Hue: Governance Heritage

These fishermen are trying their luck in a moat that surrounds the Imperial City at Hue, Vietnam.

 In June 1802 Nguyễn Ánh took control of Vietnam and proclaimed himself Emperor Gia Long. His rule was recognized by China in 1804. Building began in 1804. Which is very recent when you consider the history of Vietnam.

The grounds of the Imperial City are protected by fortified ramparts 2.5 kilometers by 2.5 kilometers, and ringed by a moat. The water in the moat is routed from the Huong River (Perfume River) through a series of sluice gates. This enclosure is the Citadel (Kinh thành). Inside the Citadel is the Imperial City (Hoàng thành), with a perimeter wall some 2.5 kilometers in length. Within the Imperial City is the Purple Forbidden City (Tử cấm thành), a term similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing. Access to the innermost enclosure was restricted to the Nguyễn imperial family.

The Imperial City at Hue is the best-preserved remnant of a vast citadel and royal quarters that once existed on the site. To put the ruins into context, it is important to consider how they were originally used. In the early 19th century the Emperor Gia Long consulted geomancers to find the best place to build a new palace and citadel. The geomancers chose the present site at Hue. The Emperor wished to recreate, in abbreviated form, a replica of the Forbidden City in Beijing. At his command, tens of thousands of labourers were conscripted to dig a ten kilometer moat and earthen walls to form the outer perimeter of the citidel. Later, the earthen walls were replaced by two-meter-thick stone walls built in the style of the French military architect Vauban. Due to the topography, the citadel faced east toward the Perfume river (unlike the Forbidden City in Beijing, which faced due south). The Emperor decided to locate his own palace within the walls of the citadel along the east side nearest the river. A second, smaller set of walls and moat defined the area of the "Purple Forbidden City," where the Emperor built a network of palaces, gates, and courtyards that served as his home and the administrative core of the Empire. By the time the last Emperor of Vietnam stepped down in the mid 20th century, the Purple Forbidden City had acquired many dozens of pavilions and hundreds of rooms. Although improperly maintained (the city suffered from frequent termite and typhoon damage) it nevertheless remained an imposing spectacle. All of that changed in 1968, during the Tet offensive, when American military forces in Vietnam, reacting to the communist takeover of Hue, ordered the city retaken. American bombs blasted the majority of the city into rubble, sparing only a handful of buildings. Nowadays the city has been declared a UNESCO site and some of the remaining buildings have been lovingly restored. But, much of the site was so badly damaged that it has been given over to rice fields that cover most of the Purple Forbidden City. Even so, the remaining buildings are sufficient to give the visitor a sense of how the Vietnamese interpreted Chinese imperial architecture and adapted it to their culture.

The outside of the main entry building. No photographs permitted inside. Mostly Vietnamese tourists or visitors.  I met one - now living in Canada. It was his first visit to Vietnam since being one of the boat people who escaped Southern Vietnam - fearing communism - in 1978. He was born in Hanoi in 1950. Then when Vietnam was divided into North and South his family opted not to be in communist run North Vietnam, and shifted to Saigon. Which - in 1976 - came under communist rule. Reunification. David was one of the many who fled to Thailand as a refugees.

The place has soul and is very well interpreted. An education.

We learned about the mandarins. Anyone at any Vietnamese school could become a mandarin. Selection was based on merit. Pass the exams and you're a mandarin, advising the emperor who was born to rule.

This is model of the Imperial City before it was bombed. The model is just over a metre square. Probably best to click on it to get an idea. Interpretation  signs suggest that Confucian ideas about space and separation had a major influence on layout and design.

Restoration - where it's been done - is interesting. A whole wall was taken up with interpretation billboards about the various emperors, what their skills were, what they were known for. This guy, see next pic below, Minh Menh looked the pick of the bunch.....

In the early morning hours of January 31, 1968, as part of the Tet Offensive a Division-sized force of North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong soldiers launched a coordinated attack on Huế seizing most of the city. During the initial phases of the Battle of Hue, due to Huế's religious and cultural status, Allied forces were ordered not to bomb or shell the city, for fear of destroying the historic structures; but as casualties mounted in house-to-house fighting these restrictions were progressively lifted and the fighting caused substantial damage to the Imperial City. Out of 160 buildings only 10 major sites remain because of the battle, such as the Thái Hòa and Cần Thanh temples, Thế Miếu, and Hiển Lâm Các.

So there you go. The strength of the Nguyen line caused the capital of Vietnam to shift from Hanoi to Hue in the early 1800's. This situation continued until the mid 1945 when the then emperor abdicated and handed control to Ho Chi Minh (roughly translated means: 'bringer of light')who became president of North Vietnam. It appears prior to that there was a crisis in succession. The heir was 8 years old. The French - who had colonised Vietnam a century before, but were then pushed out - seized the moment to return and establish a puppet government. The sort of colonial rule that Ho Chi Minh and his supporters could not abide. Go there.