NGUYỄN THẾ ANH * TỰ ĐỨC

Efforts to update Confucian principles of government under the reign of Tự Ðức

Nguyễn Thế Anh

Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris-Sorbonne

When it was established, the Nguyễn dynasty was confronted with the urgency of the reconstruction of a country for the most part wrecked by nearly three decades of civil war and disturbances. The course taken by the founder of the dynasty was to turn to the Confucian tradition for the formulas to reconstitute his system of government, and his successors’ task would be to preserve what he had consolidated. As China was the only conceivable model, identification with the Confucian ideology and the Chinese official culture constituted the political line of the state.



Bureaucratic centralization inspired still more closely than in the past by the Chinese example, with a severe application of the Confucian code, was the weapon with which the Nguyễn dynasty fought centrifugal trends, military and political, in the provinces. It must be said, though, that the process of borrowing was a reflection of the belief that Confucianism exemplified universal and not simply Chinese patterns of experience, while representing the most advanced technology for social control and administration. Hence it was not the contemporary Manchu system that the Nguyễn wished to imitate, but the system as it was believed to have existed at great periods in the past. This explains also why the Nguyễn chronicles described the Vietnamese ruler in the nineteenth century as the true custodian of Confucian orthodoxy, culturally superior to the Qing.



However, the Confucian state system that the Nguyễn sovereigns endeavoured to set up most certainly exceeded the needs of an agricultural society which a too exclusively agrarian ideology seemed to deny favourable conditions for its economical development. Serious disruptions containing the seeds of the breakup of the social organization were not long to appear, and the Confucian state apparatus proved incapable of imagining appropriate solutions for them.


Local disorders in particular constituted a rather widespread phenomenon, as natural calamities, subsistence problems and inadequate official measures of assistance had always maintained some agitation in the countryside, which found expression most often in acts of banditry, sometimes also in unsettling outbursts of revolt .But the situation deteriorated especially under the reign of the fourth emperor of the dynasty, Tự Đức, who ever since his accession to the throne at the end of 1847 had to cope with new problems adding to those that had built up under his predecessors. Whereas an uninterrupted series of disasters, floods, droughts, famines, and epidemics with as consequences economical crises and social unrests arose to contribute to the general weakening of the kingdom, the government system showed more and more obvious symptoms of internal disturbance and paralysis.



While overtaken by difficulties the provincial administration let alarming shortcomings show through, the central government gave the impression of losing its hold over the national territory. Confronted with uprisings claiming to restore the old Lê dynasty (as for example the insurrection of Tạ Vǎn Phụng who succeeded in gaining temporary control of the north-eastern part of the kingdom in early 1862), it was no longer able to preserve sufficient public peace, and was equally incapable of checking the Chinese piracy which not only scoured the coastal areas but plagued also the frontier regions.


In fact, the control of the hinterland of the northern provinces of Cao Bằng, Hưng Hoá, Lạng Sơn, Tuyên Quang was soon lost to the remains of the fighting units of the old Taiping army, whose bands organized in black, yellow or white “flags” set immediately to fortify themselves there and to engage in chronic ravages, spreading terror in vast areas . In such a climate of turbulence and restlessness, the kingdom became all the more vulnerable to foreign interference.


Indeed, French intervention in Vietnam, starting with the attack of Ðà Nẵng harbour on 5 June 1858 and continuing with the capture of Saigon on 17 February 1859, had resulted in a treaty signed on 5 June 1862, according to the terms of which the three southern provinces of Biên Hoà, Gia Ðịnh and Ðịnh Tường were given up to France, the free practice of the Catholic religion was proclaimed, and three ports were opened to foreign trade. The loss of the provinces that he had been obliged to part with would be tormenting Tự Ðức with the idea of having failed in his task, which according to the old geopolitical doctrine should be to preserve intact the national space marked out by Heaven within predetermined and permanent frontiers, otherwise the right of his dynasty to reign would be called into question.


