Phan Xich Long

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Phan Xich Long, also known as Hong Long, born Phan Phat Sanh was a 20th century Vietnamese mystic and geomancer who claimed to be a descendant of Ham Nghi and attempted to become the Emperor of Vietnam by launching an uprising against the colonial rule of French Indochina in 1913. An attempted attack on Saigon in March 1913, which intended to use magic potions in combination with bombings to overthrow the French colonial administration, failed when none of the bombs went off. Long and his supporters were caught and imprisoned.

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[edit] Early career

The historical roots of Phan Xich Long are unclear and obscure. As a youth, under his birth name of Phan Phat Sanh, he had travelled from Vietnam to Siam as a fortune-teller. In mid-1911, along with two acquaintances, he had formed a secret society on the unverified pretense that he was a descendant of Ham Nghi, the boy emperor of the 1880s, whose Can Vuong movement led by the high ranking mandarins Ton That Thuyet and Phan Dinh Phung had battled against the French colonisation in the decade leading up to 1895 with the objective of expelling the French authorities and establishing Ham Nghi as the Emperor of an independent Vietnam. This failed, and Ham Nghi was exiled to Algeria.[1]


[edit] "Coronation"

Sanh returned to southern Vietnam, and began dressing as a Buddhist monk. He travelled through the six province of the Mekong River Delta region. His associates found an elderly man from the Saigon commercial district of Cholon, and presented the old man to the populace as a living Buddha. The old man took up residence with Sanh, and soon peasants and tradespeople began flocking to their residence, making offerings of gold and silver, with some individual donations as high as 1,500 piastres. When the "living Buddha" died suddenly in February 1912, he was interred in the family shrine of a notable follower, while Sanh’s brains trust declared that the last words of the old man was that Sanh was the rightful Emperor of Vietnam. As a result, Sanh and his followers staged a ceremony in October to declare Sanh as emperor. Sanh then took on the name Phan Xich Long and sometimes Hong Long, both of which mean "red dragon".[1]

Vast crowds of locals began flocking to pay homage to Long, vowing to contribute labour and finance to fund the expulsion of French colonialists out of Vietnam and install Long as the national rule. By this time, Long had also purported to have received a letter from Prince Cuong De, a direct descendant of Emperor Gia Long, who established the Nguyen Dynasty and unified Vietnam in its modern state. Cuong De was a known anti-colonial activist and the letter allegedly confirmed Long's royal descent. Long’s followers spared no expense to decorate Long with royal accoutrements. A medallion inscribed Phan Xich Long Hoang De (Vietnamese:Emperor Phan Xich Long) was made, in addition to a royal seal with a dragon’s head with the words Dai Minh Quoc, Phan Xich Long Doang De, Thien tu (Greater Ming State, Emperor Phan Xich Long, Son of Heaven). The "Dai Minh" was interpreted as either having simply been copied from local Chinese Vietnamese secret society slogans, or perhaps as a strategic ploy to invoke the names of the Ming Dynasty to reach out to those Chinese who had emigrated to Vietnam after the fall of the Ming. A sword was produced with the inscription "Tien da hon quan, hau da loan than" ("First strike the debauched king, next the traitorous officials") and a ring inscribed "Dan Cong" ("Popular Tribute").[1]

[edit] Military buildup

After the ceremonies, Long was taken to the That Son (Seven Mountains) region in Chau Doc, in the far south of the Mekong Delta. There a temple was built for him by the peasants. A small restaurant in a nearby village was used as a reception centre for the temple, since the temple was increasingly used as a cover for a military base, where militia recruits, weaponry and munitions were being assembled for an uprising.[2]

Long took the lead in preparing the explosives, since he claimed that his experience as a fortune teller, mystic and natural healer made him an expert. The bombs were made from cannon shot, carbon, sulphur and saltpeter, which were wrapped together.[2]

A royal proclamation was printed with wooden blocks, declaring Long’s intention to attack French military installations and calling on merchants to flee and convert their colonial bank notes into solid copper cash.[2]

[edit] Failed uprising

After nightfall on March 23, the bombs were taken into Saigon and placed at strategic points and proclamation notices were erected in close proximity. None of the bombs successfully detonated, and on March 28, the second phase of the operation started when several hundred rebels marched into Saigon dressed all in white. They had taken potions before the march, which purportedly would have made them invisible. However, the French military were able to capture large numbers of the supposedly invisible rebels.[2]

Those involved were taken before a tribunal in November 1913, where the leaders freely stated their intentions of overthrowing the French colonial system. The tribunal convicted 104 men, and sentenced them to various prison sentences.[2]

In February 1916, uprisings broke out in southern Vietnam, in which the rebels demanded the restoration of the monarchy. One of their objectives was to secure the release of Long by breaking down Saigon prison. The uprising failed and was easily crushed by the French.[3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c Marr, p. 222.
  2. ^ a b c d e Marr, p. 223.
  3. ^ Marr, p. 230.

[edit] Reference

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Vietnamese independence movement
Events Ho Chi Minh

Phan Boi Chau

Phan Dinh Phung

Truong Dinh
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