The government of the Nguyễn dynasty, officially the Southern Court (; chữ Hán: 南朝) historicaly referred to as the Huế Court (; chữ Hán: 朝廷化), centred around the Emperor (皇帝, Hoàng Đế) as the absolute monarch, surrounded by various imperial agencies and ministries which stayed under the emperor's presidency. Following the signing of the 1884 Patenôtre Treaty the French took over a lot of control and while the government of the Nguyễn dynasty still nominally ruled the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, in reality the French maintained control over these territories and the Nguyễn government became subsidiary to the administration of French Indochina. During World War II the Japanese launched a coup d'état ousting the French and establishing the Empire of Vietnam which was ruled by the Nguyễn government. During the August Revolution the Nguyễn government was abolished in the aftermath of World War II.
During the 1930s it was officially called the "Government of the Southern Court" (Chánh-phủ Nam-Triều).
History
Establishment under Gia Long
After ascending to the throne the Gia Long Emperor adopted the organisational structure of the Revival Lê dynasty's government. 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).
Minh Mạng's reforms
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. Minh Mạng's reforms to the Southern Court would remain largely unchanged until the Bảo Đại Emperor's reforms in 1933.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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.
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 Văn thư phòng (文書房). In 1829 the Văn thư phòng was replaced with the Nội các (內閣, "Cabinet"). This was because Minh Mạng understood the way how the government of the Manchu Qing dynasty in China functioned and used them as a model for establishing the Nội các and the Cơ mật viện (機密院, "Secret Institute"), based on the Nội các and Quân cơ xứ (軍機處) of the Qing. In the centralised administrations of China and Vietnam, the Emperor theoretically holds absolute power in all decisions. But in reality, he relies on an intricate bureaucratic apparatus below him to provide him with information, gather data, and prepare all agendas.
Among the Minh Mạng Emperor's reforms was the increasingly close institutionalisation associated with the establishment of new government agencies. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
Expansion of French influence
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.Trần Gia Phụng. Trung Kỳ Dân biến 1908. Toronto, Canada, 2008. Pages: 35-40. All constituent countries of French Indochina had their own legal systems. 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.
Since the fall of Huế during the Cần Vương rebellion against the French on 7 May 1885 the government of the French protectorate of Annam would gradually take over the management of the budget and finances of the government of the Southern dynasty. In 1894, the court of the Thành Thái Emperor assigned Resident-Superior Léon Jules Pol Boulloche to take care of the management of the state's revenues, expenditures, taxes, etc.Quốc Sử Quán triều Nguyễn (2012), Đại Nam thực lục chính biên - Đệ lục kỷ phụ biên, Nxb. Văn hóa - Văn nghệ, Tp. Hồ Chí Minh, tr. 220. (in Vietnamese). In 1897 the resident-superior was granted the power to appoint the Nguyễn dynasty emperors and presided over the meetings of the Viện cơ mật. These moves incorporated French officials directly into the administrative structure of the imperial Huế Court and further legitimised French rule in the legislative branch of the Nguyễn government. From this period onwards any imperial edicts issued by the emperors of Đại Nam had to be confirmed by the resident-superior of Annam giving him both legislative and executive power over the Nguyễn government.
In the year 1898 the federal government of French Indochina took over the financial and property management duties of the Nguyễn dynasty's imperial court meaning that the Nguyễn dynasty emperor (at the time Thành Thái) became a salaried employee of the Indochinese colonial structure, reducing their power to being only a civil servant of the protectorate government. The resident-superior of Annam also took over the management of provincial mandarins and was a member of the Supreme Council (Conseil supérieur) of the Government-General of French Indochina. In 1900, the governor-general of French Indochina issued a decree that established the Council of the Protectorate (Hội đồng Bảo hộ) alongside the resident-superior to "discuss and determine the revenue and expenditures of the budget of the French protectorate of Annam, but that this council would act according to the calculations and orders of the resident-superior. At the meetings of the Council of French Indochina (Hội đồng Đông Dương) the governor-general would decide through executive orders.Quốc Sử Quán triều Nguyễn (2012), Sđd, tr. 377-378. (in Vietnamese).
Creation of the Học Bộ
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. This meeting was also recorded in the work Hoàng Việt Giáp Tý niên biểu written by Nguyễn Bá Trác. 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.
On the ninth day of the ninth month of the first year of the reign of the Duy Tân Emperor the Học Bộ was established by imperial decree (諭, Dụ) to take over the functions relating to education from the Ministry of Rites.
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. 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). The French administration in Annam continuously revised the curriculum to be taught in order to fit the French system.
Regency (1925–1932)
On 6 November 1925 a "Convention" (Quy ước) was established after Khải Định's death that stated that while the sovereign is abroad a council (Hội đồng phụ chính) had the power to run all affairs of the Southern court, with the signing of the convention only regulations related to custom, favours, amnesty, conferring titles, dignitaries, among others are given by the emperor. Everything else is up to the French protectorate government. This document also merges the budget of the Southern court with the budget of the French protectorate of Annam and that all the meetings of the Council of Ministers (Hội đồng thượng thư) must be chaired by the resident-superior of Annam.
Thus, in this document, the French colonialists completely took over all the power of the government of the Southern dynasty, even in Trung Kỳ.
1933 reforms
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. 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.
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.
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. 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).