HACIA UN NUEVO EQUILIBRIO SOCIAL: ASIGNADOS Y BIENES NACIONALES

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craftsmen existed to build cannons in Thuan Hoa.23 It was situated in a Hue district called Phuong Due (district of casting). French scholars have assumed th at P huong Due had some connection with Joao da Cruz; but if Manguin is right, as I believe, then the name of Phuong Due might have appeared earlier than 1658, possibly in relation to the factory the Nguyen set up in 1631. Certainly Joao da Cruz did live in Phuong Due when he was in Hue. The missionary Louis Chevruil, for instance, visited Joao da Cruz’s home in Hue in 1664, and described its location in Phuong Due, 24 noting that "the king was

going to see one of the furnaces which was next to his house". Da Cruz did well from his work, earning 500 ecus (1,500 francs) per year, plus some money for his family, Chevruil added.25

The Portuguese technique of casting weapons was adopted quickly, so that more cannons were probably made by Vietnamese themselves in the later period. In 1653 the Nguyen artillery already boasted at least 4 units, with about 1,000 men.26 The Tien Bien reported that a former cattle-trader named Linh set up a factory in Quang Ngai for building ordnance, together with a factory for building war galleys. When he rebelled with arms he had made himself in 1695, it created quite a headache for local commanders.27

It seems that between 1630 and 1665 the Nguyen were able to build up their military superiority, mainly by means of artillery. In 1642 the Nguyen had 200 cannons, according to Johan van Linga, while in 1750 they had 1,200. Even allowing for some inaccuracies in the figures, this is a considerable increase. But the basic question remains of how valuable these cannons were to the Nguyen in battle. For the whole of the 17th century they seem to have been very useful indeed. Many historians regard the Nguyen’s superior artillery as one of the main reasons they maintained their independence, given an army only half or even a

23 Tien Bien. Vol.2, p.41.

“ Launay, Histoire de la mission de Cochinchine 1658-1823, Documents historiques, Paris, 1923, Vol.l, p.16. According to Manguin, da Cruz died in 1682 in Hue. His son Clement lived in

his house in Phuong Due, but we do not know whether he continued to build firearms for the

Nguyen.

26 Tien Bien, Vol.4, p.4. This suggest only about 100-200 cannons.

27 The revolt was only finally put down with the help of the mountain-dwelling Moi. See

quarter of that of the Trinh.28

No travellers who visited Cochinchina talked about the region without mentioning the army. Even men who never visited the area heard such impressive stories th at they recorded them. For example, in his Travels and Controversies, Friar Domingo Navarrete felt moved to write of an army he had never seen:

The soldiery of this kingdom is the best in all those parts, is well- disciplined, and the king keeps 40,000 men at court who most days shoot at a mark and those that aim best are rewarded with pieces of silk. I have several times heard Spaniards and Portuguese say they are all excellent marks-men... This is the reason they have always the better in their continual wars with the king of Tunquin, tho this last exceeds the other in all respects, not only in numbers of men, but in wealth, and the multitude of elephants he carries to war. They have also many light galleys, with which they do wonders in the great river th at runs up to the court.29 This contrasts sharply with an observation made by Poivre in the 1740s, about 70 years after the Trinh-Nguyen wars had ended:"The Cochinchinese did not know how to make the cannons useful, each cannon had not got 6 shots to fire and most of the cannon balls were not of the right calibre."30 Confirmation of this report came when the Tay Son rose against the Nguyen. In the early part of the rebellion, the Nguyen’s formerly valued artillery pieces do not even seem to have heen used in battle.31 By then it may have been, as in other Southeast Asian countries, th at cannon in Dang Trong had become "more a means of boosting morale and expressing the supernatural power of the state than of destroying the enemy", to borrow Reid’s words.32

Galleys

Vietnamese possibly might have used galleys quite early: the ship which killed

M See Le Thanh Khoi, Le Viet Nam.p.251; D.G.Hall, A History of South-east Asia, Macmillan & Co Ltd, London, 1968, p.415. In fact, the Trinh’s artillery was not bad. In the battle of 1672 against the Nguyen, the Trinh used a kind of firearm called "a mother has a hundred sons", "with the force of a thunderbolt, destroying everything it aimed at", according to Le Quy Don. See Phu Bien, Vol.l, p.33a.

29 Edited by J.S.Cummins, The Travels and Controversies of Friar Domingo Navarrete, 1618-1686, The Hakluyt Society, London, 1962, Vol.2, p.381.

30 "Description", section "The Artillery".

31 Curiously, there is no record of artillery being used in the conflicts between the Nguyen