Japanese invasion of French Indochina
In early 1940, after a few weeks in retreat to compose and put on paper oracles, prayers and teachings, Sổ launched a major campaign through the Mekong Delta. He recruited tens of thousands of converts to his movement who followed him around in his travels. His reputation grew immensely after a series of his predictions came true: the outbreak of World War II, the fall of France to Nazi Germany, and the Japanese invasion of French Indochina. His prediction of a Japanese invasion prompted many rice farmers to desert their farms "en masse" and flee to the hills. The French derided him as the "mad bonze". As his movement became politicised, it began to attract aspiring politicians, with the likes of Huynh Cong Bo, a prominent landowner, and its future military commanders, Trần Văn Soái and Lâm Thành Nguyên. Nguyen claimed that Sổ had cured him from illness.