Nguyễn Thượng Hiền was a Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

ese scholar-gentry anti-colonial revolutionary activist who advocated independence from French colonial rule

French Indochina

French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....

. He was a contemporary of Phan Boi Chau

Phan Boi Chau

Phan Bội Châu was a pioneer of Vietnamese 20th century nationalism. In 1903, he formed a revolutionary organization called the “Reformation Society” ....

 and Phan Chu Trinh

Phan Chu Trinh

Phan Chu Trinh also known as Phan Châu Trinh was a famous early 20th century Vietnamese nationalist. He also used the alias Tây Hồ. He sought to end France's brutal occupation of Vietnam...

 and was regarded as the most prominent northerner of his generation of scholar-gentry activists.

Biography

Hien was born in the village of Liên Bạt, in Son Lang district of Hà Đông Province. His father was a minister of the Nguyễn Dynasty court in Huế

Hue

Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...

, and while still in his teenage year, Hien was married to the daughter of Tôn Thất Thuyết

Ton That Thuyet

Tôn Thất Thuyết was the leading mandarin of Emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam's Nguyễn Dynasty. Thuyết later led the Can Vuong movement which aimed to restore Vietnamese independence under Emperor Hàm Nghi. He was born on May 12, 1839 in Huế....

, who was then the head mandarin of Emperor Tự Đức, Vietnam's last sovereign monarch. In 1884, he passed the regional exams of the imperial examination system, and in 1885 he was successful in passing the metropolitan exams. He would then have been eligible to take the palace exams, the highest in the hierarchy. However, in the same year, his father-in-law, who was the regent of the boy emperor Hàm Nghi

Ham Nghi

Emperor Hàm Nghi ; , was the eighth Emperor of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty. He reigned for only one year ....

 had planned an uprising against the French colonisation of Vietnam. Thuyết had organised a large arsenal to be accumulated in a forest base outside the capital and then orchestrated for Hàm Nghi and royal entourage to escape to the base before launching an attack on the French garrison in attempt to force the collapse of the colonial structure. However, the attack failed, so Thuyết had to go on the run with Hàm Nghi and a band of nationalist partisans, so Hien could not turn up at the examinations as a family member without risking the possibility that he would be taken hostage.

He fled to the northern town of Thanh Hóa

Thanh Hóa

Thanh Hóa is the capital city of Vietnam's Thanh Hoa province. The population is nearly 200,000 with an area of only 57.9 square kilometers....

, before returning in 1892 to place second (hoang giap) in the palace exams, something that was considered surprising given the political status of his in-laws. At the time, he became a close confidant of Nguyen Lo Trach, another Vietnamese anti-colonial activist intellectual, who advocated "self strengthening". Hien participated in Trach's small group discussions with other scholar-gentry revolutionaries, and read all of Trach's writings.

Hien's first government position was an appointment in the historical Bureau, which possibly gave him access to more Chinese works about anti-colonialism. He was later appointed as the education commisoner (doc hoc) of Ninh Binh Province

Ninh Bình Province

-Festivals:* Thai Vi festival * Truong Yen Festival* Yen Cu Festival* Non Khe Festival-Transportation:...

, before being transferred ot the corresponding position in Nam Dinh Province.

Hien met Chau and Trinh early in the 20th century, and introduced Chau to the writings of Trach. Despite his revolutionaru leanings, it was not until the deposal of Emperor Thành Thái

Thanh Thai

Emperor Thành Thái of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty was born Prince Nguyễn Phúc Bửu Lân, son of Emperor Duc Duc. He reigned for 18 years, from 1889 to 1907.-Biography:...

 by the French colonial authorities that Hien resigned his government position. He then left Vietnam to join Chau and Prince Cường Để in Japan, where they were trying to organise anti-colonial movements from abroad.

Hien later went to Canton

Guangzhou

Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

 with Chau for a meeting of expatriate revolutionaries, where the Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi

Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi

The Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội, sometimes known simply as Quang Phuc Hoi was a nationalist republican militant revolutionary organization of Vietnam that was active in the 1910s, under the leadership of Phan Boi Chau and Prince Cường Để...

 (Vietnam Restoration League) was formed. This organization cited the rise in the movement for republican democracy in China as a justification for pursuing the establishment of an independent Vietnam as a republic. Hien was named in the "deliberative ministry" of the organization, as the representative for northern Vietnam.

After the jailing of Chau, the leadership responsibility fell to Hien. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Hien wrote and organised the printing of an impassioned plea for Vietnamese people to rise against the French colonialists, who were now also having to deal with battle commitments in Europe. He reasoned that the German progress on the Western Front

Western Front (World War I)

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

  in late 1914 and cited the efforts of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

 in fighting against Allied forces. He ridiculed Vietnamese people in an attempt to provoke action:

Perhaps only the descendants of Hong Bang have skulls without brains, bodies without guts? . . . We still kneel down, bbow our heads, kow-tow to the French like gods, revere them like saints, slaves to them all our lives; and, worse yet, we pass this on to our children and grandchildren as well. We're really a bunch of incurable invalids, a hoard of weird animals seldom seen in this world! Our blood is as abundant as water, our people as numeroud as trees in this forest. Will we continue to stand around and stomach this shame forever?

He exhorted Vietnamese to avoid French conscription and being sent to the battlefields of Europe and fight on their behalf. Hien also made contacts with German and Austro-Hungarian consulates in Bangkok

Bangkok

Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

, who gave him a small amount of funding to harass French army units in Vietnam, with promises of increased funding contingent on successful attacks. Most of the money was spent of badly prepared attacks on French border posts along the frontier with China, but these caused little military damage and only provoked more infighting within the Quang Phuc Hoi. In April 1915, the French executed 28 men charged with engaging in attacks near Phu Tho

Phú Thọ

Phú Thọ is an urban district and town in Phu Tho province, Vietnam. As of 2003 the district had a population of 63,333. The district covers an area of 64 km²....

. The Germans were not impressed by the activities and no funding increases were made to sustain them and the Vietnamese guerrilla attacks dwindled away.

Legacy

Most cities in Vietnam, regardless of the political orientation of the government, have named major streets after him. Additionally, Nguyen Thuong Hien High School

Nguyen Thuong Hien High School

Nguyen Thuong Hien High School is a public high school Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. It was established in 1970 under the name Tan Binh High School. The school is currently one of four advanced public schools in the city.-History:...

, one of the most notable high schools in Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City , formerly named Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam...

, was named in honor of him.