of the relatives. Phùng sent a written reply, allowing the exchange between opposing viewpoints to be studied. Hoang’s letter recalled the common origins of the pair and promised Phùng that Khai would lobby Governor General J. M. A. De Lannessan and other French officials for an amnesty in return for Phung’s surrender. Khai credited Phung with righteousness, loyalty and dedication towards the monarchy.[11]
The situation has changed and even those without intelligence or education have concluded that nothing remains to be saved. How is it that you, a man of vast understanding, do not realize this? . .You are determined to do whatever you deem to be righteous. . . All that matters indeed is giving of one’s life to one’s country. No one therefore can deter you from your goal.[11]
I have always been taught that superior men should consider the care of the people as fundamental; who has ever heard of men who were loyal to their King but forgot the people’s aspirations?. . .As of now, hundreds of families are subject to grief; how do you have the heart to fight on? I venture to predict that, should you pursue your struggle, not only will the population of our village be destroyed but our entire country will be transformed into a sea of blood and a mountain of bones.[12]
According to Marr, "Phan Dinh Phung’s reply was a classic in savage understatement, utilizing standard formalism in the interest of propaganda, with deft denigration of his opponent".[12] Phung appealed to Vietnamese nationalist sentiment, recalling the stubborn resistance of Vietnam to Chinese aggression. He cited defensive wars against the Han, Tang, Sung, Yuan and Ming dynasties asking why a country "a thousand times more powerful" could not annex Vietnam. He concluded that it was "because the destiny of our country has been willed by Heaven itself."[12]
Phung placed the responsibility for the suffering of the people at the feet of the French who "acted like a storm". After analysing his own actions, Phung concluded with a strident attack on Khai and his fellow collaborators.[12]
If our region has suffered to such an extent, it was not only from the misfortunes of war. You must realize that wherever the French go, there flock around them groups of petty men who offer plans and tricks to gain the enemy’s confidence. These persons create every kind of enmity; they incriminate innocent persons, blaming one one day, punishing another the next. They use every expedient to squeeze the people out of their possessions. That is how hundred of misdeeds, thousands of offenses have been perpetrated.[12]
Khai’s appeal had been rebutted with an appeal to history, nationalist sentiment and a demand that the blame for death and destruction lay with the colonials. Phung raised the stakes above family and village to the entire nation and populace. The scene was not only Dong Thai village or Ha Tinh province, but all of Vietnam.[13]
With Phung’s rebuke in his hands, Khai translated both documents into French and presented them to De Lanessan with the proposal that it was time for the final "destruction of this scholar gentry rebellion." In July 1895, French area commanders called in 3000 troops to tighten the cordon around the remaining three bases of the rebels. The insurgents were able to execute nighttime ambushes, but Phung fell ill from dysentery and had to carried when his unit moved every few days. A collaborator mandarin named Nguyen Than, who had previous experience in pacification in Quang Ngai and Quang Nam was drafted in to sever the last links between the villagers and the rebels. Isolated from their supplies, the insurgents were left to live by eating roots and occasional handfuls of dried corn. Their shoes were worn through and most were without blankets. Phung died of dysentery on January 21, 1896 and his captured followers were executed. A report submitted by the governor general to the Minister of Colonies in Paris stated that "the soul of resistance to the protectorate was gone".[13]
[edit] Legacy
Phung’s remains were disturbed after his death. Ngo Dinh Kha, a Catholic mandarin and father of Ngo Dinh Diem, the first President of South Vietnam, was a member of the French colonial administration. Kha had Phung’s tomb exhumed and used the remains in gunpowder used for executing revolutionaries.[14]
Phung is widely regarded by Vietnamese people as a revolutionary hero. Phan Boi Chau, regarded as the leading Vietnamese anti-colonial figure of the early 20th century, strongly praised Phung in his writing, in particular, Phung’s defiance of Khai.[15] During Chau’s career as a teacher, he particularly emphasised the deeds of Phùng to his students.[16] The Vietminh named their self-produced style of grenades made in the 1940s after him.[17] Both North and South Vietnam had prominent thoroughfares in their capital cities (Hanoi and Saigon, respectively) named in Phung's honour.[18]
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Marr, p. 61.
- ^ a b c d e f g Marr, p. 62.
- ^ a b c d Karnow, p. 121.
- ^ Marr, p. 55.
- ^ Marr, p. 43.
- ^ a b c d e Marr, p. 63.
- ^ a b Marr, p. 64.
- ^ Marr, p. 57.
- ^ Marr, pp. 64–65.
- ^ Marr, p. 65.
- ^ a b c d e Marr, p. 66.
- ^ a b c d e Marr, p. 67.
- ^ a b Marr, p. 68.
- ^ Vu Ngu Chieu (February 1986). "The Other Side of the 1945 Vietnamese Revolution: The Empire of Viet-Nam". Journal of Asian Studies 45 (2): p. 306.
- ^ Marr, p. 117.
- ^ Marr, p. 85.
- ^ Karnow, p. 173.
- ^ (2002–03) Vietnam Country Map. Periplus Travel Maps. ISBN 0-7946-0070-0.
[edit] References
- Karnow, Stanley (1997). Vietnam:A history. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-84218-4.
- Marr, David G. (1970). Vietnamese anticolonialism, 1885–1925. Berkeley: University of California. ISBN 0-520-01813-3.
