The Numismatic Chronicle 171 Offprint - Royal Numismatic Society

402
FRANÇOIS THIERRY
metropolitan examination was organised during the Gia Long era. 243 Indeed, they
were not re-established until 1821 during the Minh Mạng era. In 1803 the Imperial
College was moved from Thăng Long to Huê, and in 1821 this establishment was
expanded. In 1824, to the dismay of scholars in the North, the Vice Minister of
Rites, Hoàng Kim Hoán, was appointed rector of the College. He lacked formal
qualifi cations, but was appointed because of his loyalty to the imperial family and
because he came from the Huê region. Eventually, in 1827, most of the library of the
Temple of Literature of Thăng Long, the former site of the College, was transferred
to the new College in Huê. 244 It was therefore to assert himself ideologically and
culturally that the fi rst emperor of this dynasty (and especially his successor) presented
himself as an uncompromising promoter of the most rigorous form of Confucian
orthodoxy, organised the civil service examination system modelled strictly on the
Chinese system, built Confucian temples throughout the country, edited the classics
writtten in Chinese and in nôm, and promoted studies of the Books and Canons, and
of the commentaries by Zhu Xi and Zhen Yi in preparation for the examinations.
In 1825, during the Minh Mạng era, for the fi rst and only time in Vietnamese
history, the personal name of Confucius was affected by the ritual prohibition of
taboo (Ch. Kong Qiu 孔丘, where Kong is the family name, and Qiu is the given
name). Qiu now had to be pronounced in Vietnamese as kỳ and not as khâu, and it was
to be written as 邱. The emperor declared ‘this prohibition demonstrates our respect
for the Master and his way’. 245 It was in this context of ideological oneupmanship
that the coins with moral maxims were produced.
The coins issued during the Tự Đức era were made in clear response to a particular
moment in the political history of the dynasty: that of the confl ict between the emperor
and the educated class (văn thân 文紳), which formed the backbone of a society
founded on Confucianism. The Tự Đức era, contrary to that of its predecessors, was
marked by a serious crisis of legitimacy: in 1848 the emperor came to the throne
thanks to the actions of the clan which had swept aside the oldest son of Thiệu
Trị, the prince Hồng Bảo. Although they were brothers, in 1854 the emperor had
Hồng Bảo executed. In 1862, when signing the Treaty of Saïgon with the French, the
emperor committed a double fault by ceding to the demands favouring Christians
and by agreeing to release some of his country’s land to the ‘barbarians’. 246 In 1866,
the son of Hồng Bảo, prince Đinh Đạo, was also executed, after conspirators had
243 The descendants of the loyal companions of Nguyễn Phúc Anh (the future emperor Gia Long)
during his fl ight and his errancy during the Tây Sơn period, were, by imperial decree, awarded offi cial
charges or positions over fi ve generations, see Laborde, ‘Les Titres et grades héréditaires à la cour
d’Annam’, pp. 400–1.
244 Poisson, Mandarins et subalternes, pp. 129–30. As a result of this policy, a number of private
colleges were opened by literati in Thăng Long in the years 1820–35, the most well-known of which
was that of Pham Quý Thích (1760–1825).
245 Ngô DT, p. 325.
246 The Vietnamese Court was clearly conscious of the enormity of the disaster because the clauses
of the Treaty were kept secret; it was only two years later, during the 1864 examination session, that
they became known by the candidates and the people, at which point a great surge of indignation swept
over the country and especially through the North. Taking advantage of this situation, Prince Hồng Tât
attempted a coup d’etat on 3 August 1864.