Regarding eunuchs, the Vietnamese adopted the eunuch system and castration techniques from China. Records show that the Vietnamese performed castration in a painful procedure by removing the entire genitalia with both penis and testicles being cut off with a sharp knife or metal blade. The procedure was agonizing since the entire penis was cut off.[4] The young man's thighs and abdomen would be tied and others would pin him down on a table. The genitals would be washed with pepper water and then cut off. A tube would be then inserted into the urethra to allow urination during healing.[5] Many Vietnamese eunuchs were products of self castration in order to gain access to the palaces and power. In other cases they might be paid to become eunuchs. They served in many capacities, from supervising public works, to investigating crimes, to reading public proclamations.[6]
Self-castration was banned by Lý dynasty Vietnamese official Tô Hiến Thành[9] The left arm of a man who self-castrated was tattooed with 23 characters and he was beaten with a heavy stick 80 times under orders of emperor Lý Anh Tông in 1162.[10]
A boy student was given money in exchange for becoming a eunuch by Tran Canh in 1254 since many men castrated themselves to become eunuchs during the Tran and Ly dynasties.[11]
The Trần dynasty sent Vietnamese boy eunuchs as tribute to Ming dynasty China several times, in 1383, 1384 and 1385[12][13][14][15][16][17] Nguyen Dao, Nguyen Toan, Tru Ca, and Ngo Tin were among several Vietnamese eunuchs sent to China.[18]
Fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam (Ming dynasty)
During the Fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam, the Ming Chinese under the Yongle Emperor castrated many young Vietnamese boys, choosing them for their handsomeness and ability, and brought them to Nanjing to serve as eunuchs. Among them were the architect-engineer Nguyễn An[19] and Nguyen Lang (阮浪).[20] Vietnamese were among the many eunuchs of different origins found at the Yongle Emperor's court.[21] Among the eunuchs in charge of the Capital Battalions of Beijing was Xing An, a Vietnamese.[22]
Article 344 of the Nguyen dynasty code and Article 305 of the Le dynasty code both forbade self-castration and castration of Vietnamese men.[23] Castration of Vietnamese men was banned by the Nguyen and Le dynasties in contrast to China's legal code. Self-castration of Vietnamese men was banned by Lê Thánh Tông, the emperor, in 1464.[24]
In the Lê dynasty the Vietnamese Emperor Lê Thánh Tông was aggressive in his relations with foreign countries including China and cracked down on foreign contacts and enforced an isolationist policy. A large amount of trade between Guangdong (Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan) and Vietnam happened during this time. Early accounts recorded that the Vietnamese captured Chinese whose ships had blown off course and detained them. Young Chinese men were selected by the Vietnamese for castration to become eunuch slaves to the Vietnamese. It has been speculated by modern historians that Chinese who were captured and castrated by the Vietnamese were involved in regular trade between China and Vietnam instead of being blown off course, and that they were punished after a Vietnamese crackdown on trade with foreign countries.[25][26]
Several Malay envoys from the Malacca sultanate were attacked and captured in 1469 by Vietnamese navy as they were returning to Malacca from China. The Vietnamese enslaved and castrated the young from among the captured.[27][28][29][30][31][32]
A 1499 entry in the Ming Shilu recorded that thirteen Chinese men from Wenchang including a young man named Wu Rui were captured by the Vietnamese after their ship was blown off course while traveling from Hainan to Guangdong's Qin subprefecture (Qinzhou), after which they ended up near the coast of Vietnam, in the 1460s, during the Chenghua Emperor's rule (1464–1487). Twelve of them were enslaved to work as agricultural laborers, while the youngest Chinese man, Wu Rui (吳瑞) was selected by the Vietnamese court for castration since he was the only young man in among the thirteen and he became a eunuch at the Vietnamese imperial palace in Thang Long for nearly one fourth of a century. After years of serving the Vietnamese as a eunuch slave in the palace, he was promoted to a position with real power after the death of the Vietnamese ruler in 1497 to a military position in northern Vietnam as military superintendent since his service in the palace was apparently valued by the Vietnamese. However, the Lạng Sơn guard soldier Dương Tam tri (Yang Sanzhi) (楊三知) told him of an escape route back to China and Wu Rui escaped to Longzhou after walking for 9 days through the mountains. The local ethnic minority Tusi chief Wei Chen took him into custody, overruling objections from his family who wanted to send him back to Vietnam. Vietnam found out about his escape and sent an agent to buy Wu Rui back from Wei Chen with 100 Jin in payment since they were scared that Wu Rui would reveal Vietnamese state secrets to China. Wei Chen planned to sell him back to the Vietnamese but told them the amount they were offering was too little and demanded more however before they could agree on a price, Wu was rescued by the Pingxiang magistrate Li Guangning and then was sent to Beijing to work as a eunuch in the Ming palace at the Directorate of Ceremonial (silijian taijian 司禮監太監)..