Phan Xich Long - Military Buildup

Military Buildup

During the time he spent in Battambang for the coronation, Long organised the construction of a pagoda in the town, and in December, he unsuccessfully applied for a land concession. After the coronation, Long was taken to the That Son region in Chau Doc, in the far south of the Mekong Delta. There the peasants built a temple for him. They used a small restaurant in a nearby village as a reception centre for the temple, as the temple was increasingly used as a military base, where fighters, weaponry and munitions were being assembled for an uprising. In the village of Tan Thanh, a local leader recruited his peasants for Long's revolt. The village chieftain predicted that a new Vietnamese monarch would descend from the sky at Cholon in March 1913, and that only the royalists would survive this miracle.

Such proclamations were repeated across southern Vietnam and in Cambodia, and notices were posted in Saigon, Phnom Penh, the road between the cities, and in many community venues in rural communities. Long's supporters presented them in the form of a royal edict on wooden blocks, declaring their intention to attack French military installations. They called on the people to rise up and topple French rule and said that supernatural forces would aid the independence fighters, saying that an unnamed monk would arrive from the mountains to lead them. At the time, southern Vietnam was beset by heavy corvee labour demands, especially with large-scale roadworks in progress. This meant that the peasants had less time to tend to their farmland, and revolts and strikes had been common. The simmering discontent is seen as a reason for Long's ability to gather such levels of support in a short time. Long's supporters called on merchants to flee and convert their colonial bank notes into solid copper cash. Word of the planned revolt spread quickly, leading to a substantial depreciation in the currency.

Long took the lead in preparing the explosives, telling his followers that his experience as a fortuneteller, mystic and natural healer made him an expert. The bombs were made from cannon shot, carbon, sulphur and saltpeter, which were then wrapped together.