Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jappalang (talk | contribs) at 07:58, 27 August 2008 (→Failed uprising: Non-breaking space per MOS). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Phan Xích Long, also known as Hồng Long, born Phan Phát Sanh (1893–1916), was a self-styled 20th century Vietnamese mystic and geomancer who declared himself the Emperor of Vietnam. He attempted to exploit religion as a cover for his own political ambitions, having started his own ostensibly religious organisation. Claiming to be a descendant of Emperor Ham Nghi, Long staged a ceremony to coronate himself, before trying to seize power in 1913 by launching an armed uprising against the colonial rule of French Indochina. His supporters launched an attack on Saigon in March 1913, using bombings as well as magic potions that purportedly made them invisible. The insurrection against the French colonial administration failed when none of the bombs detonated and the supposedly invisible supporters were apprehended. The French authorities caught and imprisoned Long and his supporters. In 1916, southern Vietnam was hit by uprisings against French rule, with many of Long's supporters attempting to break him out of jail. The French easily repelled the jail attack, decimating Long's movement. Following the jail attack, Long and his key supporters were put to death. Many of the remnants of his support base went on to join what later became the Cao Dai, a major religious sect in Vietnam.

Early career

Long's historical roots are unclear. Long was born in 1893 southern Vietnam as Phan Phát Sanh; the historian Smith says that he was from Cholon, the Chinese business district of Saigon, while Oscar Chapuis records Tan An as his place of birth. Sanh's father was a police officer.

As a youth, Sanh travelled from Vietnam to Siam, earning his living as a fortune-teller. In mid-1911, he formed a secret society on the unverified pretense that he was a descendant of Ham Nghi, the boy emperor of the 1880s. Led by the high-ranking mandarins Ton That Thuyet and Phan Dinh Phung, Ham Nghi's Can Vuong movement battled against French colonisation in the decade leading up to 1895. Their objective of was to expel the French authorities and establish Ham Nghi as the emperor of an independent Vietnam. This failed, and the French exiled Ham Nghi to Algeria.

Sanh's two main assistants were Nguyen Huu Tri and Nguyen Van Hiep, whom he met at Tan Chau in Chau Doc Province (now in An Giang Province). The trio agreed to plot an uprising against the French under the cover of a religious sect. The genesis of their cooperation may have even originated before mid-1911. Tri and Hiep were said to have been in awe when Sanh produced a golden plaque that read "heir to the throne". The men agreed that the geographical foci of their movement would be in Cholon and Tan An in Vietnam and Kampot in Cambodia. In 1909, an uprising had occurred in Kampot with similar themes to that of Sanh's eventual plot. A group of Cambodians of Chinese descent had marched into the town wearing white robes, claiming to be followers of a Battambang-based Cambodian prince who would overthrow French rule and lead them to independence. After the formation of the sect, Sanh temporarily moved abroad, spending time in Siam and Cambodia. During this time, Sanh learned sorcery and magic, supplementing his mystical training with a military education. He learned pyrotechnics for the purpose of making fireworks and bombs.

Coronation

Sanh returned to southern Vietnam, and began dressing as a Buddhist monk. He travelled through the six provinces of the Mekong River Delta region. His associates Hiep and Tri found an elderly man from Cholon in Saigon, and presented the senior citizen to the populace as a "living Buddha". The old man took up residence with Sanh, and peasants and tradespeople soon began flocking to their makeshift temple, located in a house in Cholon's Thuan Kieu Street. Being located in a prominent commercial area, the group began to collect more funds. The donors made offerings of gold and silver, with some individual donations being as high as 1,500 piastres. When the "living Buddha" unexpectedly died in February 1912, he was interred in the family shrine of a notable follower. Sanh's strategists declared that the last words of the old man were that Sanh was the rightful Emperor of Vietnam. In the meantime, the old man's remains became the object of veneration, providing further cover for political plotting and fundraising under the pretext of staging funeral rites. As a result, Sanh and his followers staged an impromptu coronation ceremony at Battambang in October 1912. Sanh took on the name Phan Xích Long and was also known as Hồng Long, both of which mean "red dragon".

Vast crowds of locals began flocking to pay homage to Long, vowing to contribute labour and finance in an effort to expel the French from Vietnam and install Long as the independent monarch. By this time, Long was claiming to have received a letter from Prince Cuong De, a direct descendant of Emperor Gia Long, who had established the Nguyen Dynasty and unified Vietnam in its modern state. Cuong De was a prominent anti-colonial activist exile and the letter supposedly confirmed Long's royal descent. Long's followers spared no expense in decorating Long with royal accoutrements. They made a medallion inscribed "Phan Xích Long Hòang Đế" (Vietnamese:Emperor Phan Xich Long), in addition to a royal seal with a dragon's head with the words "Đại Minh Quốc, Phan Xích Long Hòang Đế, Thiên tử" (Greater Ming State, Emperor Phan Xich Long, Son of Heaven). The "Đại Minh" was interpreted as either having arbitrarily been copied from local Chinese Vietnamese secret society slogans, or as a strategic ploy to invoke the names of the Ming Dynasty to appeal to those Chinese who had emigrated to Vietnam after the fall of the Ming. Long's supporters produced a sword with the inscription "Tien da hon quan, hau da loan than" (First strike the debauched king, next the traitorous officials) and a ring inscribed "Dân Công" (Popular Tribute).

