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The rebels overthrew the kingdoms in the north and already planned to eradicate the south. The catholic church decides to seek assistance from France and they sent out a monsignor called Pierre Pigneau. He made a trip back to France and begged for support from the French king Louis XVI. he finally secured help from French trades in India, who provided the southern kingdom in Vietnam with munition, arms and tools. With an army consisting of more than fifty well trained Catholic troops they defeated in collaboration with the king Nguyen Anh the rebels and reached the control over the whole territory of Vietnam.
In the 19th century the number of Catholic citizens in Vietnam grew bigger and bigger. The members of the Catholicism started contact to the church in Europe and the Pope in Rome. They also enlarged their power and became a real danger to the traditional culture relating to Buddha. In 1825 the emperor Minh Mang issued edicts which forbade further missionaring in his country. Priests were arrested and France was urged to intervene with the power of weapons in the same year, when a warship bombarded Danang. The arrival of the French Imperialism couldn\'t be stopped any more. In the late 1850s France developed a greater interest in Vietnam due to protection of the Roman Catholic religion and commercial advances. This colony was rich of natural resources. The French only waited for an excuse to conquer Vietnam.
That was in 1857 when a monk was put to death for interfering in Vietnamese politics. In August 1858 a French fleet put troops ashore at Tourane. The soldiers occupied Hue and big parts of the country but the easy victory everybody expected did not happen. Technologically the imperial army was underdeveloped comparing to the forces from Europe. Nevertheless the resistance supported by tropical heat and diseases was stronger than the French troops, who had to abandon Vietnam. After some more military actions against the Vietnamese kingdom the French finally won the important battle of Ky Hoa in 1861.
In 1887 the French parliament finally created the French Indochinese Union, comprising Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin and Cambodia, and some years later they added Laos as another protectorate. This annexation completed the French empire in this region. They settled down to exploit their Indochinese territories to the fullest extent and this rule would last into the twentieth century. By 1903 opium sales represented a third of the colonial governments income from Vietnam and countries like Laos were encouraged to cultivate the opium poppy. Resources and crop, for example rice, rubber and sugar cane, were exported to Europe. The French rulers even exploited the people. The local population was forced to pay artificially high prices for their daily food, for example salt as a spice.
Though the French rulers had claimed an union peace in whole Indochina figures of protests and resistance movements were increasing. However, the highly motivated rebels were helpless against the French army and many of them were arrested.
From the French administrative capital in Hanoi the whole country was directed and suppressed. The traditional Vietnamese school system was abolished and only children of colons and Catholics were educated in the lycées. The French rulers were on the way to destroy this country with its very well developed culture.
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