Cần Vương movement
The Cần Vương movement was aimed at the French, but although there were more than 35,000 French soldiers in Tonkin and thousands more in the French colony of Cochinchina, the French had only a few hundred soldiers in Annam, dispersed around the citadels of Huế, Thuận An, Vinh and Qui Nhơn. With hardly any French troops to attack, the insurgents directed their anger instead against Vietnamese Christians, long regarded as potential allies of the French. Although the numbers remain disputed, it seems likely that between the end of July and the end of September 1885 Cần Vương fighters killed around 40,000 Vietnamese Christians, wiping out nearly a third of Vietnam's Christian population. The two worst massacres took place in the towns of Quảng Ngãi and Bình Định, both south of Huế, in which some 24,000 men, women and children, from a total Christian population of 40,000 were killed. A further 7,500 Christians were killed in Quảng Trị province. In other provinces the number of victims was considerably lower. In many areas the Christians fought back under the leadership of French and Spanish priests, in response to a call from their bishops to defend themselves with every means at their disposal. Outnumbered and on the defensive, the Christians were nevertheless able to inflict a number of local defeats on Cần Vương formations.