in BARIA is DISCOVERED
And this one is BIGGER and OLDER!
YOU are going to play History Detective.
You will have exactly the same resource as myself. (Although, I had a distinct advantage; my friend pointed it out to me. It took me 5 years to discover the first missing citadel, and 5 seconds to “discover” the second citadel.)
Both discoveries were just as exciting.
This is YOUR chance to experience the THRILL of discovery.
But before you don your explorers hat,
we need to find out more about this latest discovery.
HINT: there is a clue in this, which should help you find the second citadel.
Read carefully detectives.
*
As I research more on this topic, I will change the narrative.
**
It turns out that two of my biggest History Mysteries are connected.
The recently ‘solved’ history mystery The Creepy, Spooky Place,
added more to the history mystery The Missing Baria Citadel.
This is the SAME story again.
*
There was previous Nguyen dynasty citadel in Baria!
A BIGGER citadel!
It was built BEFORE The Missing Baria Citadel we re-discovered.
AND, it was destroyed;
~ by the same person (Emperor Minh Mang),
~ for the same reason, and
~ at about the same time,
as the Gia Dinh Citadel (pre Saigon) was destroyed. (As told in The Creepy, Spooky Place.)
That same person then built a smaller citadel in Baria, as he did in Gia Dinh.
*
Let’s re-cap:
Prior to 1802 Nguyen Phuc An built the massive Gia Dinh Citadel (Turtle Citadel), in the busy trading port of Gia Dinh to protect himself, the trading port, and the valuable rice growing belt which stretched eastward from Gia Dinh to the coast, and southward onto the Mekong delta. At that time Gia Dinh was Nguyen Phuc An’s capital city.
In 1802 Nguyen Phuc An conquered all his opponents, and created Vietnam.
He became Emperor Gia Long,
and then moved from Gia Dinh to the royal city of Hue.
Gia Dinh, the port, the citadel and the region were given to the Emperor’s most trusted general, Le Van Duyet. After Duyet’s death, his son Le Van Khoi organized a revolt which seized the massive Gia Dinh Citadel. It took nearly three years for the then emperor, Minh Mang, to wrench his citadel back from the rebels.
When he finally succeeded, Minh Mang demolished the gigantic citadel, so that it would never be able to be used against him again. He immediately had it replaced with a smaller, less threatening citadel.
**
let’s refer to The Missing Baria Citadel, as
~ the Minor Nguyen citadel.
And let’s refer to the newly discovered citadel, as
~ the first citadel, or
~ the Major Nguyen citadel, or even
~ the original citadel.
**
I did NOT discover this citadel.
My friend, AN PHAM, put the clues together. He then searched his best map.
*
Recently, An and I were booked in for a history night at Saigon Salon.
An had something to tell me, so we agreed to meet early.
An was excited about a partially abandoned French rubber plantation he had spent a few days photographing and researching with a friend.
His friend is also a history nut. This young Vietnamese man has learned chữ nôm literacy. Nom was the literacy used in ancient Vietnam, prior to a French priest’s introduction of quốc ngữ, the version of Vietnamese writing based on the Latin alphabet.
He told An that he had read a book in Nom about the era of Emperor Ming Mang, and it had mentioned the demolition of a large citadel in Baria, and then the construction of a smaller one. (We must remember that back then Baria may have still been called Mô Xoài, or even Kas Krobie.)
An grabbed his military map of Baria (because he is a collector of historic military stuff) searched, and there it was, a SECOND citadel in Baria. The 1973 satellite image map shows the citadel quite clearly.
**
~ justifies my gut feeling of the importance of ancient Baria, and
~ makes sense of a niggling feeling I had when Pierre Etcheto, a contributor to the history mystery, described the The Missing Baria Citadel as a Minor Nguyen citadel. I remember thinking why would you have a massive citadel guarding one end of Gia Dinh rice growing strip, and only a Minor citadel guarding the other end. Opponents, like the Tay Sons, would have obviously steered clear of Gia Dinh and raided the weaker Baria portion of the strip.
A Major citadel in Baria at that time makes more sense.
So, a big THANK YOU to An Pham and his clever friend, for sharing this recent discovery with me.
**
PLEASE NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS SUPPOSITION ONLY
~ 1. I will leave my first thoughts here, until I find out more.
