They were swept aside, and on 3 September the French entered Bình Định. Three Vietnamese mandarins were tried and executed for complicity in the massacre of Bình Định's Christians.[25] In November 1885 a so-called 'Annam column' under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Mignot set off from Ninh Bình in southern Tonkin and marched down the narrow spine of Vietnam as far as Huế, scattering any insurgent bands in its way.[26]