Sanh spent part of 1912 in Battambang, having a pagoda built there late in the year. In December 1912, he unsuccessfully applied for a land concession in Battambang. His activities attracted the attention of French colonial officials—the Resident of Kampot was to visit the temple and spot the collection of white robes in March 1913, just days before the intended rebellion in Saigon.

Military buildup

After the coronation ceremony, Long was taken to the That Son (Seven Mountains) region in Chau Doc, in the far south of the Mekong Delta. There the peasants built a temple for him. They used a small restaurant in a nearby village as a reception centre for the temple, as the temple was increasingly used as a military base, where fighters, weaponry and munitions were being assembled for an uprising. In the village of Tan Thanh, a local leader recruited his peasants for Long's revolt. The village chieftain predicted that a new Vietnamese monarch would descend from the sky at Cholon in March 1913, and that only the royalists would survive this miracle.

Long took the lead in preparing the explosives, claiming that his experience as a fortuneteller, mystic and natural healer made him an expert. The bombs were made from cannon shot, carbon, sulphur and saltpeter, which were then wrapped together. Long's organisation printed a royal proclamation with wooden blocks, declaring their intention to attack French military installations. They called on merchants to flee and convert their colonial bank notes into solid copper cash.

Failed uprising

On March 22, the French arrested Long in the coastal town of Phan Thiet, some 160 kilometres to the east of Saigon. The arrest came three days after the Resident of Kampot had found white robes in Long's Battambang temple. After nightfall on March 23, the bombs were taken into Saigon and placed at strategic points, with proclamation notices being erected in close proximity. None of the bombs successfully detonated.

On March 28, the second phase of the operation started when several hundred rebels marched into Saigon dressed all in white. Before the march, they had ingested potions that purportedly made them invisible. However, the French military were able to capture more than 80 of the supposedly invisible rebels during demonstrations against French rule. The police raided the homes of several people who were known to be involved with Long's plot, resulting more arrests. They captured most of Long's main supporters, rendering the organisation impotent. However, Tri managed to escape.

Those involved were taken before a tribunal in November 1913, where the leaders freely stated their intentions of overthrowing the French colonial regime. Of the 111 people arrested, the tribunal convicted 104, of whom 63 received prison sentences. The French had intended to deport Long, but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 interrupted their plans. As a result, Long remained in Saigon Central Prison.

In February 1916, uprisings broke out in southern Vietnam, with rebels demanding the restoration of an independent monarchy. One of their many objectives was to secure Long's release by breaking down Saigon prison. Before daybreak on February 15 1916, between 100 and 300 Vietnamese armed with sticks, farm implements and knives moved along the Arroyo Chinoise waterway and disembarked near the centre of Saigon. They then attempted to proceed to the Central Prison to forcibly release Long. Long had provided his followers with a detailed strategy from his prison cell, and the attack was led by a Cholon gang leader named Nguyen Van Truoc with Tri's assistance. The French had anticipated the trouble, and police arrived quickly, dispersing Long's followers with ease. Although some of the disciples reached the prison, none managed to breach its defenses. Ten of Long's men were killed, whereas only one sentry perished. The French arrested 65 rebels on the spot, including Tri. Of these, 38 were sentenced to death. Long was sentenced to death for his participation in the uprising, and he was executed on February 22 1916.

Similar events occurred across southern Vietnam, and in one case in Ben Tre, another self-proclaimed mystic launched an uprising that was similar to Long's 1913 effort. The French continued their crackdown against his followers, making a further 1,660 arrests, which resulted in 261 incarcerations. The damage inflicted on Long's organisation led many of his followers to disperse and join a group that has now developed into the Cao Dai politico-religious sect based in Tay Ninh. In the years immediately after World War II, the Cao Dai's numbers swelled to 1.5 million.

Notes

1. ^ Smith, p. 105.
2. ^ Chapuis, p. 119.
3. ^ Marr, p. 222.
4. ^ Chapuis, p. 120.
5. ^ Smith, p. 106.
6. ^ Marr, p. 223.
7. ^ Marr, p. 230.
8. Sơn Nam (1997). Cá tính miền Nam (in Vietnamese). Nhà xuất bản trẻ. p. p. 90. {{cite book}}: |page= has extra text (help)
9. Smith, p. 107.
10. Karnow, p. 159.

References

• Chapuis, Oscar (2000). The Last Emperors of Vietnam: from Tu Duc to Bao Dai. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31170-6.
• Karnow, Stanley (1997). Vietnam: A History. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-84218-4.
• Marr, David G. (1970). Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885–1925. Berkeley: University of California. ISBN 0-520-01813-3.
• Smith, R. B. (1972). "The Development of Opposition to French Rule in Southern Vietnam 1880–1940" (requires subscription). Past & Present. 54. Oxford University Press: pp. 94–129. ISSN 0031-2746. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

• 1893 births
• 1916 deaths
• Executed Vietnamese people
• People from Ho Chi Minh City
• Vietnamese astrology
• Vietnamese revolutionaries