Phan Đình Phùng

Phan Đình Phùng (1847 – January 21, 1896) was a Vietnamese rebel commander who fought French colonial troops. He was the leading Confucian scholar-official to take up arms against the French in the 19th century, and later nationalists in the 20th century hailed him as a hero. He was known for his rigid principles and refusal to back down—once, even after the French dug up his family graves and captured and threatened to kill his relatives, he still would not surrender.

Court official

He came from a mandarin family in Hà Tĩnh Province and followed the family tradition by earning top marks in the imperial exams of 1877. Under Emperor Tự Đức, Phan rose quickly through the ranks, building a reputation for honesty and a hard line against corruption. He became Imperial Censor, a role that let him call out fellow officials and even the emperor. As head of the censorate, his investigations got many incompetent or corrupt mandarins fired.

After Tự Đức died, Phan nearly lost his life in a court power struggle. Regent Tôn Thất Thuyết ignored the emperor’s succession wishes, and three emperors were put on the throne and killed within a little over a year. Phan objected to Thuyết’s actions, was stripped of his titles, briefly jailed, and then sent back to his home province.

By then, France had taken over Vietnam and made it part of French Indochina. Alongside Thuyết, Phan organized rebel armies under the Cần Vương movement, which aimed to push out the French and put the young Emperor Hàm Nghi in charge of an independent Vietnam. The campaign lasted three years, until the French captured Hàm Nghi in 1888 and exiled him to Algeria.

Phan and his military aide Cao Thắng kept up a guerrilla war, setting up spy networks, bases, and small weapons workshops. Cao Thắng was killed in late 1893. After a decade of fighting, Phan grew worn down and died of dysentery as French forces closed in on his troops.

Phan was born in Đông Thái village in Hà Tĩnh, an area known for producing top mandarins since the Lê dynasty. Twelve generations of his family had passed the exams.

All three of his brothers who lived to adulthood also became mandarins. Early on, Phan showed he disliked the Confucian classics required for the exams, but he pushed through, passing the regional exams in 1876 and topping the metropolitan exams the next year. In his exam essay, he pointed to Japan as an example of an Asian country that could make fast military progress with enough will.

He was never known for scholarship; it was his principled integrity that got him promoted quickly under Tự Đức. His first post was as a district mandarin in Ninh Bình Province, where he punished a Vietnamese Catholic priest who, with French missionary backing, had harassed non-Catholics. When a diplomatic row broke out, Phan did not blame Catholicism itself for the unpopular alliance between Vietnamese Catholics and the French, saying it came from Vietnam’s military and political weakness. Still, the Huế court eventually removed him from the post.

He was then moved to the Huế court as a censor, monitoring other officials. He angered many colleagues but earned the emperor’s trust by exposing that most court mandarins were ignoring a royal order to practice rifle drills. Tự Đức later sent him on an inspection tour of northern Vietnam. His report led to the dismissal of many corrupt or incompetent officials, including the northern viceroy.

He rose to Imperial Censor, a role that let him criticize high officials and even the emperor. He openly attacked Tôn Thất Thuyết, the top mandarin, calling him rash and dishonest. Besides fighting corruption, Phan also wrote a historical geography of Vietnam, published in 1883.

Despite his high rank, little is known about his personal views on relations with France, which was then colonizing Vietnam. France first invaded in 1858 and began taking over the south.

Three provinces were ceded in the 1862 Treaty of Saigon, and three more in 1867, forming the colony of Cochinchina. At the time, the Huế court debated strategy: some wanted military action, others favored diplomacy plus financial and religious concessions. By the time Tự Đức died in 1883, all of Vietnam was colonized and merged with Laos and Cambodia into French Indochina.

When Tự Đức died childless in 1883, he named his nephew Kiến Phúc as successor, not his senior heir Dục Đức. In his will, Tự Đức called Dục Đức depraved and unfit to rule. But regent Thuyết and others, under pressure, put Dục Đức on the throne anyway.