Phan Dinh Phung
Encyclopedia
Vietnamese people
The Vietnamese people are an ethnic group originating from present-day northern Vietnam and southern China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam...
revolutionary who led rebel armies against French colonial
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
forces in Vietnam. He was the most prominent of the Confucian court scholars involved in anti-French military campaigns in the 19th century and was cited after his death by 20th-century nationalists as a national hero
Folk hero
A folk hero is a type of hero, real, fictional, or mythological. The single salient characteristic which makes a character a folk hero is the imprinting of the name, personality and deeds of the character in the popular consciousness. This presence in the popular consciousness is evidenced by...
. He was renowned for his uncompromising will and principles—on one occasion, he refused to surrender even after the French had desecrated his ancestral tombs and had arrested and threatened to kill his family.
Born into a family of mandarins
Mandarin (bureaucrat)
A mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China, and also in the monarchist days of Vietnam where the system of Imperial examinations and scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.-History and use of the term:...
from Hà Tĩnh Province, Phan continued his ancestors' traditions by placing first in the metropolitan imperial examinations in 1877. Phan quickly rose through the ranks under Emperor Tu Duc of the Nguyen Dynasty, gaining a reputation for his integrity and uncompromising stance against corruption. Phan was appointed as the Imperial Censor, a position that allowed him to criticise his fellow mandarins and even the emperor. As the head of the censorate, Phan's investigations led to the removal of many incompetent or corrupt mandarins.
Upon Tu Duc's death, Phan almost lost his life during a power struggle in the imperial court. The regent Ton That Thuyet
Ton That Thuyet
Tôn Thất Thuyết was the leading mandarin of Emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam's Nguyễn Dynasty. Thuyết later led the Can Vuong movement which aimed to restore Vietnamese independence under Emperor Hàm Nghi. He was born on May 12, 1839 in Huế....
disregarded Tu Duc's will of succession, and three emperors were deposed and killed in just over a year. Phan protested against Thuyet's activities, was stripped of his honours and briefly jailed, before being exiled to his home province. At the time, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
had just conquered Vietnam and made it a part of French Indochina
French Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
. Along with Thuyet, Phan organised rebel armies as part of the Can Vuong
Can Vuong
The Cần Vương movement was a large-scale Vietnamese insurgency between 1885 and 1889 against French colonial rule. Its objective was to expel the French and install the boy emperor Hàm Nghi as the leader of an independent Vietnam...
movement, which sought to expel the French and install the boy Emperor Ham Nghi
Ham Nghi
Emperor Hàm Nghi ; , was the eighth Emperor of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty. He reigned for only one year ....
at the head of an independent Vietnam. This campaign continued for three years until 1888, when the French captured Ham Nghi and exiled him to Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
.
Phan and his military assistant Cao Thang
Cao Thang
Cao Thang was a Vietnamese bandit-turned-anticolonial fighter. He was an assistant of Phan Dinh Phung, and was Phan's military coordinator. His forces operated in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces. He was killed in battle in 1893....
continued their guerrilla campaign, building a network of spies, bases and small weapons factories. However, Cao Thang was killed in the process in late 1893. The decade-long campaign eventually wore Phan down, and he died from dysentery as the French surrounded his forces.
Court official
Phan was born in the village of Dong ThaiDong Thai
Đông Thái is a village in Đức Thọ District, Ha Tinh Province in Vietnam. It is notable for being the home village of Phan Dinh Phung, the most notable Vietnamese anti-colonial leader of the 19th century. It was also the home village of Hoang Cao Khai, who was the viceroy of Tonkin during the...
in the northern central coast province of Ha Tinh. Dong Thai was famous for producing high-ranking mandarins
Mandarin (bureaucrat)
A mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China, and also in the monarchist days of Vietnam where the system of Imperial examinations and scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.-History and use of the term:...
and had been the home of senior imperial officials since the time of the Le Dynasty
Lê Dynasty
The Later Lê Dynasty , sometimes referred to as the Lê Dynasty was the longest-ruling dynasty of Vietnam, ruling the country from 1428 to 1788, with a brief interruption....
