Korean Ginseng (nhân sâm Cao Ly) in Vietnam during the First Half of the 19 century*

As is already widely known among Vietnamese, Minh Mạng (1820-1841) was very energetic in controlling women in regard to making babies. In his fifty years of life, he had 142 children with a fair gender-balance-78 sons and 64 daughters, and Minh Mạng’s energy has been attributed to his appetite for ginseng, specifically Korean ginseng. His rule in various fields could be interpreted in the same context. He was quite active in administering his empire implementing new policies. He was in a relatively healthy condition to do so, with the help of ginseng, and he also appears to have utilized the ginseng in dealing with his subjects, most of whom regarded the ginseng as a

should prohibit them from bringing with [our] goods." (DNTL2,218:33) In response to this suggestion, Minh Mạng's argument is very clear: In addition, the members of missions appear to have been allowed to do their private business. In these circumstances, some officials and interpreters (who were probably Chinese) from hành nhân ty (行人  . He used to be in Vietnam, 9) and The active spread overseas of Korean ginseng was due to several factors. The most basic element was the drastic decline in wild ginseng at the beginning of the 18th century due to the over-hunting for the 9  Besides the ginseng routes from Beijing and from Canton, there is also evidence of an uncertain kind of private ginseng circulation. to be one such customer, although the question as to whether this Vietnamese man was just a rich man or another trader remains.
Between the most possible routes for ginseng -Beijing to Huế by land, Canton to Huế by sea, the second route was more important.
Tribute missions to Beijing occurred only once every four years. The distance was prohibitively far, taking one year to go there and back, and only around 20 men took part in (DNTL2, 85:29b-30a). The Chinese merchants also could have brought the ginseng to Vietnam, but it would have been cheaper to buy in Canton for the Vietnamese buyers, and also more reliable.

Officialdom
The first experiment with the distribution of ginseng to civil servants was quite considerate of the regional balance. The first man who was honored to receive ginseng from the emperor was Trịnh Hoài Đức Accordingly, I believe the nhân sâm bestowed to Trịnh Hoài Đức and Phạm Đình Hổ were also the ginseng roots from Korea.
The grantees of the ginseng can be grouped into high-ranking civil officials, their parents, and emperor's mothers. In other words, they were emperor's men and their parents. The principal objective of the ginseng present was to promote loyalty (trung) and piety (hiếu), two important virtues in imperial ethics. In fact, however, the purpose was single, not dual, so long as the parents were all those of officials.
This is clearly revealed in Tự Đúc's argument regarding his present of ginseng to the mother of governor-general Phạm Thế Hiển, noting that the purpose was 'giáo hiếu tác trung,' to encourage loyalty by teaching piety (DNTL4, 13:4).

Battlefields
In There is also a very curious ginseng called 'thổ mộc nhân sâm.' 12) There were 17 cases of the Cao Ly ginseng, 7 cases of (nhân) sâm, 2 cases of Quan đông nhân sâm, two kinds of the red ginseng, and one case of thổ mộc ginseng.
These red ginsengs raise some interesting points. The red ginseng can be divided into two kinds. One was hồng nhục sâm (red flesh ginseng), the other is hồng nhục tây sâm (red flesh Western ginseng).
Usually, red ginseng is made from industrial ginseng, and its value is much higher than that of normal industrial ginseng. The hồng nhục sâm here is located next to the Cao Ly nhân sâm, which is also believed 12) According to Nguyễn Thuật's account, the thổ mộc nhân sâm was a wild ginseng produced in the area of Jilin province, located in the northeast China. to encourage the spirit of loyalty, and to military men was to provide power to crush the forces of opposite groups against imperial policies such as centralization, assimilation, and territorial expansion. In sum, the function of the distribution of ginseng to civil servants and military men was to enhance power and loyalty.
Korean red ginseng was fairly embodied with those two elements.
As the renovated form of the red ginseng it had a clear connection to power, and was not from either Manchu or America, but rather and Canton during the MM-TT period.
14) The departure point of the court vessels was Thuận An estuary in Huế. From here the vessels traveled down to Đà Nãng, where cargoes loaded, and then sailed to Canton. When the vessels came back, they anchored in the Thuận An first to unload the cargoes. Choi (2011