Talk:Nguyễn dynasty

Replacing the map

There are currently two (2) maps of the country under the reign of the Minh Mạng Emperor, one of which is quite accurate and detailed and the other claims that the Kingdom of Vientiane was a Nguyễn vassal state. I propose replacing the latter map (so the top one) with one of the French protectorates of Annam & Tonkin in 1940 showing the different provinces and autonomous territories of the time. I wanted commission such a map at the Wikimedia Commons, but I haven't been able to find a detailed survey of the Nguyễn Dynasty's provinces from 1940 yet. --Donald Trung (talk) 08:10, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Legislative system of the Nguyễn Dynasty in 1945

One thing I have had trouble finding out is about the legislative system of the Empire of Vietnam during its final days. I added the "Rule by decree" system to the umbrella Nguyễn Dynasty article, and the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin. During the entire independent period of the Nguyễn Dynasty the Emperor had full legislative powers and the legal code, the Gia Long era Hoàng Việt luật lệ (皇越律例), sometimes known as the "Gia Long Code", remained the main civil code of the Nguyễn dynasty until the Emperor issued the nearly identical Civil Code of Annam and Civil Code of Tonkin sometime during either the 1920's or 1930's (as far as I could find). In the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin the (old) laws of the Nguyễn dynasty, such as Sắc (敕, "Imperial Order"), Chí (誌, "Ordinance"), and Dụ (諭, "Decree"), remained in effect but were subordinate to the laws of the French administration, which were also made by decree, either by the Governor-General of French Indo-China or the President of France. As for imperial decrees and Imperial edicts that were legally bounding; I have been able to find these right until the 1940's and the whole reason why the prominent mandarin Ngô Đình Diệm quit was because the French refused to greenlight the creation of a native Nguyễn Dynasty legislature (meaning that the Emperor's decrees remained the main legislative branch). In fact, even as late as 1943 any executive actions by for example the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of National Education had to be signed off under imperial decree, though usually the cabinet of the Nguyễn Dynasty's seals appeared on these on Annamese and Tonkinese documents, so I'm not sure if the cabinet can be considered to be "a legislative branch", but I've heard no external source refer to it as such.

It gets a bit murky for 1945, as the Empire of Vietnam's Trần Trọng Kim cabinet was drafting a constitution that would've transformed the Nguyễn Dynasty into a constitutional monarchy, but as far as I can find this constitution was never completed and I can't find any information if the Empire of Vietnam has its own legislative branch or if the absolute monarchy remained in place. So I can confidently say that from 1802 to 1945 the Nguyễn Dynasty had a "Rule by decree" system, but I'm not sure for the middle half of 1945. --Donald Trung (talk) 10:11, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

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Laska666 is wrong about this term not being contemporary

Right here at the bottom of the very first page of this book from 1882, it describes this period as the "Nguyen Dynasty 阮". Neither Communists nor Nationalists dreamt up this term after World War II.

I came across these edits and found them quite funny, a removal of information without justification followed by a mass-deletion that points to the Chinese origins of Kinh culture simply by calling it "irrelevant". Then they added this which did have a good explanation, namely "In Vietnamese Marxist and nationalist historiography, the Nguyen dynasty is a modern ethnocentric reconstruction. There was none polity called Nguyen dynasty had ever existed in the timeline or contemporary documents neither maps. After the Second World War as Vietnam gained independence, Vietnamese Marxists and nationalists had tried forging the notion of a single homogenous 'Vietnamese nation' by denying and downplaying the existence and significant of non-Kinh and indigenous history in the history of Vietnam, thus all pieces of Kinh history are attached to 'Vietnamese history' which is by all means, a lineage of successive Vietnamese dynasties' rather than factual polities." But some further investigation into actual contemporary sources tell us that this is not true at all, and I actually initially even agreed with their claims.

In 1882 Catalan Egyptologist Eduardo Toda y Güell published the book Annam and its Minor Currency, what's interesting about this book is that it categorises its contents into several chapters, namely:

• PART I. General Notices
  • I. Preliminary Remarks
  • II. Geographical and Historical Notes
  • III. Chronological Tables of the Annamese Dynasties
  • IV. Situation of Annam as an Independent Country
  • V. Mines
  • VI. Manufacture of Coins
  • VII. False Coinage, and Penal Laws relating thereto
  • VIII. Magazines for Coins, and Laws referring to them
  • IX. Customs and superstitions connected with Coins
  • X. Paper-money in Annam

• PART II. History of the Coinage
  • XI. The Ngo Family. The twelve Suquan. The Dinh Dynasty. The former Le Dynasty. - 940-1010.
  • XII. The Ly Dynasty. - 1010-1225.
  • XIII. The Tran Dynasty. - 1225-1414.
  • XIV. Rebels. - 1368-1420.
  • XV. Chinese domination and war of independence. - 1414-1428.
  • XVI. The Le Dynasty. - 1428-1785. ( Part 1, Part 2 )
  • XVII. Rebels. 1459-1532.
  • XVIII. The Mac and Nguyen Governments.
  • XIX. The Tay-son Rebellion. 1764-1801.
  • XX. Chinese intervention in Tunquin, and the Nguyen Dynasty.
  • XXI. The Nguy-khoi Rebellion. The Nung Rebellion. Doubtful Coins. 1600 to date.

So this was a book written during the reign of the Tự Đức Emperor and it specifically calls "the present period" the Nguyễn Dynasty. This isn't something like the "Byzantine Empire" where historians dreamt up a name decades after the state ended, this was a contemporary name that people actually used to refer to this period in Vietnamese history while it was happening. --Donald Trung (talk) 23:24, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

For context, here's the full quote from the book (public domain):

"The 阮 Nguyen Dynasty. From 1776 to the present time.