. Twelve consecutive generations of the Phan family had been successful mandarinate graduates. All three of Phan's brothers who lived to adulthood passed the imperial examinations and became mandarins. Early on, Phan indicated his distaste for 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 following year. In his exam response, Phan cited Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
as an example of how an Asian country could make rapid military progress given sufficient willpower.
Phan was never known for his scholarly abilities; it was his reputation for principled integrity that led to his quick rise through the ranks under the reign of Emperor Tu Duc. He was first appointed as a district mandarin in Ninh Binh Province
Ninh Bình Province
-Festivals:* Thai Vi festival * Truong Yen Festival* Yen Cu Festival* Non Khe Festival-Transportation:...
, where he punished a Vietnamese Roman Catholic priest, who, with the tacit support of French missionaries, had harassed local non-Catholics. Amid the diplomatic controversy that followed, he avoided blaming the unpopular alliance between Vietnamese Catholics and the French on Catholicism itself, stating that the partnership had arisen out of the military and political vulnerabilities of Vietnam's imperial government. Despite this, the Huế
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...
court eventually removed Phan from this post.
Phan was transferred to the Huế court as a member of the censorate, a watchdog body that monitored the work of the mandarinate. He earned the ire of many of his colleagues, but the trust of the emperor, by revealing that the vast majority of the court mandarins were making a mockery of a royal edict to engage in regular rifle practice. Tu Duc later dispatched Phan on an inspection trip to northern Vietnam. His report led to the ousting of many officials who were deemed corrupt or incompetent, including the viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
of the northern region. He rose to become the Ngu Su, or Imperial Censor, a position which allowed him to criticise other high officials and even the emperor for misconduct. Phan openly criticised Ton That Thuyet
Ton That Thuyet
Tôn Thất Thuyết was the leading mandarin of Emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam's Nguyễn Dynasty. Thuyết later led the Can Vuong movement which aimed to restore Vietnamese independence under Emperor Hàm Nghi. He was born on May 12, 1839 in Huế....
, the foremost mandarin of the court, believing him to be rash and dishonest. Aside from his work in rooting out corruption, Phan also compiled a historical geography of Vietnam, which was published in 1883.
Despite his prominent position in the Nguyen Dynasty, little is known about Phan's personal stance on Vietnamese relations with France, which was in the process of colonising Vietnam. France had first invaded in 1858, beginning the colonisation of southern Vietnam
Colonization of Cochinchina
The French conquest of Cochinchina – which was the European name for the southern part of Vietnam – occurred in two phases between 1858 and 1867.-Historical background:...
. Three provinces were ceded under the 1862 Treaty of Saigon
Treaty of Saigon
The Treaty of Saigon was signed on June 5, 1862, between representatives of the French Empire and the last precolonial emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty, Emperor Tự Đức. Based on the terms of the accord, Tự Đức ceded Saigon, the island of Poulo Condor and three southern provinces of what was to become...
, and a further three in 1867 to form the colony of Cochinchina
Cochinchina
Cochinchina is a region encompassing the southern third of Vietnam whose principal city is Saigon. It was a French colony from 1862 to 1954. The later state of South Vietnam was created in 1954 by combining Cochinchina with southern Annam. In Vietnamese, the region is called Nam Bộ...
. During the period, there was debate in the Huế court on the best strategy to regain the territory. One group advocated military means, while another believed in the use of diplomacy in addition to financial and religious concessions. By the time of Tu Duc's death in 1883, the whole of Vietnam was colonised, henceforth incorporated with Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
and Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
into French Indochina
French Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
.
Upon his death in 1883, the childless Tu Duc had named his nephew, Kien Phuc
Kien Phuc
Kiến Phúc was an 7th emperor of Vietnam in the 19th century. Born in 1869, he was the nephew-turned-adopted son of Emperor Tự Đức...
, as his successor, rather than Duc Duc
Duc Duc
Emperor Dục Đức was the fifth emperor of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty and reigned for the duration of three days -References:...
, his most senior heir. Tu Duc had written in his will that Duc Duc was depraved and unworthy of ruling the country. However, led by Thuyet, the regents enthroned Duc Duc under the pressure of the ladies of the court. Phan protested against the violation of Tu Duc's will of succession and refused to sanction anyone other than Kien Phuc. Lucky to escape the death penalty, Phan was stripped of his positions. Later, Duc Duc was deposed and executed by Thuyet on the grounds of ignoring court etiquette, ignoring the mourning rites for Tu Duc and having affairs with the late emperor's consorts. Phan again protested the regents' actions and was briefly imprisoned by Thuyet, before being exiled to his home province.
