Vietnamese general (1763/64–1832)
Lê Văn Duyệt (1763 or 1764 – 30 July 1832) was a Vietnamese general who helped Nguyễn Ánh—the future Emperor Gia Long—put down the Tây Sơn wars, unify Vietnam and establish the Nguyễn dynasty. After the Nguyễn came to power in 1802, Duyệt became a high-ranking mandarin, serving under the first two Nguyễn emperors Gia Long and Minh Mạng.
Born into a family of peasants near Tiền Giang, Duyệt joined Prince Nguyễn Ánh in fighting the Tây Sơn wars. Because of Duyệt's military ability, he quickly rose through the ranks of the Nguyễn army and became a marshal when the Tây Sơn-Nguyễn war ended. After the foundation of the Nguyễn dynasty, Duyệt served as a high-ranking mandarin and, later, viceroy of the southern part of Vietnam, ruling from Gia Định (modern-day Saigon).
His governance greatly stabilized and helped develop the Nam Bo region, turning it into a wealthy and peaceful region. In addition, Duyệt opposed Emperor Minh Mạng's ascension and defended Christian missionaries and converts from the emperor's isolationist and Confucian policies. These attitudes brought Duyệt into conflict with Minh Mạng and led to the posthumous desecration of Duyệt's tomb, which provoked his adopted son Lê Văn Khôi to revolt against the court. Later, Emperors Thiệu Trị and Tự Đức (son and grandson) of Minh Mạng, rehabilitated Duyệt and restored his tomb.
Early life.
Lê Văn Duyệt was born in either 1763 or 1764 in Định Tường (present day Tiền Giang), a regional town in the Mekong Delta, in the far south of Vietnam. His parents were ordinary peasants whose ancestors came from Quảng Ngãi Province in central Vietnam during the southwards expansion of the Nguyễn Lords. Duyệt was born in a poor family, and he tended buffaloes during his childhood. Attracted by the possibilities of the "New South", the family then moved to Gia Định.
General of Nguyễn Ánh.
In 1780, Duyệt became a eunuch of the 18-year-old Prince Nguyễn Ánh, the nephew of the slain Nguyễn Lord and the most senior member of the family who survived the revolt by the three Tây Sơn brothers, who seized southern Vietnam from the Nguyễn in 1777. As a result, Nguyễn Ánh and a few loyalists fled into the dense jungles of the Mekong Delta in the far south. Later, Nguyễn Ánh made Duyệt a "Cai Cơ" ("Commander") of his bodyguards. From 1777 onwards, the military balance between the Tây Sơn and the Nguyễn fluctuated, as the enemies counterattacked each other frequently.
In 1782, the Tây Sơn attacked Gia Định (later known as Saigon and now Ho Chi Minh City) again and forced Nguyễn Ánh to flee to the island of Phú Quốc under Duyệt's escort. It was one of many times when Gia Định changed hands. In 1787, Duyệt began organizing and commanding his own unit, and individually recruited his own enlisted men. In 1788, the tide began to turn in favour of the Nguyễn, after Pigneau de Behaine, a French Catholic priest who befriended Nguyễn Ánh in the hope that the young prince would gain power and give special privileges to his religion, recruited French military officers to fight for the Nguyễn. In 1788, the Nguyễn recaptured Gia Định and never relinquished it again. From then on, Nguyễn Ánh transformed the city into a fortress and his powerbase and began consolidating his hold on the surrounding area, before attacking the Tây Sơn with a view to eliminating them.
