Cuong De

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Cuong De ( Hán Nôm : 彊 柢 , Cường Để; born January 11, 1882 , † April 5, 1951 in Tokyo ) was active as prince of the Nguyen imperial family for the independence of his country. He spent 46 years in exile, mostly in Japan. The French saw in him as a pretender to the throne a dangerous political opponent.

Life path

Phan Boi Chau (right) with Cuong De (left) in Japan, around 1907

Cuong De, whose father was named Anh Nuh († 1896), was a direct descendant of Crown Prince Canh († 1801, 22 years old). His official title was Kỳ Ngoại Hầu (roughly: "Outer Marquis;" 畿 外 侯 彊 柢 ) which shows that he was counted on the sidelines of the Nguyễn dynasty . He grew up in Huế , where he felt the French control of the administration. The eldest of three sons went to school in the befitting Quôc Ḥc of Hue. The education of the Vietnamese upper class included learning the standard Chinese language . When he was 13 years old, his father arranged for him to come into contact with the freedom fighters around Phan Đình Phùng after the French conquest of King Hàm Nghi . Until 1904 he lived mostly in An Điền .

Japan 1905 to 1909

After the revolutionary Phan Bội Châu (1868-1940) was able to win him over to his cause, the prince secretly went to Japan. When he secretly left in late 1905, he left his pregnant wife Lê tị Lang and two small sons (born in 1902 and 1904) behind. First he attended the Shimbu Military Academy in the Kanda district without a degree . Then Waseda University . Over the years he learned to speak Japanese perfectly and without an accent, and he also married a Japanese woman.

He was supported and built up as a figurehead by the organization Phong Trào Đông Du (about: "Departure to the East" movement), which, led by Phan Boi Chau, strengthened the future of Asian peoples in Japan after the victory in the war against Russia in 1905 saw. In total, around 200 Vietnamese students were sent to Japan from 1905 to 1910. Support was found among the Chinese Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), Liang Qichao (1873-1929) and Japanese politicians such as Inukai Tsuyoshi and Kashiwabara Buntarō ( 柏 原文 太郎 ).

Even at this time, the French colonial rulers saw him as a dangerous pretender and tried to have the authorities forbid his agitation through diplomatic channels, while the colony was cracking down on nationalists. After the signing of the Franco-Japanese treaty , which also made it possible for Japan to obtain large loans in 1907, the Phong Trao Dong Du was dissolved by the Japanese authorities. Most of the politically active Vietnamese students were expelled by 1910.

After a short trip to Siam (Nov. 1908 to March 1909), Cuong De returned to Japan in May 1909, but was to be expelled at the French instigation. He was able to hide from the police until September, then was briefly detained in Kobe and escaped through a hotel window. On the advice of his friend Buntaro, he gave up on October 30th and was brought with several companions by train to Moji for deportation to Shanghai on board the Ijo Maru .

1910 to 1915

The prince sought help elsewhere for the next five years. Since late 1909, he was first in Beijing as a guest of Duan Qirui , which he allegedly ½ million $ to start offered to a Vietnamese revolution. Then he stayed in Canton and Hong Kong . From there he came to Bangkok in 1911, where he was soon expelled again under French pressure. In 1912 he had Quang Phục banknotes printed with his likeness, which were briefly circulated inland. Further trips followed with attempts to get support to Singapore and Europe, where he stayed from Sept. 13th - Apr. 14th mainly in Berlin and London.

For a short time he traveled to Nam Ky ( Cochinchina ) in secret in 1913 , where he was sentenced to death in absentia in 1913 . The not very successful Quang Phục Hội organization, sponsored by the young Chinese republic , prompted the French to take intensified countermeasures.

Japan after 1915

After returning to his old exile, he found help from followers of pan-Asian ideas , including General Matsui Iwane and Toyama Mitsuru . Outwardly he appeared as a Chinese merchant, in fact he found himself under strict control of the military for the duration of the First World War. His old friend Inukai gave him ¥  100-150 a month for a living. The arrest of Phan Boi Chau in Shanghai in 1925 and his subsequent imprisonment in Hue was a depressing loss for the impoverished prince. Equally devastating was the end of his relationship with his mentor Inukai, who was assassinated as Prime Minister in 1932 . The growing Thanh Niên Cách Mạng (“Association of Young Revolutionaries”) around Ho Chi Minh and comrades attracted more and more of its supporters. He had had connections with the VNQDD since 1924 , which was broken up after the Yen Bai uprising in 1930. He used the Chinese pseudonym Lin Chouen-te around 1925. Around this time he met Ando Chieko, his future Japanese wife, whose family name he finally adopted.

1930s

After Japan had started to get serious about the liberation of Asian peoples from the European colonial yoke in 1931, Cuong De saw himself potentially in the same position as Puyi and hoped to be installed as "Emperor of Annam" with Japanese help. He nominally led the Phục Quốc ("Restoration Party"), which since 1938 also had an armed arm. His first chance to return home went unused when Japan failed to bring him home in the so-called " Lạng Sơn " episode during which parts of northern Vietnam were occupied in 1940 to prevent arms aid for the Chinese KMT . Trần Trung Lập , the military leader of the Phuc Quoc, was captured during fighting in Tonking and executed by the French after the Imperial Japanese Army withdrew. Cuong De often drew letters as Minamy. At the end of the 1930s he came to Hong Kong several times under cover names to maintain contacts. He was promoted in February 1939 by Hong Kong Colonel Wachi Takaji - head of the secret service Ran Kikan .