Anyway, Tự Ðức imagined he could perceive celestial warnings against his government and his line of conduct in the disasters that darkened his reign: “There have never been as many dire events as in our time, never as many great tragedies have happened as during these years. Above me, I dread the decrees of Heaven, and when I look below me, compassion for the people overwhelms me night and day; from the bottom of my heart, I tremble and blush at the same time. Incessantly, I take on myself all the hostile feelings, so to spare the people the responsibility, but the atonement has not yet been fulfilled that new scourges occur again.” The fact was that Tự Ðức’s political thought was determined by the Thiên lý (Tian li) theory, which the Confucian classics had imparted to Vietnamese men of government.Founded on the interaction between Heaven and Earth, this theory drew up a relationship of cause and effect between natural calamities and political issues, and placed upon the emperor one of the heaviest burdens possible as, wedged between Heaven and his people, he was responsible to both.


His duty was to exercise his subjects to lead their existence in conformity with Heaven’s will, of which he was the representative; hence, he was considered accountable for their evil deeds which might, if too frequently repeated, entail the displeasure of Heaven, and this displeasure would express itself through omens and calamities.



The successive catastrophes that befell the country thus appeared as so many evidences of celestial wrath. Regarded as signs announcing the exhaustion of the imperial virtue, they were to raise, apart from the immediate concerns about relief and rehabilitation, more serious problems of political house-cleaning and political revival: the throne should then commit itself to self-examination and moral cultivation (tu tỉnh, examine one’s moral character with the aim of reforming), in order to find out wherein had the ruler been morally remiss and what were the wrongs of his officials and people. At such a time of introspection, stressing on straightforward speech as a primary duty of moral cultivation, the throne would appeal to public opinion for proposals of reforms to carry out in view of resuming with Heaven the spiritual pact that was suspended for the time being. Incidentally, in China at that time the “Tongzhi Restoration” gave new men who had come to power after the repression of the Taiping rebellion and other uprisings the opportunity of attempting to strengthen the country through a movement of modernisation called “self-reinforcement” (ziqiang) or “management in the Western mode” (yangwu).


These developments had surely been brought to the awareness of the Court of Huế, thereby giving it information on the way the neighbour state went about trying to put China on its feet again . However, as for him Tự Ðức subscribed to the Confucian doctrine according to which the cause of foreign invasion was to be ascribed to internal disorder, a situation that would cease if the government could dispose of enough men of talent (nhân tài) to assist it in its efforts to restore social harmony and peace. Besides, he was confirmed in this approach by a kind of cyclic view of the historical evolution, based on the belief in the alternation of periods of loss of balance and of stability : the dogma asserting that crises in the history of mankind depended to a great extent upon unknowable supernatural influences did not then make such an inhibitory impression on him that he would have given up hope of finding redemptive principles in the “mirror” of that very history .




Nevertheless, faced with the proliferation of domestic difficulties and the growing external threats, the emperor believed that it was urgent to rectify the running of the governmental system, convinced as he was that the core of the problem rested on the better use of abilities and the improvement of the quality of officials. Asked about this subject in his retirement home, the Great Chancellor Trương Ðăng Quế, one of the principal personages of the kingdom under three successive reigns, fully agreed with Tự Ðức in the petition he addressed to the emperor in the sixth lunar month of 1863: “As for the line of government, nothing is more essential than the use of competences. May Your Majesty through judicious selection confer responsibilities in accordance with capacities.


It is indispensable to place at the head of the ministries and services and at the administration of the provinces upright and diligent mandarins, who could stimulate the zeal of their subordinates, so that the latter would put public good above private interests. At the command of the army corps should be elevated men of exceptional abilities, knowing how to encourage their troops and well-versed in the art of war. One must avoid turning to smooth talkers who only think of their particular advantages. These capable men whom you have at your disposal, you will confide to them all the elementary problems, while demanding good results from them.



Your Majesty will only pay attention to the broad lines, distinguishing the good and bad people, the deserving and the faulty persons to distribute rewards and punishments, so that everybody may well know what is to be encouraged and what is to be condemned, and conscientiously perform their functions. Then no longer will you be kept feeling uneasy about the smooth running of the public affairs, and the beneficial effects of the restored order will surpass those of the times of the Han and the Sung…” Tự Ðức assumed that there always existed in the country persons of true learning: “among ten families of a hamlet, one loyal man is bound to be found, so throughout the whole empire, how could wise men be absent?” But he had to admit the increasing helplessness of the recruitment system through the triennial examinations in detecting and attracting those valuable elements into the mandarin ranks .



