Phan Dinh Phung (Phan Đình Phùng)

Vietnamese. Name of a revolutionary who led rebel armies against French colonial forces in Vietnam in the 19th century. He was a Confucian court scholar from Ha Tinh (Hà Tĩnh) Province, born in 1847 into a family of mandarins. After placing first in the imperial examinations in 1877, he quickly rose through the ranks under Nguyen Emperor Tu Duc, and gained a reputation for his integrity and uncompromising stance against corruption. Upon Tu Duc's death in 1883 (fig.), a power struggle emerged when the imperial regent Ton That Thuyet (Tôn Thất Thuyết) disregarded the late emperor's will of succession, resulting in three emperors being deposed and killed in just over a year. When Phan Dinh Phung protested against the regent's activities, he was stripped of his honours, briefly jailed and later exiled to his home province. At the time, France had just conquered Vietnam and made it a part of French Indochina. Phan Dinh Phung thus organized a rebel army and started an anti-French military campaign, seeking to expel the French and install the boy Emperor Ham Nghi (Hàm Nghi) at the head of an independent Vietnam. However, in 1888 the French captured Ham Nghi and exiled him to Algeria. Phan Dinh Phung continued the guerrilla campaign. Yet, wore down by the decade-long campaign, he eventually died from dysentery on 21 January 1896 as French troops surrounded his rebel army. He is considered a national hero and is renowned for his uncompromising will and principles, refusing to surrender even after the French had arrested and threatened to kill his family. 回