Tourists visit the Quang Trung Museum (Tay Son commune, Gia Lai province), which houses and displays many valuable historical artifacts from the Tay Son era.
Perspectives from modern research
As one of the experienced and dedicated experts in the study of the history and military technology of ancient Vietnam, engineer Vu Dinh Thanh (Hanoi) has searched for and analyzed a system of documents from Vietnamese, English, and French historical records, as well as contemporary records, allowing for a comprehensive overview of military activities in the late 18th century.
In particular, engineer Vu Dinh Thanh paid special attention to the activities of the British, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish East India Companies – commercial organizations with their own armies, authorized to mint coins, declare war, and control vast colonies from Asia to Africa and the Americas. For example, the British East India Company once possessed twice the size of the British Royal Army and controlled 70% of the saltpeter supply to the West after controlling most of India in the late 19th century. The French East India Company also controlled a portion of Indian territory, with Pondicherry as its center.
This correlation shows that the Tay Son army directly confronted not only Nguyen Anh's forces but also the network of mercenaries of the East India Companies – units with combat experience in many colonies. According to engineer Thanh, the battle in which Manuel Man Hoe – the commander of a force equipped with copper-plated ships and French artillery – was annihilated along with thousands of mercenaries shows a scale of fighting comparable to major battles such as the victory over the Siamese army (1785) or the battles in the campaign to defeat the Qing army (1789).
Another focus of Vu Dinh Thanh's research is the source of potassium nitrate (KNO3) – the component that makes up 75% of black gunpowder. Before the advent of modern explosives, all Western guns, cannons, and grenades were absolutely dependent on this type of gunpowder. Despite advanced metallurgical techniques, Europe was still not self-sufficient in potassium nitrate and had to import it from Southeast Asia until the end of the 19th century.
In hot and humid climates, natural bat guano in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and southern China is the world's largest source of saltpeter. Therefore, from the 15th and 16th centuries, Western countries sought to exploit or control areas with these reserves. Researcher Dupouy's records (1913) indicate that by 1903, there were still 22 active saltpeter mines in Tonkin. This data shows that saltpeter was once a strategically important raw material that France heavily exploited after establishing its rule.
Left image: The book *Mineral Studies of French Indochina* (Gaston Dupouy, 1913);
Right photo: The French Auxonne Mobile Artillery Regiment using gunpowder containing saltpeter extracted from Vietnam. (Photo: Provided by the author)
Based on the above data, engineer Vu Dinh Thanh concluded that the economic and military value of saltpeter in the modern era was exceptionally high. According to the French Institute for Strategic Studies, at the end of the 17th and 18th centuries, the price of 1 kg of gunpowder was equivalent to 0.5 kg of gold, with 80% of the cost going to saltpeter; that is, 1 kg of bat guano was nearly equivalent to 0.4 kg of gold in France. This explains why information about saltpeter mines in Indochina was kept secret for a long time.
In this context, historical documents from Dai Viet indicate that, from the 15th century, Vietnam already knew how to manufacture cannons, using black gunpowder much earlier than many other regions. In 1390, General Tran Khat Chan used a cannon to shoot down Che Bong Nga; subsequently, Ho Nguyen Truong was sent to China by the Ming dynasty to manufacture weapons. Dai Viet's flintlock guns were known to international merchants as "Giao Chi guns" from 1479.
These technical hypotheses, when compared with the origin of the materials, suggest that Dai Viet had a natural advantage due to its readily available saltpeter resources, allowing for the production of large and stable quantities of gunpowder – a crucial factor in maintaining military capabilities.
The Tay Son gunpowder hypothesis and its historical and scientific value.
A notable part of engineer Vu Dinh Thanh's research relates to the description of Tay Son firearms in official Chinese historical records and texts. He argues that many documents record evidence of a type of gunpowder capable of burning for a long time, difficult to extinguish, and even causing suffocation due to oxygen consumption – a characteristic of the phosphorus reaction in the air.
In Qing Dynasty records of the Battle of Ngoc Hoi-Dong Da in 1789, the "fireball" was described as "as fast as lightning" and "as hot as putting a hand into a cauldron of oil." This suggests its characteristic of burning intensely and causing deep burns. The "Tay Son fireball" artifact currently on display at the Quang Trung Museum (Gia Lai), with its thick walls, is also one of the details that Qing engineers used for comparison.
He hypothesized that the Tay Son army knew how to use phosphorus extracted from bat and bird droppings in archipelagos such as the Paracel and Spratly Islands. Some ethnic communities in mountainous areas once practiced the custom of extracting luminescent substances from the soil of bat caves. Official historical documents of the Nguyen dynasty recorded that "the Tay Son used tree resin mixed with petroleum to create gunpowder that burned for a long time and could not be extinguished." This hypothesis was assessed as "well-founded" by General Nguyen Huy Hieu, Hero of the People's Armed Forces and former Deputy Minister of National Defense, when compared with practical experience in dealing with phosphorus during the war against the US.
Illustrating the various forms of phosphorus weapon deployment on land. (Photo: Provided by the subject)
The use of "fire tigers" or "rockets" (primitive missiles) from small launch tubes, which did not create the same recoil as artillery, was also analyzed by engineer Thanh as a suitable solution when deployed on elephants or warships. He suggested that this may have been the reason why the Tay Son army had superior firepower when confronting the forces of Manuel Man Hoe or mercenary armies equipped with copper-plated ships and European artillery.
From 1782 to 1783, the Tay Son army defeated a coalition of mercenaries from several East India Companies, forcing Ba Da Loc and Nguyen Anh to retreat. Records from England and France confirm that this force consisted of several thousand soldiers who were not Vietnamese but international mercenaries. However, most of these battles are rarely mentioned in popular history books because the source material is mostly scattered across Western documents.
According to engineer Thanh, around the same time Emperor Quang Trung passed away, several generals and close associates, along with many workers at the factories, are believed to have suffered accidents related to the manufacture of gunpowder, which is understandable given the production of phosphorus.
Meanwhile, European powers continued to improve their technology. France brought in bat guano for refining, creating gunpowder granules with a higher explosive power than conventional black gunpowder; this led to the development of grenades, bullets, and the enhancement of mobile artillery. Scientific advances such as Antoine Lavoisier's discovery of oxygen helped European armies understand the impact of large fires, allowing them to arrange their formations and build Vauban-style fortifications to minimize the risk of suffocation – something the Qing army had not foreseen in 1789.
Overall, the technical-chemical-military analysis presented by engineer Vu Dinh Thanh offers further explanation for why the Tay Son army during Quang Trung's reign was able to achieve three consecutive victories: defeating the East India Company (1782-1783), burning down 50,000 Siamese troops (1785), and defeating 300,000 Qing troops (1789).
Although further verification through archaeology, material analysis, and multi-dimensional comparison is needed, the aforementioned studies contribute to broadening the approach to Vietnamese military history. Placing Dai Viet's victories within the context of global 18th-century weapon technology also raises many interesting questions about the scientific and technical level of our ancestors. Further exploration of these materials will not only clarify hypotheses but also contribute to a better understanding of the intellectual heritage, creativity, and self-reliance of the nation throughout different periods.
My Hanh
Source: https://nhandan.vn/kham-pha-moi-ve-di-san-quan-su-thoi-tay-son-post928804.html
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