The military of the Nguyễn dynasty (; chữ Hán: 軍次) were the main military forces of the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to August 1945 when it was dismantled by the August Revolution. The Nguyễn military force was initially formed by Nguyễn Hoàng as a division of the military of the Revival Lê dynasty in 1558 starting out with 3000 soldiers. During this period it was the military forces of the domain of the Nguyễn lords and commonly fought the Trịnh lords who controlled northern Vietnam. During the Tây Sơn Rebellion it was expelled out most of the county by the Tây Sơn dynasty. After the exiled Nguyễn Phúc Ánh returned and defeated the Tây Sơn rebels he crowned himself as the Gia Long Emperor and the Nguyễn military became the national military of Vietnam.
During the French domination period it became two of the five indigenous guards of French Indochina and was turned into a collection police and ceremonial forces. While the Emperor was still nominally the supreme commander actual power fell in the hands of the French administration relegating the Emperor to a rubber stamp office. Following the abolition of the Nguyễn dynasty its military was also disbanded making the Vietnamese People's Army the new national military of Vietnam, which would be administered by the newly established Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
History
Origins (1558–1777)
Initially the Nguyễn military was established when Nguyễn Hoàng brought a force of 3,000 to the Thuận Hóa province. Since 1600 the army would be instrumental for the administration of the state. The armed forces of the Nguyễn lords included infantry (bộ binh), marines (thủy binh), artillery (pháo binh), and the tượng binh. While the Nguyễn lords were nominally a part of the Revival Lê dynasty they increasingly became more independent leading to them having military clashes with the north.
The infantry and marine forces were armed with a fleet of about 200 warships and many transport boats carrying troops, supplied, and food, the main fighting force of the Nguyễn lords period was the infantry.
The standing army numbered about 40,000 people, when the Trịnh–Nguyễn War broke out, the Nguyễn army amounted to 100,000 people. During this period the Nguyễn army was supplied with firearms by the Kingdom of Portugal.
Nguyễn Phúc Ánh's struggle with the Tây Sơn dynasty (1778–1802)
Following the Tây Sơn insurgency only a small part of the Nguyễn military remained, these were under the command of Nguyễn Phúc Ánh.
Nguyễn Phúc Ánh's forces, headed by the former Nguyễn lord in the Citadel of Saigon, equipped his military forces with the help and training of several French advisors. Though the treaty between Nguyễn Phúc Ánh and Louis XVI in 1787 was never ratified.
The Nguyễn loyalists overcame the Tay Sons in Binh Thuan (1794), Qui Nhon (1799 and 1801), Huế (June 1802), Hanoi (July 1802) to become the first force that able to unify the Vietnamese nation that stretched from Guangxi, China to the Gulf of Thailand, after three centuries of disintegration period.
Independent period (1802–1883)
The military of the Nguyễn dynasty maintained the old organisational structures of the imperial dynasties that went before it. The army of the Nguyễn dynasty was divided into two regular parts, a standing army and a division stationed in the capital called the Imperial Guards, whose main task was to protect the Citadel of Phú Xuân (Huế).
The imperial army numbered 13,000 men invaded Cambodia in 1809 and 1813 to protect the faction of the king Ang Chan II of Cambodia, established the Viceroy of Cambodia, with Trương Tấn Bửu held the title Viceroy. In 1827 they were mobilised to intervene in the Vientiane Kingdom in Laos. In 1833 when the Chakri Siamese army invaded Cambodia, much of the Nguyen army stationing in Cambodia had to withdraw back to suppress the Lê Văn Khôi revolt and Nông Văn Vân's Rebellion.
As the military of the Nguyễn dynasty held substantial influence in its government, the Minh Mạng Emperor reformed the government to become a civil meritocracy decreasing the dominant role of the military in Nguyễn society.