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Vietnam – Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945)
Thanh To – Emperor: 1820-1840
Bronze Minh Mang Thong Bao Cash Token 24mm, Struck 1820-1840
Reference: B 101.1, 25.37, T-227
Chinese Symbols.
Annam, United Dai Nam.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 Minh Mạng (Minh Mệnh (lit. “the bright favour of Heaven”; 25 May 1791 – 20 January 1841; born Nguyễn Phúc Đảm, also known as Nguyễn Phúc Kiểu) was the second emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam, reigning from 14 February 1820 until his death, on 20 January 1841. He was the fourth son of Emperor Gia Long, whose eldest son, Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh, had died in 1801. He was well known for his opposition to French involvement in Vietnam and his rigid Confucian orthodoxy.
Minh Mạng was known for his firmness of character, which guided his instincts in his policy making. This accentuated his unwillingness to break with orthodoxy in dealing with Vietnam’s problems. His biographer, Marcel Gaultier, asserted that Minh Mạng had expressed his opinions about national policy before Gia Long’s death, proposing a policy of greater isolationism and shunning westerners, and that Long tacitly approved of this. Minh Mạng was regarded as more nuanced and gentle than his father, with less forced labour and an increased perceptiveness towards the sentiment of the peasantry. His strict belief in Confucian society enabled him to neutralize rebellions incited by Christian missionaries and their Vietnamese converts. This affirmation of Vietnam’s cultural and religious sovereignty angered France, which had territorial designs on Vietnam. France then furthered its policy of undermining Vietnam and, in 1858, after Minh Mạng’s death, French troops would briefly occupy Tourane, demanding that the so-called “persecutions” stop. This was the beginning of the French campaign to occupy and colonize Vietnam.
Although he disagreed with European culture and thinking, he studied it closely and was known for his scholarly nature. Ming Mạng was keen in Western technologies, namely mechanics, weaponry and navigation which he attempted to introduce into Vietnam. Upon hearing of the vaccination against smallpox, he organised for a French surgeon to live in a palatial residence and vaccinate the royal family against the disease. He was learned in Eastern philosophy and was regarded as an intellectually oriented monarch. He was also known for his writings as a poet. He was known for his attention to detail and micromanagement of state affairs, to a level that “astonished his contemporaries”. As a result, he was held in high-regard for his devotion to running the country. When Minh Mạng died, he left the throne to his son, Emperor Thiệu Trị, who was more rigidly Confucianist and anti-imperialist than his father. During Thiệu Trị’s reign, diplomatic standoffs precipitated by aspiring European imperial powers on the pretext of the “treatment” of Catholic priests gave them an excuse to use gunboat diplomacy on Vietnam, and led to increasing raids and the eventual colonisation of Vietnam by France. Nevertheless, during his reign Minh Mạng had established a more efficient government, stopped a Siamese invasion and built many national monuments in the imperial city of Huế.
Minh Mạng had a large number of wives and concubines. He is reported to have fathered 142 children from 43 wives. His sons included: Miên Tông (Emperor Thiệu Trị), Miên Định (Prince of Thọ Xuân), Miên Thẩm (Prince of Tùng Thiện), Miên Trinh (Prince of Tuy Lý), Miên Bửu (Prince of Tương An), Miên Lâm (Prince of Hoài Đức), Miên Triện (Prince of Hoằng Hóa), Miên Lịch (Yên Thành). Three of his daughters, Nguyệt Đình, Mai Am and Huệ Phố, were famous poets.
Minh Mạng’s sons also had a remarkable number of offspring: Prince of Thọ Xuân fathered 144 children, including 78 sons and 66 daughters, Prince of Tuy Lý, another son, had 77 sons and 37 daughters. He is succeeded by Emperor Thiệu Trị, who himself fathered 29 princes and 35 princesses.
He decided to name his descendants (Nguyễn Phước or Nguyễn Phúc: all members of the Nguyễn dynasty) by choosing the Generation name following the words of the Imperial succession poem to avoid confusion. For boys, the following poem is shown in Chữ Quốc Ngữ (modern Vietnamese script) and in chữ nôm:
Note: Hường replaced Hồng and Thoại replaced Thụy because it was taboo to use the names of passed emperors or fathers.
Girls receive also a different name on each generation, for example: Công-chúa, Công-nữ, Công Tôn-nữ, Công-tằng Tôn-nữ, Công-huyền Tôn-nữ, Lai-huyền Tôn-nữ, or shorten to Tôn-nữ for all generations afterward.
 The Nguyễn dynasty (Chữ Nôm: 茹阮, Vietnamese: Nhà Nguyễn; Hán tự: 阮朝, Vietnamese: Nguyễn triều) was the last Vietnamese dynasty, which ruled the unified Vietnamese state largely independently from 1802 to 1884. During its existence, the empire expanded into modern-day southern Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos through a continuation of the centuries-long Nam tiến and Siamese–Vietnamese wars. After 1883, the Nguyễn emperors ruled nominally as heads of state of the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin until the final months of WWII; they later nominally ruled over the Empire of Vietnam until the Japanese surrender.
The Nguyễn Phúc family established feudal rule over large amounts of territory as the Nguyễn Lords by the 16th century before defeating the Tây Sơn dynasty and establishing their own imperial rule in the 19th century. The dynastic rule began with Gia Long ascending the throne in 1802, after ending the previous Tây Sơn dynasty. The Nguyễn dynasty was gradually absorbed by France over the course of several decades in the latter half of the 19th century, beginning with the Cochinchina Campaign in 1858 which led to the occupation of the southern area of Vietnam. A series of unequal treaties followed; the occupied territory became the French colony of Cochinchina in the 1862 Treaty of Saigon, and the 1863 Treaty of Huế gave France access to Vietnamese ports and increased control of its foreign affairs. Finally, the 1883 and 1884 Treaties of Huế divided the remaining Vietnamese territory into the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin under nominal Nguyễn Phúc rule. In 1887, Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin, and the French Protectorate of Cambodia were grouped together to form French Indochina.
The Nguyễn dynasty remained the formal emperors of Annam and Tonkin within Indochina until World War II. Japan had occupied Indochina with French collaboration in 1940, but as the war seemed increasingly lost, overthrew the French administration in March 1945 and proclaimed independence for its constituent countries. The Empire of Vietnam under Emperor Bảo Đại was a nominally independent Japanese puppet state during the last months of the war. It ended with Bảo Đại’s abdication following the surrender of Japan and August Revolution by the anti-colonial Việt Minh in the August 1945. This ended the 143-year rule of the Nguyễn dynasty. Many Vietnamese historians have a harsh and poor assessment of the Nguyễn dynasty.
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