Government of the Nguyễn dynasty

During the 1930s it was officially called the "Government of the Southern Court" (Chánh-phủ Nam-Triều).[2]

After ascending to the throne the Gia Long Emperor adopted the organisational structure of the Revival Lê dynasty's government.^[3] From 1802 until 1906 the ministries of the imperial government of the Nguyễn dynasty consisted of the Ministry of Personnel (吏部, Lại Bộ), Ministry of Revenue (戶部, Hộ Bộ), Ministry of Rites (禮部, Lễ Bộ), Ministry of War (兵部, Binh Bộ), Ministry of Justice (刑部, Hình Bộ), and the Ministry of Public Works (工部, Công Bộ), these were known together as the Lục Bộ (六部).^[4][3]

The reforms of Emperor Minh Mạng transformed the Vietnamese bureaucracy from a military apparatus created under Gia Long associated with generals, under the direction of the Công Đồng (公同, "Council"), mainly through top-down orders into a highly centralised meritocratic system.^[5] Minh Mạng's reforms to the Southern Court would remain largely unchanged until the Bảo Đại Emperor's reforms in 1933.^[5]

The administrative system of the Nguyễn dynasty was thinly spread across the country as the capital city of Huế is around 700 km from Hanoi and around 1000 km from Gia Định, the two most important economic centres of the country and most populous cities.^[5] Meaning that the imperial government had to spread diverse functions such as management tools, including directories, demographics, taxes, information tools, and administrative data storage systems across a vast territory.^[5] In order to better coordinate and communicate between the vastly distant and different regions of the country the Minh Mạng Emperor set up government stations and communication systems throughout his realm.^[5]

After ascending the throne in 1820, all of Minh Mạng's actions during his first decade on the throne were to the administrative apparatus (especially bureaucracies) to be prepared to replace the "low-literate" (ít chữ nghĩa) military generals, from 1831 to 1834 these changes would be implemented on a national scale.^[5] One of his first reforms to change the militaristic nature of the government of the Nguyễn dynasty was to establish two specialised agencies for communicating between Huế and the regions, namely the Bưu Chính ty and the Thông Chính ty. Before these tasks were done by the Ministry of War.^[5]

At the same time, in the first year of coming to power, the Minh Mạng Emperor reorganised the bureaucracy of the imperial court by consolidating the different cabinets into the

Among the Minh Mạng Emperor's reforms was the increasingly close institutionalisation associated with the establishment of new government agencies.[6] During the first 15 years of his rule, the Minh Mạng Emperor restructured the entire administration of the dynasty both at the central and local levels, basically codifying the political structures that the Nguyễn dynasty would use until its downfall in 1945.^[6] The Minh Mạng Emperor also increased the levels of supervision at every level of the bureaucracy, especially for the compiling, checking, copying, backing up, browsing, sending, and executing documents at every level of the Nguyễn administration.^[6]

The Minh Mạng Emperor also increased the direct influence of the monarch over the entire administrative system of the country and increased his power within the government.^[6]

This more complex system also meant that much more documents had to be created for communication between various agencies, the administrative divisions, and the imperial court in Huế.^[6] This increase in the number of government documents, especially imperial documents, shows an increase in the size and scope of the administrative system of the Minh Mạng period, associated with the expansion of the network of drafting and circulating documents. With most of the system centering on the Emperor, the Nội các, and the Cơ mật viện.^[6]

Following the French conquest of Vietnam Đại Nam became two French protectorates in the form of Annam and Tonkin. Although the emperors of the Nguyễn dynasty were still nominally in control of the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, the resident-superior of Annam gradually gained more influence over the imperial court in Huế.^[7] All constituent countries of French Indochina had their own legal systems.^[8] In Annam and Tonkin the laws of the Nguyễn dynasty, such as Sắc (敕, "Imperial Order"), Chí (誌, "Ordinance"), and Dụ (諭, "Decree"), remained in effect but were subordinate to the laws of the French administration.^[8]

Since the fall of Huế during the

According to researcher Nguyễn Đắc Xuân, in 1907, the imperial court of the Nguyễn dynasty sent Cao Xuân Dục and Huỳnh Côn, the Thượng thư of the Hộ Bộ, to French Cochinchina to "hold a conference on education" (bàn nghị học chính) with the French authorities on the future of the Annamese education system.^[12] This meeting was also recorded in the work Hoàng Việt Giáp Tý niên biểu written by Nguyễn Bá Trác.^[3] The creation of a ministry of education was orchestrated by the French to reform the Nguyễn dynasty's educational system to match French ambitions in the region more.^[3]