Can Vuong
Phan rallied to the cause of the boy Emperor Ham NghiHam Nghi
Emperor Hàm Nghi ; , was the eighth Emperor of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty. He reigned for only one year ....
—the fourth monarch in little over a year—after an abortive royal uprising at Huế in 1885. Thuyet and fellow regent Nguyen Van Tuong
Nguyen Van Tuong
Nguyễn Văn Tường was a mandarin of the Nguyễn Dynasty in Vietnam. He is known for installing and dethroning three emperors in 1883–84: Dục Đức, Hiệp Hoà, and Kiến Phúc.-Biography:...
had enthroned Hiep Hoa
Hiep Hoa
Emperor Hiệp Hòa was the sixth emperor of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty and reigned for four months...
after disposing of Duc Duc. However, the new emperor was wary of the regents' behaviour and attempted to avoid their influence, leading Thuyet to organise his execution. The teenage Kien Phuc
Kien Phuc
Kiến Phúc was an 7th emperor of Vietnam in the 19th century. Born in 1869, he was the nephew-turned-adopted son of Emperor Tự Đức...
ascended the throne, but was poisoned by his adoptive mother Hoc Phi
Hoc Phi
Học phi was a wife of Emperor Tự Đức of the Nguyễn Dynasty of Vietnam. She is best known for her involvement in palace intrigues following her husband's death....
—one of Tu Duc's wives—whom he caught having intercourse with Tuong. Kien Phuc was thus replaced by his 14-year-old brother Ham Nghi. In the meantime, the French concluded that the regents were causing too much trouble and had to be disposed of.
Thuyet had already decided to place Ham Nghi at the head of the Phong Trào Cần Vuơng
Can Vuong
The Cần Vương movement was a large-scale Vietnamese insurgency between 1885 and 1889 against French colonial rule. Its objective was to expel the French and install the boy emperor Hàm Nghi as the leader of an independent Vietnam...
(Loyalty to the Emperor Movement), which sought to end French rule with a royalist rebellion. Phan helped the cause by setting up bases in Ha Tinh
Ha Tinh
Hà Tĩnh is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of the Ha Tinh province, in Vietnam's north central coast....
and creating his own guerrilla army. Thuyet had hoped to secure support from the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
of China, but Phan thought that Vietnam's best chance of effective support came from Siam. Gia Long
Gia Long
Emperor Gia Long , born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh , was an emperor of Vietnam...
, the founder of the Nguyen Dynasty and great-grandfather of Tu Duc, had married his sister off to the King of Siam. He had also used Siam as a base-in-exile during his quest for the throne in the 1780s. However, direct appeals to the Siamese government only yielded a few pack trains of firearms and ammunition. In preparation for the revolt, Thuyet had been building up an armed base at Tan So
Tan So
Tan So was a secret military base in central Vietnam that was built in the 1880s. It was built up by Tôn Thất Thuyết, the regent of the Nguyễn Dynasty, in preparation for an uprising against French colonialism....
for over a year.
In any case, the Can Vuong revolt started on July 5, 1885 when Thuyet launched a surprise attack against the colonial forces after a diplomatic confrontation with the French. Thuyet took Ham Nghi northwards to the Tan So mountain base near the border with Laos after the attack failed. The campaign was launched when the emperor issued the Can Vuong edict that had been prepared by the regent.
Phan initially rallied support from his native village and set up his headquarters on Mount Vu Quang
Vu Quang
Vu Quang is a remote forested region of Vietnam, in which several new species of deer and antelope have been discovered since the 1990s. Some are so new that scientific description is still pending, although most have local names....
, which overlooked the coastal French fortress at Ha Tinh. Phan's organisation became a model for future insurgents. For flexibility, he divided his operational zone into twelve districts. His forces upheld military discipline and wore uniforms. Phan initially used the local scholar-gentry
Scholar-bureaucrats
Scholar-officials or Scholar-bureaucrats were civil servants appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day governance from the Sui Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, China's last imperial dynasty. These officials mostly came from the well-educated men known as the...
as his military commanders. Their first notable attack targeted two nearby Catholic villages that had collaborated with French forces. Colonial troops arrived a few hours later, quickly overwhelming the rebels and forcing them to retreat to their home village, where the retribution was heavy. Phan managed to escape but his elder brother was captured by the same former viceroy of northern Vietnam who had been removed from office as a result of Phan's critical report. The disgraced official was now a French collaborator, serving as the governor of Nghe An province.
