THUA THIEN – HUE More than 200 years ago, to build Hue Citadel with the current scale, King Gia Long made a historic migration.
The Dai Nam book is recorded, after defeating the Tay Son and reunifying the country in 1802, King Gia Long immediately thought of building a capital, laying a permanent foundation for the Nguyen dynasty. Instead of choosing the Gia Dinh citadel that he built, King Gia Long chose the land of Phu Xuan, where in the past, Lord Nguyen established the palace to build the capital.
Seeing that the narrow Phu Xuan land was not commensurate with the capital city of a large dynasty stretching from the South to the North, King Gia Long planned to expand.
In 1803, the king sent the citadel, Nguyen Van Yen, to the four sides of the old citadel of Phu Xuan to expand. The king decided how to build the citadel, assigned the Ministry of Ceremony to choose a good day of heaven and earth, reported the commencement, sent troops to open roads, build sandy soil, and sent Pham Van Nhan, Le Chat and Nguyen Van Khiem to take care of the work. The soldiers each month provide money for one mandarin, one way of rice.
When planning, the area of the capital expanded to encroach on eight communes of Phu Xuan, Van Xuan, Dien Phai, An Van, An Hoa, An My, An Bao, The Lai, and King Gia Long carried out the migration. In order for the people to safely move to a new place, the king has implemented a policy of relocation in favor of the people.
Accordingly, if people have their land recovered, according to the written price to pay compensation, each household’s house will be granted 3 corps, each house has 2 corps, the people are immune. Seeing that Phu Xuan commune had almost acquired land, the king moved the people to Van Xuan commune and some surrounding communes, granted public fields, public land for living (3 plots of public land, 30 acres of public land), and lent money. 1,000 for displacement. Some public land far from the capital has been allocated to people in Phu Xuan commune to relocate for farming.
In order for the people of Phu Xuan commune to remember the place where vegetables were buried, King Gia Long kept Phu Xuan village communal house. The communal house in the Nguyen Dynasty was located near the banks of the Huong River and was moved behind the Citadel in Hau Sinh ward, now Tay Loc ward with larger construction scale. Every year, Phu Xuan people everywhere can come here to perform rituals.
With the policy of King Gia Long, people in eight communes agreed to leave the place where vegetables are buried. Phu Xuan people not only settled through Van Xuan commune on the Kim Long river, but also moved to many places with fertile land. Wherever the villagers were favored by the king, they could name the new land Phu Xuan in which they live.
Researcher Nguyen Xuan Hoa, former director of the Department of Culture and Sports of Thua Thien Hue province, said that King Gia Long had a role as the architect of planning the Hue Citadel. With a satisfactory relocation policy, the king persuaded the people to leave the prosperous Hue city to new land to build villages and expand cultivated land. Every year, the villagers relocated to the place where the king’s communal house built in the old land to worship.
“Many migration policies of King Gia Long are still valid, which are lessons for the government in relocating thousands of households in Thuong Thanh and Eo Bau”, Mr. Hoa said and affirmed the success of King Gia Long is a social security when implementing the migration plan to build Hue Citadel on a large scale while expanding people to expand new cultivated land.
After the people relocated steadily, in 1805 King Gia Long started to build and build Hue Citadel. The king mobilized 30,000 workers in 4 months to build some sections of Kim Long and Bach Yen rivers, dug a trench system to build the first ring of the citadel with earth, and at the same time made use of the remaining river section to dig the Ke Van river system. Dong Ba River, An Hoa River and Ngu Ha River flow inside the Hue Citadel.
Mr. Hoa said that the architecture of Hue Citadel was built in a harmonious combination between the translation and feng-shui principles of the East and the French Vauban, and was applied in accordance with the natural topography of Phu Xuan. – Hue. The translation and feng-shui factors are evident when taking Ngu Binh mountain as a criminal record, Huong river as a clear road, having Hen islet as dragon fruit, and Da Vien is a tiger. The Vauban citadel was built in the form of a citadel with fortresses, cannons, artillery, fire walls inside, with trenches outside, so it was easy to defend and difficult to attack.
After King Gia Long died in 1820, King Minh Mang continued his father’s work on building Hue Citadel. The present appearance of Hue Citadel was completed in June 1832 when King Minh Mang announced that the construction of Hue Citadel was completed.
Hue Citadel has a square shape with a circumference of more than 10 km, the wall is 21.5 m thick, 6.6 m high, built meandering with fortresses equally spaced, accompanied by firecrackers, uncle, ammunition. In addition to the system of 10 main doors and one auxiliary door in Tran Binh Dai, Nguyen dynasty also built two entrances to Ngu Ha river located between Hue Citadel through the East gate of Thuy Quan and the West of Thuy Quan citadel.
In particular, the East of Thuy Quan citadel is equipped with a strict defense system because this is a waterway for ships and boats from Thuan An estuary to Hue Citadel. The entire interior of Hue Citadel has an area of 5.2 km2.
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