Prelude
French interest in northern Vietnam dated from the late 18th century, when the political Catholic priest Pigneau de Behaine recruited French volunteers to fight for Nguyễn Ánh and help begin the Nguyễn Dynasty in an attempt to gain privileges for France and the Roman Catholic Church. In 1858, France began their colonial campaign and in 1862 annexed several southern provinces of Vietnam to become the colony of Cochinchina, laying the foundations for its later colonial empire in Indochina. French explorers followed the course of the Red River through northern Vietnam to its source in Yunnan, arousing hopes that an extremely profitable overland trade route could be established with China, bypassing the treaty ports of the Chinese coastal provinces. The main obstacle to the realisation of this dream was the Black Flag Army, a well-organized bandit force under a formidable leader, Liu Yongfu (Liu Yung-fu, 劉永福), which was levying exorbitant dues on trade on the Red River between Sơn Tây and the town of Lào Cai on the Yunnan border.
Read more about this topic: Sino-French War
Famous quotes containing the word prelude:
“I am a prelude to better players, O my brothers! An example! Follow my example!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)