[33][34][35][36][37][38] The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư records that in 1467 in An Bang province of Dai Viet (now Quảng Ninh Province) a Chinese ship blew off course onto the shore. The Chinese were detained and not allowed to return to China as ordered by Le Thanh Tong.[39][40][41][42][43] This incident may be the same one where Wu Rui was captured.[34]
A 1472 entry in the Ming Shilu reported that some Chinese from Nanhai escaped back to China after their ship had been blown off course into Vietnam, where they had been forced to serve as soldiers in Vietnam's military. The escapees also reported that they found out that more than 100 Chinese men remained captives in Vietnam after they were caught and castrated by the Vietnamese after their ships were blown off course into Vietnam in other incidents. The Chinese Ministry of Revenue responded by ordering Chinese civilians and soldiers to stop going abroad to foreign countries.[44][45] These 100 men were taken prisoner around the same time as Wu Rui and the historian Leo K. Shin believes all of them may have been involved in illegal trade instead of being blown off course by wind.[46] The over 100 Chinese men who were castrated and made into eunuchs by the Vietnamese remained captives in Vietnam when the incident was reported. Both the incidents of the young Chinese man Wu Rui and the more than 100 Chinese men being castrated and used as eunuchs point to possible involvement in trade according to historians John K. Whitmore and Tana Li which was then suppressed by the Vietnamese government instead of them really being blown off course by the wind.[38] China's relations with Vietnam during this period were marked by the punishment of prisoners by castration.[47][48]
The Trịnh lords started employing eunuchs extensively in the Đàng Ngoài region of the northern Red river delta area of Vietnam as leaders of military units. Trịnh ruled northern Vietnam used its eunuchs in the military and civilian bureaucracy. Many Buddhist temples had money and land donated by eunuchs who gained more wealth and influenced. Field army units, secret police, customs duty taxes, finance, land deeds and military registers and tax harvesting in son Nam province (Binh phien) as well as the position of Thanh Hóa military governor were delegated to eunuchs. The supervisor services, military, civil service and court all had eunuchs appointed to work in them and they were the most faithful followers of the Trịnh lords as a check on the power of civil and military officials.[49] Eunuchs were employed as building project supervisors and provincial governors by Trịnh Cương.[50]
The poet Hồ Xuân Hương mocked eunuchs in her poem as a stand-in for criticizing the government.[51]
Commoners were banned from undergoing castration in Vietnam. Only adult men of high social rank could be castrated. Most eunuchs were born as such with a congenital abnormality. The Vietnamese government mandated that boys born with defective genitalia were to be reported to officials, in exchange for the town being freed from mandatory labor requirements. The boy would have the option of serving as a eunuch official or serving the palace women when he became ten years old.[52] This law was put in place in 1838 during the Nguyễn dynasty.[53] The only males allowed inside the Forbidden City at Huế were the Emperor and his eunuchs.[54]
The presence of eunuchs in Vietnam was used by the French colonizers to degrade the Vietnamese.[55]
A prominent eunuch in the Nguyễn dynasty was Lê Văn Duyệt[56][57][58] Nguyen dynasty Vietnam recruited intersex hermaphrodites as eunuchs.[59]
The Nguyen dynasty built a eunuch cemetery in 1848 at the Tu Hieu Pagoda.[60]
Ly Thuong Kiet (1019–1105): general during the Lý dynasty in Vietnam. Penned what is considered the first Vietnamese declaration of independence. Regarded as a Vietnamese national hero.
Lê Văn Duyệt: 18th-century Vietnamese eunuch, military strategist and government official (not a true eunuch, he was born a hermaphrodite).