For his part a man who would not neglect the studies that he continued pursuing in solitary silence , he was fully cognizant of the drawbacks (well analysed and exposed by the Chinese themselves since the 11th century) of a Confucian education that occasionally developed hypocrisy and formed introverted individuals, badly prepared for action . In any case, he was not without perceiving that the exclusively literary criteria of the examinations did not lend themselves to the exact assessment of the candidates’ practical aptitude for the management of the governmental affairs . He therefore wished to revive the tradition of recommendations instituted in the past by the Han, to implement it concurrently with the examination system: injunction was made to high mandarins to point out the most capable persons whose talents the throne would make it its duty to make use of, according to the precept lượng tài lục dụng (“measure ability and choose for appointments”).



He actually counted on this way of designation of good men to inject fresh blood into his government, and to find a remedy for the formalism of the classical education system, which, he truly believed, was to blame for the absorption of the literati in phraseology at the expense of practicality. He even showed his intention of extending this process to the appointment of ministers in the capital and of governors in the provinces, and rebuffed his Censorate for daring put forward a contrary opinion . At any rate, about ten edicts were published from 1861 to 1875 to incite regional authorities to hasten to bring to the court’s attention exceptional persons in every domain, from political and military genii to accomplished people in the medical art or persons having good particular technical knowledge . At the end of 1863, about sixty men pushed forward in this manner were summoned to the capital to be questioned by the ruler himself on the genuine conditions of the country .



Even so, reality did not seem to come up to Tự Ðức’s expectations, in spite of his reiterated appeals: for instance, among the sixteen mandarins who had been recommended to the throne in 1865 as the most enlightened minds, and who had been called to Huế to go through the tests of a special examination, none was judged by the emperor as a person of truly superior intelligence, even if the title of nhã sĩ (distinguished scholar) with the qualification of “holder of the science of government” could have been given as encouragement to five of them Tự Ðức kept going by asking at the same time his officials to see carefully to the smooth running of their administration in order to prevent abuses of power from the part of their subordinates, to make scrupulous respect of the truth the first of their concerns in their reports to the throne on the state of the affairs, and to propose quite frankly measures to be taken for the improvement of the situation. Those exhortations aiming at stimulating the officials’ energy would be repeated several times in the year 1864 alone .


This, because the emperor deemed that to stamp out bureaucratic corruption through the curbing of the abuses of predatory minor officials would be one of the most effective ways to improve the people’s livelihood, otherwise he would find himself at fault, as the ruler’s responsibility to ensure the material well-being of the people was an important aspect of the mandate of heaven.But the standard of living of the masses worsened ceaselessly with the constant deterioration of the economic situation .


The throne was then duty bound to give the lead in an austerity campaign by trying to limit waste and advocate frugality. In this context, Tự Ðức himself was not spared criticism for extravagance that he accepted all the more with magnanimity since he did not feel himself beyond reproach: toward the end of 1866, members of the emperor’s Privy Council firmly remonstrated with him about his immoderate expenses, insisting on the necessity of making savings to straighten out the situation ; twice, in 1866 and 1868, the governor of the two provinces of Bình Ðịnh and Phú Yên, Thân Văn Nhiếp, could make very harsh observations on the too costly expenditure for the construction of Tự Ðức’s tomb . But few ways out were actually open to the government: in order to restrict the expenses of the state, it could only think in the first place of cutting down the number of officials, whose reduction was decided at the end of 1868, with the removal from active service of 139 mandarins at the capital and 142 employees in the provinces .