The strategy of attempting to pressure Phan into capitulating was a classical strategy of coercion. The French used an old friend and fellow villager to make an emotional and deeply Confucian appeal for Phan to surrender in order to save his brother, his ancestral tombs and his entire village. Phan was reported to have replied:
Phan was later reported to have simply retorted, "If anyone carves up my brother, remember to send me some of the soup". However, he held no illusions about the prospect of successfully driving out the French, stating "It is our destiny. We accept it."
This incident and Phan's response are often cited as one of the reasons why he was so admired by the populace and among future generations of Vietnamese anti-colonialists: he adhered to the highest personal standards of patriotism. He identified with a countrywide cause, far removed from the questions of family and region.
Phan's men were well-trained and disciplined, and the military inspiration behind his rebellion was derived from Cao Thang
Cao Thang
Cao Thang was a Vietnamese bandit-turned-anticolonial fighter. He was an assistant of Phan Dinh Phung, and was Phan's military coordinator. His forces operated in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces. He was killed in battle in 1893....
, a bandit leader who had been protected from royal forces by Phan's brother a decade earlier. They operated in the provinces of Thanh Hoa in the north, Ha Tinh, Nghe An in the centre and Quang Binh
Quang Binh Province
Quảng Bình , formerly Tiên Bình under the reign of Le Trung Hung of the Lê Dynasty, this province was renamed Quảng Bình in 1604) is a province in the North Central Coast of Vietnam....
in the south, with their strongest areas being the two central provinces. In 1887, Phan concluded that his tactics were misguided, ordering his subordinates to cease open combat and resort to guerrilla tactics. His men built up a network of base camps, food caches, intelligence agents and peasant supply contacts. Phan traveled to the north in the hope of coordinating strategic and tactical plans with other leaders. In the meantime, Cao Thang led a force of around 1,000 men with some 500 firearms between them. Cao Thang produced around 300 rifles by disassembling and copying 1874-model French weapons that had been captured. For the purpose of creating such replica guns, they captured Vietnamese artisans. 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 being defective were in the tempering of the springs, which were improvised with umbrella
Umbrella
An umbrella or parasol is a canopy designed to protect against rain or sunlight. The term parasol usually refers to an item designed to protect from the sun; umbrella refers to a device more suited to protect from rain...
spokes, and the lack of rifling
Rifling
Rifling is the process of making helical grooves in the barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis...
in the barrels, which curtailed range and accuracy.
Nevertheless, the weaponry used by Phan's rebels was far inferior to that of their adversaries, and their inland positions were within firing range of the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
. The Vietnamese could not rely on China to give them material support, and other European powers such as Portugal, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom were unwilling to sell them weapons for various reasons. Thus, Phan had to explore overland routes to procure weapons from Siamese sources—using seafaring transport was impossible due to the presence of the French Navy. He instructed his followers to create a secret route from Ha Tinh through Laos into northeastern Siam; one such route from Mount Vu Quang was believed to have been created around 1888. It is unclear if Phan himself went to Thailand, but a young female supporter named Co Tam was his designated arms buyer in Tha Uthen, which boasted a substantial expatriate Vietnamese community. In 1890, the Siamese Army transported around 1,000 Austrian repeating-rifles from Bangkok to Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang, or Louangphrabang , is a city located in north central Laos, where the Nam Khan river meets the Mekong River about north of Vientiane. It is the capital of Luang Prabang Province...
in Laos. However, it is unclear whether the weapons found their way into Vietnamese hands or whether they were related to Co Tam's activities.
