DescriptionTu Duc was the year title of the fourth Nguyen Emperor. He came to the throne at the age of 18. He continued the repressive policies of his father. His persecutions of Christians provoked the French. Anarchy in China affected Vietnam, which was forced in some ways to get involved. The French started invading in 1862, and by 1883 they had annexed the south (“Cochin China”) and made the north into a protectorate. The Tu Duc Emperor died in that year, and the French subsequently set up all of Vietnam as a colonial enterprise.Vietnam has rarely been fully united as a country. Unlike the Koreans, who always formally accepted Chinese suzerainty, the Vietnamese never accepted that status. We could say that the country has been at war with China for the last 2000 years. Still, as we all know, a lot of Chinese cultural influence, including the way they structured their economy and the kinds of coins they made. My main reference for Vietnamese cast coins: The Historical Cash Coins of Viet Nam, by Allan Barker. Supplementary reference: A Working Aid for Collectors of Annamese Coins, by John A. Novak.China calls itself “Central Country.” That is in reference to the vast Asian hinterland that is not China, and to the island peoples out in the Pacific Ocean. Because China tended to do organizational things earliest in that part of the world, the outsiders would notice and adopt useful practices that they observed. Among those borrowed cultural practices was the adoption of the money economy to replace direct barter, or to replace less convenient shapes of metal, rings and tools and jewelry bits. The Chinese style of market money being square holed cast bronze coins, that became the form of the coins made in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, the islands out to Java, into Siberia and as far west as Kazakhstan.