On the ninth day of the ninth month of the first year of the reign of the

While the Học Bộ was nominally a part of the Nguyễn dynasty's administrative apparatus, actual control was in the hands of the French Council for the Improvement of Indigenous Education in Annam (French: Conseil de Perfectionnement de l’Enseignement indigène en Annam; Vietnamese: Hội đồng Hoàn thiện giáo dục Bản xứ Trung Kỳ; Hán-Nôm: 會同完善教育本處中圻), which dictated its policies.[4] All work done by the ministry was according to the plans and the command of the French Director of Education of Annam (監督學政中圻, Giám đốc Học chính Trung Kỳ).^[3] The French administration in Annam continuously revised the curriculum to be taught in order to fit the French system.^[3]

On 6 November 1925 a "Convention" (Quy ước) was established after

Thus, in this document, the French colonialists completely took over all the power of the government of the Southern dynasty, even in Trung Kỳ.[13]

In 1933 the Bảo Đại Emperor issued a series of reforms, among them he reformed the affairs of the court, such as rearranging internal affairs and administration.^[13] He also gave up a number of customs that the previous Nguyễn dynasty emperors had set forth such that subjects now did no longer have to bow down and could look up at the emperor whenever he went somewhere and instituted that mandarins would have to shake hands with the emperor instead of bowing down.^[13]

On 10 September 1932, the Bảo Đại Emperor issued Decree No. 1 abolishing the regency council and affirming the monarchy of Đại Nam and abolishing the regency.^[13]

Among these reforms was an imperial edict signed on 8 April 1933 that reshuffled the cabinet, as the Bảo Đại Emperor decided to govern himself and ordained five new well-known ministers from the academic and administrative circles.^[13] He retired Nguyễn Hữu Bài of the Ministry of Personnel (Bộ Lại), Tôn Thất Đàn of the Ministry of Justice (Bộ Hình), Phạm Liệu of the Ministry of War (Bộ Binh), Võ Liêm of the Ministry of Rites (Bộ Lễ), Vương Tứ Đại of the Ministry of Public Works (Bộ Công).^[13]

The firing of these high ranking mandarins of the government of the Southern dynasty caused a stir in public opinion at that time, these events caused the poet Nguyễn Trọng Cẩn to convey in detail the feelings of the Vietnamese people at the time through a poem using a unique set of homonyms as a play on words:^[14]

Năm cụ khi không rớt cái ình,

Đất bằng sấm dậy giữa thần kinh^[b].

Bài không đeo nữa xin dâng lại^[c],

Đàn chẳng ai nghe khéo dở hình^[d].

Liệu thế không xong binh chẳng được^[e],

Liêm đành chịu đói lễ đừng rinh^[f].

Công danh như thế là hưu hỉ,

Đại sự xin nhường lớp hậu sinh^[g].

The old seven ministries were replaced with only five ministries, namely the Ministry of Personnel (Bộ Lại) headed by

The Ministry of Personnel was the only ministry that the Bảo Đại Emperor didn't reform as it would remain practically unchanged until it was renamed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1942.[15]

On 24 October 1933 the Bảo Đại Emperor signed an imperial decree stating that the

By 1939 the number of ministries in Bảo Đại's cabinet would increase to 7.[16]

Following the Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina, the Bảo Đại Emperor issued an imperial edict revoking the protectorate treaty of 1884 restoring Vietnamese independence from France, but in reality the Empire of Vietnam was a Japanese puppet state.^[17] Trần Trọng Kim, a renowned historian and scholar, was chosen to lead the government as its prime minister.^[17]

On 7 April 1945, the Bảo Đại Emperor signed Decree No. 5 approving the composition of Trần Trọng Kim's new cabinet and on 12 May he dissolved the

Vietnam under the Nguyễn (1802–1945) was an absolute monarchy. The Huế government was centrally administered by several advisory imperial agencies in a Sino–Vietnamese pattern. The Emperor was the head of state, also the head of the government, and the royal members stayed after. Under the emperor were layers of secretariats with officials (mandarins), organised with different functions, acted like a semi-parliamentary system.

• Viện cơ mật - (Privy Council) handled the state's internal affairs and also served as an interlocutor between the emperor and other royal agencies. It comprised four highest-ranking senior officials.^[19][20]
• Nội các - (Grand Secretariat/Cabinet) originally called Phòng Văn Thư.^[21] The Nội các has four senior officials and 28 (later 34) clerks thuộc viên that read, copy and record information, overall the Nội các processed documents and memorials from provinces and present them to the Emperor.^[22] The Nội các itself has four subordinate offices:^[23]
  • Thượng Bưu Sở - (Imperial seal office) created copies of all imperial edicts, proclamations, decrees.
  • Ty Luân Sở - (Imperial legislation office) recorded daily lectures and diaries of royal princes and copied judicial documents.
  • Bí Thư Sở - (Imperial books office) recorded and preserved imperial poetry, books, maps, and documents relating to foreign relations.
  • Bản Chương Sở - (Imperial record office) received memorials and documents, analyzed and processed them before storing them in the court's archive.
• Viện Hàn Lâm - (Literature Secretariat) with functions similar to Chinese Hanlin Academy.
• Quốc Tử Giám - Imperial Academy.
• Phủ nội vụ - Imperial Household Department.