^Taylor, K. W. (2013). A history of the Vietnamese. Cambridge University Press. p. 121. ISBN978-0521875868.
^Nguyễn, Khắc Cần (1997). Nguyễn, Ngọc Điệp; Nguyễn, Khắc Cần (eds.). Viet Nam, dans le passé en gravures Françaises. Văn hóa dân tộc. p. 46. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. Il y avait 5 especès de peine qui sont : marquer au visage , ablation du nez , amputation du pied , castration et mort ... celui de la journée le mandarin " Chanson populaire In 1825 Nguyen dynasty promulgated Gia Long code , but really ...
^Nguyễn, Khắc Cần; Nguyễn, Cao Lê; Đoàn, Thị Thu Hà̆ng, eds. (2002). Connaissance du Viet Nam à travers anciennes cartes postales. Nhà xuất bản Mỹ thuật. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. La dynastie de Nguyen promulgua le code de Gia Long en 1825 , rédigeant en tenant référence à celle de Hong Duc ... Il y avait 5 especès de peine qui sont : marquer au visage , ablation du nez , amputation du pied , castration et mort ...
^Taylor, K. W. (2013). A History of the Vietnamese. Cambridge University Press. p. 98. ISBN978-1107244351. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. To Hien Thanh, his trusted assistant and wife's kinsman, immediately picked up the reins of government. ... eunuchs by forbidding self-castration; these measures were litmus-test issues for Confucian historians in later centuries.
^Nguy~en, Ngọg Huy (1987). The Lê Code: Law in Traditional Vietnam : a Comparative Sino-Vietnamese Legal Study with Historical-juridical Analysis and Annotations, Volume 2. The Lê Code: Law in Traditional Vietnam : a Comparative Sino-Vietnamese Legal Study with Historical-juridical Analysis and Annotations, Văn Tài Tạ. Ohio University Press. p. 174. ISBN0821406302. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. A 1162 imperial edict of Emperor Lý Anh Tông punished a man who had castrated himself with 80 strokes of the heavy stick and the tattooing of 23 characters on the left arm ( TT 1 : 288 ) . In 1464 Emperor Lê Thánh Tông warned people ...
^Pastoetter, Ph.D., Jakob (2004). "Vietnam (Cộng hoà Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam) (Socialist Republic of Vietnam)". In Francoeur, Robert T.; Noonan, Raymond J. (eds.). The Continuum Complete International Encyclopedia of Sexuality. Updates by J. Pastoetter; contributor Beldina Opiyo-Omolo (illustrated, revised ed.). A&C Black. p. 1350. ISBN0826414885. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. D. Homosexuality and Vietnamese Law Proschan (Aronson 1999; "Frank" 2000) writes that neither homosexual identity nor behaviors had ... a prohibition of castration and selfcastration (Le Code, Article 305; Nguyen Code, Article 344).
^"首页 > 06史藏-1725部 > 03别史-100部 > 49-明实录宪宗实录-- > 203-大明宪宗纯皇帝实录卷之二百十九". 明實錄 (Ming Shilu) (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 26 July 2013. Simplified Chinese:○满剌加国使臣端亚妈剌的那查等奏成化五年本国使臣微者然那入贡还至当洋被风漂至安南国微者然那与其傔从俱为其国所杀其余黥为官奴而幼者皆为所害又言安南据占城城池欲并吞满剌加之地本国以皆为王臣未敢兴兵与战适安南使臣亦来朝端亚妈剌的那查乞与廷辨兵部尚书陈钺以为此已往事不必深校宜戒其将来 上乃因安南使臣还谕其王黎灏曰尔国与满剌加俱奉正朔宜修睦结好藩屏王室岂可自恃富强以干国典以贪天祸满剌加使臣所奏朝廷虽未轻信尔亦宜省躬思咎畏天守法自保其国复谕满剌加使臣曰自古圣王之驭四夷不追咎于既往安南果复侵陵尔国宜训练士马以御之 Traditional Chinese:○滿剌加國使臣端亞媽剌的那查等奏成化五年本國使臣微者然那入貢還至當洋被風漂至安南國微者然那與其傔從俱為其國所殺其餘黥為官奴而幼者皆為所害又言安南據占城城池欲併吞滿剌加之地本國以皆為王臣未敢興兵與戰適安南使臣亦來朝端亞媽剌的那查乞與廷辨兵部尚書陳鉞以為此已往事不必深校宜戒其將來 上乃因安南使臣還諭其王黎灝曰爾國與滿剌加俱奉正朔宜修睦結好藩屏王室豈可自恃富強以幹國典以貪天禍滿剌加使臣所奏朝廷雖未輕信爾亦宜省躬思咎畏天守法自保其國複諭滿剌加使臣曰自古聖王之馭四夷不追咎于既往安南果複侵陵爾國宜訓練士馬以禦之
