Economy of Vietnam
Until the French colonization in the mid-19th century, Vietnam's economy had been mostly agrarian, subsistence-based and village-oriented. French colonizers, however, deliberately developed the regions differently as the French needed raw materials and a market for French manufactured goods, designating the South for agricultural production as it was better suited for agriculture, and the North for manufacturing as it was naturally wealthy in mineral resources. Though the plan exaggerated regional divisions, the development of exports—coal from the North, rice from the South—and the importation of French manufactured goods stimulated domestic commerce.
Bombardment of Tourane
Harassment of the Christians eventually provided France with a pretext for attacking Vietnam. The tension built up gradually. During the 1840s, the persecution of Roman Catholic missionaries in Vietnam evoked only sporadic and unofficial French reprisals, such as that taken by de Lapierre and Rigault de Genouilly in 1847. In 1857, however, the execution of two Spanish Catholic missionaries by the emperor Tự Đức led directly to French intervention in Vietnam. In September 1858, a joint French and Spanish naval expedition landed at Da Nang. Its commander was Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly, one of the two French naval captains involved in the 1847 incident. The resultant Cochinchina campaign inaugurated the era of French colonial rule in Vietnam.