In 1789, Nguyễn Ánh made Duyệt a general. From this point on, Duyệt accompanied his master on many military campaigns against the Tây Sơn. Continuous warfare then ensued, mostly centred near Nha Trang and Qui Nhơn on the south central coast, where the Nguyễn besieged the Tây Sơn's strongholds. In 1801, Duyệt engineered a naval victory in Thị Nại, which was a turning point of the war and heralded the complete collapse of the Tây Sơn. In the same year, a close colleague, Tong Viet Phuc was killed in battle by the Tây Sơn, leading Duyệt to fly into "an almost insane rage" and start killing every enemy soldier he came across, leading Nguyễn Ánh to rebuke him. Shortly thereafter, Nguyễn Ánh exploited the absence of most of the Tây Sơn's army, which was attempting to recapture Quy Nhon, to lead his army in an attack on Phú Xuân, the capital of the Tây Sơn. However, the Nguyễn encountered heavy resistance from Tây Sơn forces around the Tu Dung sea gate, the entrance into the citadel of Phú Xuân. Seeing that the Nguyễn forces could not breach the defense by frontal attacks, Nguyễn Ánh ordered Duyet to lead a naval division to attack the Tây Sơn defense complex from the rear. Lê Văn Duyệt and his deputy Le Chat then defeated the Tây Sơn army and forced their commander, Prince Consort Nguyen Van Tri, to flee. This paved a way for the Nguyễn to assault the citadel of Phú Xuân.
In 1802, Nguyễn Ánh, who had declared himself Emperor Gia Long after capturing Phú Xuân (Huế), appointed Duyệt to the position of "Khâm Sai Chưởng Tả Quân Dinh Bình Tây Tướng Quân" ("Marshal of King's Left Division, Tây Sơn Pacification General") and ordered him to attack Tây Sơn-controlled northern Vietnam. In October 1802, Duyệt captured the north, and then renamed it from "Bắc Hà" ("Northern River") to "Bắc Thành" ("Northern Citadel") thus marking ultimate victory of the Nguyễn against the Tây Sơn.
Duyệt's strategy, along with the French military tactics and technology recruited by Pigneau, played an important role in Nguyễn Ánh's success and the foundation of the Nguyễn dynasty.
Mandarin of the Nguyễn dynasty.
From 1802 to 1812, Duyệt served as a high-ranking general in the new imperial capital Huế in Annam (central Vietnam). In 1812, Emperor Gia Long appointed Duyệt as the viceroy of Gia Định. At this time, the viceroy of Gia Định held jurisdiction not only over Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) but also over Cambodia.
The post of viceroy had significant powers; although no precise description of the head of Gia Định's responsibilities survives to this day, the rights of his northern counterpart included the power "...to decide lawsuits; and to appoint and dismiss officials at his own will. It is enough only to report to the court after acting at his own discretion." Gia Long trusted Duyệt and his fellow southerners; all of the viceroy's lheading deputies were locally bred men, whereas many of those who ran the north were not. This allowed Duyệt and his entourage to develop a strong support base with the grassroots population and gave them more gravitas with which to rule. He also tried to expand the support base for the Nguyễn in the south by appointing newly arrived Chinese refugees who had fled their homeland after the fall of the Ming dynasty as well as former rebels and bandits, to administrative posts if they were qualified, and encouraging their integration into and participation in society. Under the system of the time, military governors such as Duyệt moved to different posts with individual units that they had commanded for years, so he could count on their fidelity.
In 1812, a Siamese-supported young brother of Ang Chan, the King of Cambodia, rose up and seized the throne, which forced the incumbent to flee to Gia Định. In 1813, Duyệt, with the approval of Gia Long, entered Cambodia with an army of 10,000 troops and forced the Siamese army to retreat. He reinstated Ang Chan and built two citadels, Nam Vang and La Liem on Cambodian territory in order to maintain Vietnamese jurisdiction over the nation, which was formally made a protectorate, adding to his prestige. In addition, Duyet's domestic governance was effective and stabilized the south, which prompted the people to give him the sobriquet "Cọp Gấm Đồng Nai" ("White Tiger of Đồng Nai"). As Gia Long's most trusted mandarin, Duyệt often acted as a conduit between the emperor and the European merchants and government delegates who visited Vietnam. In the early 1820s, Duyet dispatched a delegation to seek out British officials in an attempt to buy arms, but the party got lost in storms and were arrested after washing up in Burma. Duyet remained an advocate of hawkish foreign policy after the protectorate over Cambodia was entrenched, advocating an alliance with Burma against Siam, and expressing confidence that Vietnam could defeat Siam and dominate Southeast Asia.