~ 2. I do have another possible explanation of the two citadels, but I need some time to write it up (again no proof at all, just a possible scenerio.)
~ 3. Do you have any suggestions?
**
The near success of the Le Van Khoi revolt in 1833-35 in Gia Dinh (which featured in The Creepy, Spooky Place) prompted Emperor Minh Mang to demolish his Major citadel in Gia Dinh (Turtle Citadel) which was used against him by rogue rebels under the leadership of Le Van Khoi. He replaced the massive Gia Dinh Citadel with the smaller Phoenix Citadel.
His thinking was that a smaller citadel would be easier to retake if one of his official’s turned traitor.
Having learned his lesson, the Emperor considered the Major citadel in Baria as a possible threat, so it was demolished, and replaced with a Minor one.
**
What do we now know about Baria and its original citadel?
~ Baria was a powerful town and region.
~ Baria guarded one end of the Emperor’s valuable Gia Dinh Prefecture.
~ The original citadel would have housed the royal rice-granary.
~ The granary protected rice from being stolen by the Tay Son army.
~ The safe-guarding of the granary, justified the Emperor’s imposition of his very lucrative rice-tax.
~ The Major citadel was six sided, with six bastions.
~ Each citadel wall was 100 metres long. However, when the bastions are added, each wall was approximately 160 metres. This meant the citadel had a circumference of just under one kilometer. (This citadel, was much smaller than its counterpart in Gia Dinh.)
Note: When the circumferences, and the internal footprint, of the two Baria citadels are measured, there is little difference. The Major citadel is slightly larger on both accounts. The height of the walls are unknown (for now). An educated guess might suggest that the walls to the second citadel would have be lower and therefore less threatening to Emperor Minh Mang.
~ The original/ Major citadel may have had a moat. Many fortifications of the time did. The map supplied by An Pham gives us a possible clue to this. The map shows mangrove bordering right up to the citadel. It was built on swampy land. An easy way to lift the citadel above the moist land, would have been to dig out a large moat, and build on the rammed landfill. [Just a thought.]
Do we need to re-think what we learnt about the Minor citadel during The Missing Baria Citadel case?
~ The royal rice granary may not have been as large as I initially imagined.
**
The strip went from the coast (Baria) west to Gia Dinh. The Baria region of the strip was protected by its Major citadel. The area around Gia Dinh port was also guarded by its large citadel.
However, Gia Dinh Prefecture extended westward, well beyond Gia Dinh, all the way to the Khmer border (present-day Cambodia). That was about 80 kilometres of fertile farming country.
Historical hypothesizing: With knowledge gleaned from The Mystery of The Missing Baria Citadel and The Mystery of The Creepy, Spooky Place, it is reasonable to hypothesize that there was another citadel guarding the west end of the emperor’s rice field too. And probably more citadels deeper into the Mekong delta region. Around 1835-6, any Major Nguyen citadel most likely shared the same fate as the Major citadels in Gia Dinh and Baria.
**
Many years ago when I asked Aussie war veterans about an ancient old fort in Baria, their response was a resounding “Yes. Been there, seen that.” I must admit I was confused about their answer, because the Minor citadel, I was asking about, was found to be off the main road. In fact, it was at the end of a dead end road. If we now place the Major citadel on the map, we see that the 'then-road' from Vung Tau to Saigon went right through the citadel The Aussie veterans sure did see that. Thanks brothers.
**
Explore the map below and discover the missing Major Nguyen dynasty citadel for YOURSELF.
ctrl + is zoom in
ctrl - is zoom out
left click to hold map and drag
Clue One: the Minor citadel was NOT built on the same site as the demolished Major citadel, as with the Minor citadel in Gia Dinh.
Clue Two: you will need to re-read The Mystery of the Missing Baria Citadel to find what approximate shape you are looking for.
Clue Three: you will need to re-read The Mystery of the Missing Baria Citadel, because BOTH citadels can be seen on this one map. You will need to know the location of the Minor fort, so that you are searching for the correct citadel.
IMPORTANT!! When you have found the citadel/s, or are totally at a loss,
tell me VIA THE COMMENT BOX AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE, and I will send you a Google Earth map showing the positions of both citadels. (Please, do not request maps via FaceBook.)
Good luck History Detectives. Have fun and I hope to hear from you soon.
Lost in Vietnam, July 2020.