State Correspondence and Decision-Making in Late Imperial Vietnam: A Study of the Nguyễn Central Government Archives

Abstract

The Nguyễn dynasty (1802-1945) was the first to rule the territory that roughly equals present-day Vietnam. It was also the first to successfully establish a centralized bureaucratic administration, consolidating countrywide geographical cohesion and collective identity. At the core of its administration was a correspondence system that connected the central and territorial authorities. Throughout the dynasty, an immense number of archival documents accumulated in its central government archives. After 1945, archival documents were seriously damaged. Only a small part has survived to the present day, now stored at the National Archives No.1 in Hanoi, often referred to as “Châu bản triều Nguyễn,” which can be referred to as the Vermilion records of the Nguyễn dynasty or the Nguyễn central government archives, hereafter the Châu bản collection. This dissertation examines various aspects surrounding the setting, production, pattern, and use of communication documents in the Nguyễn dynasty. It addresses issues related to governance, communication, decision-making, document production, and archival systems. In addition to filling the gap in academic research, these new insights are especially beneficial for researchers intending to utilize the Châu bản collection and other existing archival sources of the Nguyễn dynasty for historical studies. Part I (chapters 1, 2, and 3) aims to provide historical background for the reigns of Emperors Gia Long (r. 1802-1819) and Minh Mệnh (r. 1820-1841). Facing significant challenges from postwar conditions, Gia Long delegated authority to his influential generals and courtiers. In his final years, amidst the escalation of factional antagonism and contentiousness over the designation of the Heir Apparent at the central court, he aligned himself with southern military generals and civil officials to eliminate key figures of the northern cliques and appoint his favored prince as the Heir Apparent. The political turmoil over his succession prompted Gia Long’s successor, Minh Mệnh, to focus intensely on centralization. Educated by eminent scholar-officials at court, he preferred building a centralized bureaucracy. Throughout his reign, significant changes were implemented. Chapter 3 unfolds the process of bureaucratization. Part II (chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8) examines the evolution of the traditional communication -decision system. In the Gia Long reign, the country was divided into three regions. The central government only directly communicated with the region from Bình Thuận to Nghệ An, while two viceroyalties oversaw the two outer regions of the empire. At the capital, decision-making authority was shared with courtiers through organizing court conferences and using the Công đồng documents. The memorial system was kept at a modest scale to facilitate daily administrative operations rather than functioning as an imperial tool for surveilling bureaucrats. Upon his enthronement, Minh Mệnh consolidated imperial authority by expanding the memorial system, formalizing the central decision-making procedure, and installing the provincial system. He simultaneously reduced ministerial authority by restricting the responsibilities of court conferences and replacing the Công đồng documents with imperial and ministerial documents. Although Minh Mệnh’s new system effectively upheld the emperor’s personal rule, it inherently impeded bureaucratic efficiency. The complex procedure prolonged the communication-decision process, and the operational costs significantly burdened state revenues. Consequently, in the latter half of the 19th century, when the country was on the grip of extreme weather and foreign invasions, the system began to decline. It was officially ended in 1933 by Emperor Bảo Đại's (r. 1925-1945) administrative reforms. Part III (chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12) presents document writing patterns and archival issues. Chapter 9 provides a brief overview of the motivations and practical needs behind standardizing writing patterns of the main texts of state documents and the functions of various paratexts added to state correspondences in the decision-making process. The regulations aimed to enhance the legibility of texts for officialdom members, prevent alterations to document content, signify the relative ranks of receivers and senders, indicate document processing status and clarify each person’s contribution in producing and processing documents. Issues related to archival matters are presented in chapters 10 and 11. These two chapters seek to answer why and how endorsed documents were managed throughout the Nguyễn dynasty and the journey of its central government archives after 1945. By 1883, the Nguyễn dynasty had established a sophisticated archival system that could enumerate the exact figures of volumes, documents, and sheets of paper and the content and date of specific documents stored in the central archives. These archival practices were largely overlooked during the colonial period. Between 1942 and 1944, the Nguyễn Court consolidated extant archival documents from major central archives. It merged them into the Châu bản collection. However, the collection suffered severe damage during the two Indochina Wars (1945-1975), with only one-fifth of the documents surviving to the present day. The collection was moved to NA1 in 1991. The collection now has 777 volumes, of which 602 originated from the 1944 collection, and 175 were newly added between the 1990s – 2000s. The binding of each volume, the numbering sequence of the volumes of the entire collection, and the provenance of archival documents saw several changes. Moreover, although the term châu bản used to refer to imperial-endorsed documents during the Nguyễn dynasty, the extant Châu bản collection includes not only imperial-endorsed documents but also other types of official dispatches, census registers, judicial registers, diplomatic letters. The name of the collection, therefore, should be interpreted as “Nguyễn central government archives” (Khối tư liệu lưu trữ trung ương triều Nguyễn), rather than merely “Nguyễn imperial archives” or “Nguyễn palace archives” (Khối tư liệu lưu trữ hoàng gia triều Nguyễn, Văn bản hành chính hoàng cung triều Nguyễn).