Then, relying on the concept of agriculture as the foundation of the fiscal structure of the state, it endeavoured to develop new sources of revenue through the extension of the cultivable surface: clearing and settlement services (Nha Doanh Ðiền) were instituted in different provinces, and private initiatives of land conquest were encouraged to exploit fallow land, forest areas, sandbanks, etc. At the same time, the government worried about the lot of the peasantry, especially the northern peasantry, particularly affected by all kinds of plagues. The inadequacy of the network of dykes in Bắc-Kỳ for the containment of the floods of the Red River and its affluents was a constant source of preoccupation, and in 1876 an Imperial Delegation for Dykes (Khâm Sai Kinh Lý Hà Ðê Sứ) had to be established to look after it specially, under the direction of the great mandarin Phạm Thận Duật .



The decision of standardizing the land tax base that was applied from 1875 onwards seemed also to have been taken with the intention of relieving the small peasants of North-Vietnam of a part of the burdens that weighed heavy on them . A distinction had always been made between communal land (công điền), and private land (tư điền); communal paddy-fields were periodically redistributed between the registered villagers, who tilled them in exchange for the annual payment of the land tax to the state. But until 1875 the kingdom was divided into two zones, each subject so to speak to a different fiscal system: in the first zone, which encompassed the provinces southward of Quảng Bình, the same tax rate was imposed equally on communal land and private land; but in the second zone, which included the provinces of Bắc-Kỳ as well as those of Thanh Hoá, Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh, communal land was taxed much more heavily than private land.


The reform of 1875 abolished this differentiation between two fiscal zones, and in the second zone the distinction of two tax rates for the two categories of land.By lowering appreciably the tax rate striking communal land in the areas north of Quảng Bình, the reform went indubitably in the way of a lightening of the burdens of the most underprivileged part of the population of the Northern provinces The destitution of the rural world, the aggravation of which the irregularity of climatic conditions contributed to still more, induced also the royal government to abide obstinately by the practice of “equitable distribution of grain” consisting in setting up a kind of production regulator with the maintenance of rice stocks in public granaries (kho thường bình, “ever-normal granaries”) in anticipation of periods of high prices or dearth, when those stocks would be opened to be sold at low price or distributed to the needy population. This would probably explain the government’s doggedness in banning rice exportations, whereas rice had become one of the chief articles of international trade in Southeast Asia in this latter half of the 19th century.


Thus, Tự Ðức’s government resorted to solutions that recalled relief programs rooted in antiquity. Those solutions partook in fact of an updating of the classical principles of the Confucian political theory. In carrying out a new consecration of the Confucian values and institutions, the point was to achieve changes that would bring about an internal transformation of the society and an improvement of the socioeconomic order. This revival, this purification were besides ardently wished for, as could be seen from the desire expressed by Tự Ðức at the beginning of 1878 to change the name of the country into Ðại Hưng (Great Prosperity) or Ðại Hoá (Great Transformation) .


At the same time, as the danger of foreign interference became more apparent, the reaffirmation of the Confucian identity peculiar to Ðại Nam was deemed vital for the preservation of the ideological cohesion of the ruling class of the kingdom, and hence for the safeguarding of a sociopolitical whole recognized as viable for many centuries.Precisely, the question that comes to mind is how genuinely the Vietnamese Confucian ruling class on the whole felt personally involved in these concerns for the reconstruction of social and political order. Most likely, there was no such movement as what was known in China at that time under the term Qing-i (Thanh nghị) or “literati opinion”, denoting the expressions of opinion by low- and middle-ranking officials who intended thereby to preserve or improve the moral integrity of the Confucian state and society , and a part of which was the Qing-liu (Thanh lưu) Pure Group that demanded strict adherence to Confucian principles, and claimed dedication to the cause of cleansing the government by restoring former so-called norms of excellence – removal of officials who did not meet high standards of ability, integrity, and loyalty; improvement of government operations through a closer imitation of ancient models .




On the contrary, in Vietnam officials would present, if they ever did, pet schemes or private peeves only in a personal capacity .We have though at our disposal a document that helps us to apprehend the frame of mind of the Vietnamese intellectual elite at a moment when they had no reason yet to despair of the institutions issued from the only socio-political system known to them until then: the text of the dissertation of a candidate of the Palace examination of 1865, Trần Bích San . This copy encompassed a vehement protest against official corruption, against the inadequacy of the traditional system of education, and against the sufferings endured by the small people; but the propositions proffered as solutions to the problems of government merely reproduced processes going back to the Han. Infused with moralism, Trần Bích San’s governmental conception such as it showed through his argumentation focussed primarily on the Emperor’s virtue and the officials’ integrity, considered to be the bases for the upholding of the social and economic order.