After Can Vuong
In 1888, Ham Nghi's MuongMuong people
The Mường is the third largest of Vietnam’s 53 minority groups, with an estimated population of 1.2 million. The Muong people inhabit the mountainous region of northern Vietnam, concentrated in Hoa Binh Province and the mountainous districts of Thanh Hoa Province. They are most closely related to...
bodyguard Truong Quang Ngoc betrayed him, leading to the emperor's capture and deportation to Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
. Phan and Cao Thang fought on in the mountainous areas of Ha Tinh, Nghe An and Thanh Hoa. Another 15 bases were built along the mountain to complement the headquarters at Vu Quang. Each base had a subordinate commander leading units numbering between 100 and 500 men. The operations were funded by local villagers, who were levied with a land tax in silver and rice. Local bases were supported by nearby villages and excess funds were sent to Vu Quang. Phan's men foraged and sold cinnamon
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both sweet and savoury foods...
bark to raise funds, while lowland peasants donated spare metals for the production of weapons.
When Phan returned from the north in 1889, his first order was to track down Ham Nghi's betrayer Ngoc. When he was found, Phan personally executed Ngoc in Tuyen Hoa
Tuyen Hoa
Tuyên Hóa is a district of Quang Binh Province in the North Central Coast region of Vietnam. Its seat is the town of Đồng Lê. Speakers of the Nguồn language are mostly located near Đồng Lê. As of 2003 the district had a population of . The district covers an area of 1,149 km²...
. He then began a series of small-unit attacks on French installations through the summer of 1890, but these proved indecisive. The French relied mostly on district and provincial colonial units to man their perpetually increasing line of forts, which were usually commanded by a French lieutenant. In late 1890, a French effort to move into the low-lying villages and isolate the populace from the mountainous rebel bases 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 prison and freed their compatriots, killing a large number of the Vietnamese soldiers who defended the penitentiary as members of the French colonial forces. This caused the French to intensify their efforts against Phan, 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 their 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 Phan's men. The only notable gain for Phan's forces during this period was the acquisition of gunpowder supplies from Siam. This enabled them to mix foreign and local powder in a 50:50 ratio, rather than their previous weaker mixture of 20:80.
Late in the year, the burden on Phan increased after the loss of two Can Vuong allies. In September, Tong Duy Tan
Tong Duy Tan
Tong Duy Tân was a Vietnamese revolutionary who led insurgent armies in Thanh Hóa Province of northern Vietnam as part of the Can Vuong movement that sought to install the boy Emperor Hàm Nghi as the leader of an independent Vietnam. He was captured in 1892 by the French colonial forces and executed....
—who led the royalists in Thanh Hoa— was captured and publicly executed. Nguyen Thien Thuat, who had been active in the northern provinces of Hung Yen and Hai Duong
Hai Duong
Hải Dương is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of Hai Duong province. Its name is Sino-Vietnamese for "ocean" .- Geography :Hai Duong city is bordered to the northeast by the Nam Sách District and Thanh Hà District...
, fled to Guangxi
Guangxi
Guangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in...
in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. The supporters of Tan and Tuat moved south and integrated into Phan's force.
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 Phan included diversions to the south and the training of almost 2,000 men in conventional military tactics. Unconvinced of its viability, Phan reluctantly approved the plan. The troops were eager, but after overpowering several small posts en route, the main force was pinned down while attacking the French fort of No on September 9, 1893. Along with his brother, Cao Thang was mortally wounded while leading a risky frontal attack with 150 men, and the forces retreated in disarray. Phan regarded the loss of Cao Thang as a significant one, admitting as much in delivering the eulogy and funeral oration. According to the historian David Marr, there was evidence that Phan clearly realised the advantages and limitations of prolonged resistance. Although Phan had previously stated that he was not expecting ultimate success, the guerrilla leader thought that it was important to keep pressuring the French in order to demonstrate to the populace that there was an alternative to what he felt was a defeatist attitude from the Huế court.
Downfall
Hoang Cao Khai
Hoàng Cao Khải was a viceroy of Tonkin , the northernmost of the three parts of Vietnam under French colonial rule. He is best known for his role in helping the French authorities to hunt down Phan Đình Phùng, the leading Vietnamese revolutionary of the time.-External links:*...
, the French-installed viceroy of Tonkin
Tonkin
Tonkin , also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam, south of China's Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces, east of northern Laos, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin. Locally, it is known as Bắc Kỳ, meaning "Northern Region"...