In 1815, Emperor Gia Long summoned him back in order to suppress widespread rebellions in central Vietnam. In 1819, Duyệt was in Nghệ An and Thanh Hóa in northern Vietnam putting down revolts for Gia Long. During this time, he joined forces with a former rebel leader from a highlands minority group in Cao Bằng. This man became Duyệt's adopted son under the name Lê Văn Khôi and his men also rallied to the court. Khoi was then propelled directly into a high-ranking post in Gia Định. During the final four years of Gia Long's reign, Duyệt ascended to the highest rank in the court, and he and Pham Dang Hung, another southerner, were the only people present as the emperor died. Gia Long decreed that Duyệt take command of five royal regiments.
After pacifying central Vietnam, Duyệt was reappointed to be the viceroy of southern Vietnam and Cambodia in 1820 by Emperor Minh Mạng, Gia Long's successor. The emperor further enhanced Duyệt's powers by allowing him the power to oversee all foreign trade coming into his area, and collect taxes in Cambodia and on imports and exports at his discretion. This gave Duyệt control over the vast economic resources in the fertile agricultural and lumber-rich region and most importantly, land development. The southern area had only been populated by ethnic Vietnamese in recent centuries and immigration, clearing and development of land was rapid.
At the beginning of his second period as viceroy, Duyệt suppressed a revolt of the local Khmer people and enlisted ten thousand new taxpayers, thereby generating a large new revenue source for the court. He supervised the renovation of the Vĩnh Tế Canal, an important waterway in southern Vietnam. Moreover, Duyệt was successful in suppressing unrest and criminal activity, and increasing foreign trade in southern Vietnam and Cambodia . Duyệt's works greatly stabilized and developed southern Vietnam, turning it into a wealthy and peaceful region. As recognition for Duyệt's service, Minh Mạng rewarded Duyệt with a belt made of jade—a prestigious gift in the Confucian system usually given to an emperor as a tribute, or by a monarch to an official to honour a great service—and betrothed a princess to Duyệt's adopted son as a wife.
Duyệt was also involved in internal palace machinations. He became involved in a bitter rivalry with General Nguyen Van Thanh, the viceroy of northern Vietnam and commander of the Center Division; Thanh was another of Gia Long's leading generals. Duyệt was assisted in this dispute by Nguyen Huu Nghi, who had been a former confidant of Thanh before defecting. Later, another soldier who had served Thanh was caught mingling in Duyệt's military camp and was captured. Duyệt claimed that the man confessed to being sent by Thanh to assassinate him.
On another hand, Duyệt was the mandarin who charged former Crown Prince Cảnh's wife for having an incestuous relationship with her eldest son and then executed her by drowning in 1824. Duyệt's action effectively ended the claim to Vietnam's throne by Prince Cảnh's descendants. According to one report however, Minh Mạng had already been informed from another quarter of the affair. Choi Byung Wook, a Korean historian, described this event as a "most dramatic event illustrating Lê Văn Duyệt's loyalty to Minh Mạng".
Conflict with Minh Mạng.
There was a lot of tension between Duyet and Minh Mạng. Although Gia Long had enlisted European support to claim the throne and allowed missionaries to function in Vietnam in gratitude to Pigneau, he ran a classical Confucian administration. He also expressed dismay at the Catholic condemnation of the traditional ancestral worship, a basic tenet of Vietnamese culture; Crown Prince Cảnh had been converted by Pigneau and subsequently refused to bow down to his ancestors, instead desecrating a shrine with feces.
As Crown Prince Cảnh had died of smallpox during the war against the Tây Sơn, it was assumed that Cảnh's son would succeed Gia Long, but in 1816 Nguyễn Phúc Đảm, the son of Gia Long's second wife, was appointed instead. Gia Long chose him for