That was how he proved to be in complete intellectual symbiosis with his elders, whose thought and way of life had been cast in the same mould . Would it mean, however, that the updating of the principles of the Confucian political theory resulted paradoxically in confirming the ruling class in stereotyped ideological positions, not much in favour of structural and final transformations, as well as in exerting an inhibitive effect on the will of replying to Western pressures with the abandonment of ideas and methods that seemed to have lost their vitality or relevance, and with the adoption of new models? From military setbacks to territorial amputations, the royal court eventually realized the enormous power gap between the West and the rest of the world, and officially acknowledged the possibility of modernisation through the implementation of Western methods .


It assented thus to the reformist current that materialized at the time with men who thought it possible to espouse Western techniques without having to break with the system of traditional values . Those were indeed more willing to believe in the possibility of not deviating from Confucian orthodoxy by endeavouring to preserve traditional spiritual values as foundation or substance, while adopting Western knowledge for its usefulness or function But few people were then in a position to possess sufficiently vast comprehension of the structures and ideas that served as bases for Western technical realisations to be able to promote extensive adoption and adaptation of Western political and economic institutions.


Only some individuals, who could have become thoroughly acquainted with Western ideas thanks to their particular situation as protected persons of the missionary circles, were likely to achieve some cultural symbiosis. Among them was Nguyễn Trường Tộ, a Catholic scholar from Nghệ An excluded from officialdom because of his religion . From his education, he had retained all his confidence in the absolute monarchy, on which he relied to modernise the state and to rejuvenate the nation. From 1863 to his death in 1871, he submitted to the emperor about forty recommendations to suggest remedies for the dangerous situation of the state. By proposing structural transformations of the bureaucracy, economic recovery through the development of industry and trade, and effective defence of the country through pacific and political means, Nguyễn Trường Tộ outlined a complete reforming programme and pleaded adaptation to European civilisation in order to help the potentialities for progress of the Vietnamese nation to flourish.If Nguyễn Trường Tộ had persevered in submitting his proposals to Tự Ðức, it was because his ideas had not been brushed aside straightaway.



Not only his suggestions could have reached the emperor, but Tự Ðức even sent him to France in 1866 to look for books, technicians and machines, after having entrusted him with a mission of mine prospecting . The decision made by the royal court in 1866 to establish a kind of press service to inform public opinion in France, Spain, England, Roma, Canton and Hong Kong about the expansionist aims of the French admiral-governors in Cochinchina seemed to have been also inspired indirectly by Nguyễn Trường Tộ . Then in 1870 he was again called by Tự Ðức to Huế to be questioned about the political situation in Europe and the possibility of negotiating the retrocession of Cochinchina .Under the political and intellectual conditions of the time, however, there was little chance that the royal court in its entirety would have given its full adherence to the whole set of Nguyễn Trường Tộ’s proposals, especially to those recommending a complete reform of the bureaucracy to eradicate corruption, or a reorganization of judiciary procedures aiming at separating the judges’ power from the administrators’ power.



On the contrary, a process of petrifaction began among the great majority of mandarins and literati, who rejected every compromise with foreign influences, lest with the acceptation of Western ideas the existing order should be called into question, and “the five classics should not get away from the fire of the Qin and the cross [of Christianity] should be hanging on the door of Confucius” . This especially ideological conservatism of the mandarin corps, against which the emperor, first scholar of the kingdom, could of course not decently go, would manifest itself in misoneist reactions: it gave justification to the kind of casuistry that would always analyse meticulously the advantages and disadvantages of every reform project to finally conclude that its accomplishment would be impracticable. But it was not long before the treaty of 15 March 1874 with France came to lead the way to the dismantling of the existing political order through the subversion that it imposed. Indeed, the treaty’s article 9 not only granted religious freedom to the Catholics, but also allowed them henceforth to take the triennial examinations, therefore to become mandarins.



