Tự Đức
Primary sources from the Nguyễn court's records suggest that Tự Đức's non-implementation of Tộ's proposals was due to a rigid Confucianism. Tự Đức, a scholarly minded emperor, was known for his interest in and familiarity with Western science and technology. He regularly read Chinese language newspapers from Hong Kong and occasionally organized discussions among the mandarins on technical and commercial subjects. Excerpts from these articles and the resulting discussions were entered at the emperor's order in the dynasty's official histories, including the "Đại Nam Thực Lục" ("Veritable Records of the Great South"). However, Tự Đức often used his knowledge of European learning to refute, sometimes sarcastically, those who urged its widespread adoption, thereby sending messages to present and future officials that he valued Vietnam's Confucian traditions far too much to allow their contamination by foreign studies and practices that he considered barbaric. Using his position as royal examiner for the civil service examinations, Tự Đức drafted questions and commentaries that dealt specifically with the issue of Western-style reforms, clearly indicating the negative response that was expected of candidates. On one occasion, Tự Đức began by asserting the indivisibility of rulership and classical studies, the implication being that adopting European studies would lead to a rupture between morality and government. Expecting arguments praising the efficacy of Western scientific methods, Tự Đức wrote that all of the European devices had been known to ancient Eastern sages, and their secrets could thus be found in the classical texts rather than in Western books. Tự Đức Emperor believed that the threats posed by the French could only be defeated through renewed dedication to the Confucian political doctrines on which Vietnamese social and political institutions were based. He felt that successful resistance to French imperialism at the price of adopting Western ways would not solve the fundamental prerogative of protecting Vietnam's classical East Asian civilization from what he regarded as the subversive potential of a culturally inferior, barbaric people.