King 嘉隆 GIA-LONG was the nephew of King DUE-TONG, THE last sovereign of Cochinchina, and being gifted with an active mind and with great powers of organization, he determined to reconquer the territory which had been taken possession of by the Tay-son rebels.

His lack was at first a very changeable one, for at one time he reigned in the South of Cochinchina with absolute power, and at another he found himself alone, persecuted, without an army, and forced to take refuge in Siam. At last success favoured him. With the help of the French, secured through the direct intervention of the Bishop of Adran, and assisted by the Siamese and Cambodian armies, he not only re-occupied the former territory of the Quang-nam Principality belonging to his family, but also took possession of the whole of Tunquin. Out of these conquests he formed the kingdom of Annam, and in 1801 proclaimed himself king, thus founding the NGUYEN Dynasty, which is still in power at the present day.

Since then four kings have ascended the throne. The history of their reign contains but little worthy of note; moreover, it is' still of too recent a date to be dealt with impartially. These four kings are principally remarkable for their hatred towards foreigners and for their persecution of the Christians. It is only through the pressure of European armies that they have consented to open several ports to foreign trade, and at this very moment the country seems to be passing through a crisis, menaced as it is by the intervention of the French in Tunquin, who may possibly annex it in the same way as they annexed Lower Cochinchina twenty-five years ago."

Does it hold up to scrutiny today? No, most certainly not. But it shoes that the court of this period was referred to by this name. The state itself seems to mostly be referred to as "the Kingdom of Annam" and it wasn't until the reign of the Khải Định Emperor that the French began to formally refer to "Annam" as an "Empire" instead of "Kingdom", but the court which ruled over this state was already known as the Nguyễn Dynasty at this point. --Donald Trung (talk) 23:34, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Point of view

@Le Sisi:, regarding this edit. That many historians have a negative view of the Nguyễn Dynasty, is that not neutral? As it only states that the period is viewed negatively by current Vietnamese historians (which is true) but it doesn't claim that this is objectively true, so it is bad to express that point of view there?

I don't think that it's particularly bad to mention it here as it simply says that a bias against this period exists. Which our readers are probably sure to find in other works and "sub-articles" about this time period. --Donald Trung (talk) 10:03, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Change Nguyễn triều to triều Nguyễn?

The term for Nguyễn dynasty in Vietnamese is triều Nguyễn, while the House of Nguyễn would be nhà Nguyễn. But in this article, it is written Nguyễn triều and is misconstrued as a common Vietnamese term.

In Vietnamese, Nguyễn triều is rarely used, even in the past. We can see an example in the poem, Tale of Kieu. Where the line says, 浪𢆥嘉靖朝明 (Rằng năm Gia Tĩnh triều Minh). Note that the Ming dynasty is referred to as triều Minh rather than Minh triều.

I am proposing to change Nguyễn triều to triều Nguyễn; and for all other articles such as the Lê dynasty, Tây Sơn dynasty, etc. Lachy70 (talk) 21:42, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I very much support it, I've visited a number of museums in Hanoi and I've read a fairly large number of works on the Nguyễn Dynasty and I've exclusively seen the term triều Nguyễn be applied. My guess is that the term was added because it would be grammatically correct in Classical Chinese, but it wouldn't make much sense in vernacular Vietnamese. --Donald Trung (talk) 21:56, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Some questions for clarification:

1. Which one appeared in official written documents, seals, etc. of the time? Wouldn't it have been 阮朝 instead of 朝阮?
2. If the answer to 1 is affirmative: the specific Vietnamese reading of the official Classical Chinese writing would be Nguyễn triều despite not being the "proper" Vietnamese language name for it, right?

— MarkH₂₁^talk 22:10, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Interestingly enough after reading through the Đại Nam thực lục (大南寔錄) most references I found were Bản quốc (本國), Ngã quốc (我國), Ngã quốc triều (我國朝), and in one (1) instance Ngã triều (我朝) a few instances Bản triều (本朝). Searching for "阮朝" only gives me a man named Nguyễn Triều Văn (阮朝文). The book rarely seems to refer to the country by name. Contemporary names for the country itself seemed to have largely been the "Great South" (大南), "Southern Country" (南國), and the "Southern Dynasty" (南朝), these are the names that I usually find on documents whenever the country isn't referred to as either Bản quốc (本國) or Ngã quốc (我國). --Donald Trung (talk) 22:32, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The only time I can recall that I've seen the Nguyễn Dynasty specifically being mentioned on an imperial decree was on Decree Number 55 dated 02-07-Bảo Đại 16 (24 August 1941), where the Bảo Đại Emperor specifically referred to "cash coins issued by the current dynasty", though he never explicitly named the dynasty in the edict (as it was presumed to be common knowledge). --Donald Trung (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

During the rule of the Nguyễn Dynasty, they would have referred to the imperial court in Literary Chinese as 我朝 or 皇朝, rather than use 阮朝 because they were still ruling. While I have seen documents referring to previous dynasties such as the Lê dynasty as 黎朝.

In Đại Nam quốc sử diễn ca (大南國史演歌), a Vietnamese book in Classical Chinese (top) and chữ Nôm (bottom), the Nôm section refers to the court as triều ta 朝些. Lachy70 (talk) 22:43, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Link to the text for reference. Lachy70 (talk) 22:52, 13 December 2023 (UTC)