Ministries of the Nguyễn dynasty

Administration

Finance

Rites

Public Works

The

• Bộ Lại - Ministry of Administration, supervised the specific appointments, transfers, promotions, and dismissals of individual civil officials in the bureaucracy.
• Bộ Lễ - Ministry of Rites, provided classical texts, helped the system to recruit officials through education and examinations, court rituals, festivals, and also was responsible for diplomatic relations with China and other states.[25]
• Bộ Hộ - Ministry of Finance, had obligations to asset and collect taxes; print and spend money; watch the economy, particularly agriculture; adjust currency, salaries, price; and preserve imperial treasuries.
• Bộ Hình - Ministry of Justice, worked along with Đại lý tự (Grand Tribunal) and Viện đô sát (Censorate). It supervised the judicial system. At the end of each year, it reported to the emperor the numbers of inmates in jails and the numbers of unsolved cases on a list called hình danh sách.
• Bộ Công - Ministry of Public Works, managed workers and artisans to construct the imperial palaces, roads, bridges, buildings, and ships.
• Bộ Binh - Ministry of War, controlled the military bureaucracy, proposed the promotions, demotions, and assignments of officers, managed deployments of the army, and records military activities.

The Viện đô sát (Censorate) was an important organ that observed the government and then reported to the Emperor. The Viện đô sát's senior officials were called Tả đô ngự sử (Censor-in-chief of the Left) and hữu đô ngự sử (Censor-in-chief of the Right). The Vietnamese censorate comprised six lục khoa ("office of scrutiny"), each headed by an Cấp sự trung (senior supervising secretary) official.^[26]

• Lại khoa, watching the Ministry of administration and the Viện Hàn Lâm.
• Hộ khoa, watching the Ministry of finance, the Phủ nội vụ, tào chính (transport administration).
• Lễ khoa, watching the Ministry of rites, Thái thường tự (Court of Imperial Sacrifices), Quang lộc tự (Court of Imperial Entertainments), and the Quốc Tử Giám.
• Binh khoa, watching the Ministry of military, Thái bộc tự (Court of the Imperial Stud) and Vũ khố (Armory arsenal).
• Hình khoa, watching the Ministry of justice and the Đại lý tự (Court of Judicial Review).
• Công khoa, watching the Ministry of public works.

The bureaucrat army of the royal court, local governments, and the military were divided into specific orders:^[27]

Along with the bureaucracy, nineteenth-century Vietnamese court politics also were dominated by several prominent figures. During Gia Long's reign, they were

Emperor Gia Long (r.  1802–19) published his legal code Hoàng Việt luật lệ, also known as the Gia Long Code in 1812, comprised 398 articles and was the last legal code of the Vietnamese monarchy. It is based on much of the Chinese legal code and reduced women's legal status in society.[32] The Code was translated to French in 1865.

During the reign of Gia Long, the empire was divided into twenty-three quasi-militant protectorates trấn and four military departments doanh.

• 7 Central protectorates

• 4 departments surrounding Huế, directly ruled by Gia Long.

1. Quảng Đức
2. Quảng Bình
3. Quảng Trị
4. Quảng Nam

In 1831, Minh Mạng reorganised his empire by converting all these protectorates into 31 provinces (tỉnh). Each province had a series of smaller jurisdictions: the prefecture (phủ), the subprefecture (châu, in areas whereas having a significant population of ethnic minorities). Under prefecture and subprefecture, there was the district (huyện), the canton (tổng). Under district and canton, the bundle of hamlets around one common religious temple or social factor point, the village làng or the commune (xã) was the lowest administrative unit, which one respected person nominally took care of village administrative, which called lý trưởng.^[35]

Two nearby provinces were combined into a pair. Every pair had a governor-general (Tổng đốc) and a governor (Tuần phủ).

In 1832, there were:

• Three regions and 31 provinces (encompassed modern-day Vietnam):^[40]

• Client/dependent territories:^[41]

1. Luang Phrabang
2. Vientine
3. Cambodia
4. Jarai chiefdoms

• Chief cities:

1. Huế, capital city, population (1880): 30,000
2. Hanoi, major city, population (1880): 120,000
3. Saigon
   , major city, population (1880): 100,000

• Government of the Qing dynasty