Japanese administration of Indochina

The Japanese sent Cuong De to Taiwan from 1939 to May 1940, where he and a team produced a daily four-hour radio show. In occupied Indochina, stable conditions were initially important to the Japanese in order to obtain materials essential to the war effort. The Vichy-loyal colonial administration was left until 9/10. March 1945 as executive body in office. Even so, the prince remained convinced of the concept of the Greater East Asian Prosperity Sphere. The nationalist resistanceists of the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo operated with the Japanese on site. The former in particular were interested in the restoration with Cuong De on top. From mid-1944, when the legitimate French Vichy government had been doomed since the Normandy landings , work was carried out to set up a five-member provisional government to create an independent Vietnam. With the prince at its head, this “government” included Ngô Đình Diệm , Nguyễn Xuân Chữ , Lê Toàn and Vũ Đình Duy . The part of the 38th Army were planning General Matsui, Kempeitai -Oberstleutnant Hayashi Hidezumi and working for the secret service, as head of the trading company Dainan Koshi acting Matsushita Mitsuhiro the transfer of power.

Immediately after March 9, however, stable political conditions were more important for the Japanese high command, so that one in Tokyo, surprisingly, it decided the Emperor Bao Dai maintain, to urge him to declare independence and immediately thereafter, its own government under Trần Trọng Kim to form. This remained powerless; in fact, with the new governor general Tsuchihashi Yuichi , the Japanese were the new colonial rulers. Cuong De was unsuccessful in his attempt to return.

Retirement

He held a press conference in August 1949, during which he said he would break with Bao Dai if he should sign the agreement with the French that restored them to extensive rights. Its followers, based mainly in Nanjing , soon reorganized. Since he was registered as a Japanese subject with the name Andō Masao at that time , he could not get a passport to return to Vietnam. Both Thailand, where he tried to land as a Chinese disguised in 1950, and the British issued entry bans against him. On arrival in Hong Kong on July 8, 1950, he was not allowed to go ashore.

He died of cancer in 1951 in the Japanese Medical School Hospital ( 日本 医 大 病院 ), three years before the end of the Indochina War . After he was first buried in Tokyo, the urn with his ashes was transferred to his homeland in 1954.

Literature in Western Languages ​​and Sources

  • Tran My-Van; A Vietnamese Royal Exile in Japan; Abingdon 2005; ISBN 0-415-29716-8
  • Tran My-Van; Prince Cuong De (1882-1951) and His Quest for Vietnamese Independence; New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 11, 1 (June 2009); Pp. 75-86
  • Tran, My-Van; Prince Cuong De and Reformation for Vietnam - A hundred years on; Selected Articles of the Vietnamese Professionals Society in Australia, Volume 11: Modernization of Vietnam - The Next Decade. (2004) pp. 13-18
  • Wispelwey, Berend; South-east Asian biographical archive; Munich sn (KG Saur) [microfiche edition, Fiche 87]; ISBN 3-598-34226-8
  • 牧 久; 「安南 王国」 の 夢: ベ ト ナ ム 独立 を 支援 し た 日本人 ; Tokyo 2012; ISBN 978-4-86310-094-7

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. opening skirmishes of the insurgency Cần Vương ( "Supports [Annamite] king") of 1885-9. See: Fourniau, C., Annam – Tonkin 1885–1896: Lettrés et paysans vietnamiens face à la conquête coloniale; Paris 1989
  2. As one of only five Vietnamese students. To fool the French under a Chinese name. Nguyen, Minh T .; Buddhist monastic education and regional revival movements in early twentieth century Vietnam; Madison 2007 (Diss.), P. 36. Chau arranged the approvals with the headmaster Fukushima Yasumasa . Cung Des cover name was "Nguyễn Trung Hung." After a 2-month hospital stay in early 1908, he left. Tran (2004), pp. 45, 47, 52
  3. SATRAPS OF THE ORIENT STARTLING INDICTMENT OF FRENCH COLONISERS. Natives of Indo-China cruelly bled by Officials - Fate of French Empire in the Balance - Alarm of Observant Reside ...; Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), Saturday 23 April 1910, page 16
  4. see: EW Edwards; The Far Eastern Agreements of 1907; Journal of Modern History, Vol. 26, No. 4, Dec., 1954
  5. Marr, David G .; Vietnamese anticolonialism, 1885-1925; 1971, p. 154f.
  6. ^ The events from a French point of view: Tedral, Pierre; La France devant le Pacifique. La Comédie Indochinoise; Paris 1926 (Editions Vox); P. 46ff. [There different date of birth May 6th.]
  7. For comparison: salary of an elementary school teacher ¥ 70-5.
  8. With Nguyen Thuong Hien , Nguyen Hai Than , Ho Hoc Lam (1883? -1942), Tran Trong Khac . Armed arm Việt Nam Kiến quốc Quân. Re-established in 1947.
  9. Therefore a Japanese garrison of only 15,000 men (later the 38th Army ) was sufficient for all of Indochina.
  10. See: Beneath the Japanese Umbrella: Vietnam's Hòa Hà during and after the Pacific War; Crossroads, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2003), pp. 60-107
  11. The staffing planned by Hayashi Hidezumi , approved by Chief of Staff Kawamura. The change in the plan goes back to Tsuchihashi Yûichi, who had been in command since December 14, 1944 (came from Timor on November 14). Shiraishi Masaya; The background to the Formation of the Tran Trong Kim Cabinet in April 1945; in: Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s; New York 1992, ISBN 0-87727-401-0 ; P. 120f.
  12. ^ Which Cuong De had already publicly supported on May 20, 1945. Allegedly, on July 29, 1945, Bao Dai sent a radio broadcast urging Cuong De to return. The prince is said to have been brought as far as Hainan . Who's Who in south East Asia, Washington 1950, p. 285
  13. cf. Vietminh Rebellion PEACE MISSION FAILS; Kalgoorlie Miner, Monday 10 July 1950, p. 5