, perceived Phan's intent to a degree that his French masters did not. Khai was from a scholar-gentry family from the same village as Phan. He became the main backer of a determined effort to crush Phan's forces, using every means available: political, psychological and economic. By late 1894, relatives and suspected sympathisers of the insurgents were intimidated and more resistance commanders had been killed. Communications were disrupted, and the rebel hideouts became increasingly insecure. In an attempt to force Phan to surrender, the French arrested his family and desecrated the tombs of his ancestors, publicly displaying the remains in Ha Tinh.
Khai delivered a message to Phan via a relative. Phan sent a written reply, allowing their exchange to be studied. Khai recalled the common origins of the pair and promised Phan that he would lobby Governor-General Jean Marie Antoine de Lanessan
Jean Marie Antoine de Lanessan
Jean Marie Antoine de Lanessan was a French statesman and naturalist.-Biography:De Lanessan was born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac in the Gironde department of France and entered the French Navy in 1862, serving on the East African and Cochin-China stations in the medical department until the...
and other French officials for an amnesty in return for Phan's surrender. Khai credited Phan with righteousness, loyalty and dedication towards the monarchy.
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". Phan appealed to Vietnamese nationalist sentiment, recalling his country's stubborn resistance to Chinese aggression. He cited defensive wars against the Han
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
, Tang
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
, Sung, Yuan
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
and Ming dynasties
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
, asking why a country "a thousand times more powerful" could not annex Vietnam. Phan concluded that it was "because the destiny of our country has been willed by Heaven itself".
Phan 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, Phan concluded with a thinly veiled attack on Khai and his fellow collaborators.
Khai's appeal was rebutted with an appeal to history, nationalist sentiment and a demand that the blame for death and destruction lay with the colonial forces and their Vietnamese assistants. Phan raised the stakes above family and village to the entire nation and its populace.
With Phan's rebuke in his hands, Khai translated both documents into French and presented them to de Lanessan, proposing that it was time for the final "destruction of this scholar gentry rebellion". In July 1895, French area commanders called in 3,000 troops to tighten the cordon around the three remaining rebel bases. The insurgents were able to execute ambushes at night, but Phan contracted dysentery and had to be carried on a stretcher whenever his unit moved. A collaborator mandarin named Nguyen Than, who had previous experience in pacification in Quang Ngai and Quang Nam, was drafted in to isolate the insurgents from their supporters in the villages. Cut off from their supplies, the insurgents were left to survive by eating roots and occasional handfuls of dried corn. Their shoes were worn through and most were without blankets. Phan died of dysentery on January 21, 1896, and his captured followers were executed. A report submitted by the de Lanessan to the Minister of Colonies in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
stated that "the soul of resistance to the protectorate was gone".
Legacy
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was the first president of South Vietnam . In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a...
—the first President of South Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
—was a member of the French colonial administration. Kha had Phan's tomb exhumed and used the remains in gunpowder used for executing revolutionaries.
Phan is widely regarded by Vietnamese people as a revolutionary hero. Phan Boi Chau
Phan Boi Chau
Phan Bội Châu was a pioneer of Vietnamese 20th century nationalism. In 1903, he formed a revolutionary organization called the “Reformation Society” ....
, regarded as the leading Vietnamese anti-colonial figure of the early 20th century, strongly praised Phan in his writing, with particular emphasis on his defiance of Khai. During Phan Boi Chau's career as a teacher, he strongly emphasised Phan's deeds to his students. In 1941, after returning to Vietnam after decades in exile, the Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
revolutionary Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
, then using the name Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot), invoked the memory of Phan in appealing to the public for support for his independence movement. Like Phan, Ho was a native of Nghe An and Ha Tinh. In the 1940s, Ho's Vietminh named their self-produced style of grenades in honour of Phan. Since then, Ho's communists have portrayed themselves as the modern day incarnations of revered nationalist leaders such as Phan, Truong Dinh
Truong Dinh
Trương Định , sometimes known as Trương Công Định, was a mandarin in the Nguyễn Dynasty of Vietnam under Emperor Tự Đức. He is best known for leading a guerrilla army in southern Vietnam against the French invasion in defiance of the emperor...
and Emperors Le Loi and Quang Trung, who expelled Chinese forces from Vietnam. Both North and South Vietnam had prominent thoroughfares in their capital cities (Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
and Saigon, respectively) named in Phan's honour.