This amounted in fact to transform the national community into an ideologically differentiated society, in which Catholicism would be at liberty to compete with Confucianism on the plane of ideas as well as on the plane of institutions. The literati and mandarins, keepers of the state ideology, could not consent to this for fear of condemning themselves to disappear as a class, since the traditional political system was not made to allow divergent and antithetic viewpoints to express themselves and compete freely, especially when these viewpoints originated from a foreign culture considered as antisocial and subversive. So the religious question was bound to prompt clashes, all the more explosive since they seemed to be beyond the customary repressive mechanism of filial piety, loyalty to the throne, and ritualistic abnegation. They already broke out with popular reactions led by literati against Francis Garnier’s expedition in Tonkin, prelude to the negotiations of the 1874 treaty: many northern Catholic villages were burnt, their inhabitants massacred.\Efforts made by the royal court in February and March 1874 to moderate the reprisals against the Catholic population sparked off a vast movement of revolt in the provinces of Thanh Hoá, Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh, and Quảng Bình. Called “Rebellion of the Vǎn Thân” by the government, this was the first act of opposition to the ruler’s authority caused directly by French intervention.



Convinced that they defended a just cause which no longer seemed to be embodied in the person of the ruler, the leaders of the movement had come to give up the traditional norms of loyalty to revolt against the court’s decisions. Disapproving of the royal court’s weakness in the face of French encroachments, they placed the mission of ridding the state of foreign interference before their duty of obedience. To Tự Ðức’s proclamation condemning their action while supplying explanations for his peace policy, they replied by claiming their determination to continue to fight, and by accusing the court of failing Confucian orthodoxy and the national cause, which was indeed an unprecedented fact .



This protest movement of the literati, which earned some sympathy from provincial mandarins, was completely repressed in the autumn of 1874, but it announced unequivocally the decline of royal authority within the very class that constituted its main support.Incapable then of finding valid solutions to a situation more and more beyond their control, the court circles could only hide their disarray under a timorous behaviour and futile verbalism. The outcome was a slowing down of the running of the machinery of government, with all the dangerous consequences that the bad application of the administrative principles could represent for the survival of the state. Most pernicious was the slackening of the central government’s control over its officials. What had always harmed the administrative organisation of the traditional monarchy – routine and lack of initiative resulting from a moralising and conformist education – now increased sharply. Besides, a general fall of standards of the examinations enabled mediocre elements to slip among the candidates for administrative functions. Consequently, the Confucian ideal of moral perfection henceforth exceeded largely the spiritual abilities of a great number of mandarins.\



The slackening of the control of the central government would encourage then the extension of embezzling practices. Toward 1880-1881, evident marks of loss of adaptation had appeared in the structure of the state, and the corrective interventions of the central government became ineffective. The venality of high- and low-ranking officials was so widespread that within a year the ruler had to launch three times exhortations insisting on the mandarins’ duty of integrity . These appeals to men of good will for them to lend their support to a fairer and more efficient administration proved the monarchy’s incapacity to curb the progress of a sickness that had become incurable. But faced with their administrators’ derelictions, the people of the provinces were less prepared to conserve towards these officials the respect close to filial piety taught by the Confucian moral code. This discredit would rebound on the prestige of the imperial function which should be, according to the classical formula, “to follow Heaven to respond to the people”


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Tự Ðức’s efforts to update Confucian principles of government were therefore not successful in generating dynamic changes, contrarily to the emperor’s sincere expectations. But historians in their majority have put the blame of the failure in transforming the Vietnamese traditional monarchy on the lack of intellectual flexibility of nineteenth-century Vietnam’s political leaders, all chained up in a cultural fabric inherited from the Chinese model and ossified by official formalism . There was an element of defensiveness in this attitude, as the ruler and his collaborators fell back on a national culture reflecting the glories of the past, in the face of the challenge from the intruding French, who during Tự Ðức’s reign did not cease to establish themselves politically and administratively. This attitude may be explained by the deep belief in a system of fundamental values, the abandonment of which would call into question a whole conception of the universe.