^Lê Văn Hưu; Phan Phu Tiên; Ngô Sĩ Liên, eds. (1993). "Phần 26 (Bản kỷ thực lục Q2(a) Nhà Hậu Lê (1460–1472).)". Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư. Viện Khoa Học Xã Hội Việt Nam dịch. Nhà xuất bản Khoa Học Xã Hội (Hà Nội) ấn hành. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
^Lê Văn Hưu; Phan Phu Tiên; Ngô Sĩ Liên, eds. (1993). "DVSK Bản Kỷ Thực Lục 12: Nhà Hậu Lê (1460–1472) ... Phần 1(Đại Việt Sử Ký Bản Kỷ Thực Lục Quyển XII [1a] Kỷ Nhà Lê Thánh Tông Thuần Hoàng Đế)". Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư. Viện Khoa Học Xã Hội Việt Nam dịch. Nhà xuất bản Khoa Học Xã Hội (Hà Nội) ấn hành. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
^Sullivan, James (2010). Vietnam. National Geographic traveler. Photographs by Kris LeBoutillier (illustrated ed.). National Geographic Books. p. 209. ISBN978-1426205224. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. Le Van Duyet was a eunudw since birth, though it's unclear whether he was a hermaphrodite or was castrated in preparation for a ... Later, Duyet ruled southern Vietnam as viceroy and defied King Minh Mang's order to persecute Christians.
^Sullivan, James (2015). Emmons, Ron (ed.). National Geographic Traveler - Vietnam. National Geographic Traveler Series. Photographs by Kris LeBoutillier (illustrated ed.). National Geographic Books. p. 209. ISBN978-1426213632. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. Le Van Duyet was a eunuch since birth, though it's unclear whether he was ahermaphrodite or was castrated in ... 195 E5 [3] 1 Phan Dang Luu, Binh Thanh District 08/3841-2517 When the French colonized Vietnam, they did their best to.
^Boobbyer, Claire (2013). Vietnam Dream Trip. Footprint Dream Trip (illustrated ed.). Footprint Travel Guides. p. 110. ISBN978-1907263682. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. The castrated men, who wore green and red floral gowns with flat, oval hats, arranged the emperor's night time activities and would be bribed ... Some saw this edict as a reaction to the courtier Le Van Duyet, who was himselfa eunuch.
^Vo, Nghia M. (2011). Saigon: A History (illustrated ed.). McFarland. p. 270. ISBN978-0786486342. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. Woodside, Vietnam and the Chinese Model, 286. 14. Ibid., 288–289. 15. Thanh Khoi Le, Le Vietnam, 366. 16. McLeod, The Vietnamese ... Since an intersex person is sterile, he can be compared to a eunuch or a surgically castrated male.
^Let's Go Inc. (2006). Vodhanel, Julie; Segal, Jake (eds.). Let's Go Vietnam 2nd Edition. LET'S GO VIETNAM, Let's Go Series, Let's go travel guide (illustrated ed.). Macmillan. p. 284. ISBN0312360959. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2021-10-27. NORTHERN CENTRAL VIETNAM stomped the tiger to a bloody , mangled pulp , they would cheer . ... In 1848 , it was expanded to include a cemetery for castrated mandarins of the Nguyễn Dynasty . ... A sign marks 6km to Thanh Toàn .
Whitmore, John K. (2011). "Chapter 6 Vân Đồn, the 'Mạc Gap,' and the End of the Jiaozhi Ocean System: Trade and State in Đại Việt, Circa 1450-1550". In Cooke, Nola; Li, Tana; Anderson, James (eds.). The Tongking Gulf Through History (illustrated ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN978-0812243369. Retrieved 4 January 2013.