Phan Xich Long Phan Xích Long , also known as Hồng Long , born Phan Phát Sanh ( 1893 – 1916 ) , was a 20th - century Vietnamese mystic and geomancer who claimed to be the Emperor of Vietnam . He attempted to exploit religion as a cover for his own political ambitions , having started his own ostensibly religious organisation . Claiming to be a descendant of Emperor Ham Nghi , Long staged a ceremony to crown himself , before trying to seize power in 1913 by launching an armed uprising against the colonial rule of French Indochina . His supporters launched an attack on Saigon in March 1913 , drinking potion s that purportedly made them invisible and planting bombs at several locations . The insurrection against the French colonial administration failed when none of the bombs detonated and the supposedly invisible supporters were apprehended . The French authorities imprisoned Long and many of his supporters , who openly admitted their aim of overthrowing French authorities at the trial . During the 1916 Cochinchina uprising s against French rule , many of Long ' s supporters attempted to break him out of jail . The French easily repelled the attack on the jail , decimating Long ' s movement . Following the attempted breakout , Long and his key supporters were put to death . Many of the remnants of his support base went on to join what later became the Cao Dai , a major religious sect in Vietnam . Early career . Long was born in 1893 in southern Vietnam as Phan Phát Sanh . His place of birth is disputed ; the historians R . B . Smith and Hue - Tam Ho Tai say that he was from Cholon , the Chinese business district of Saigon , while Oscar Chapuis records Tan An as his place of birth . Sanh ' s father was a police officer . and it has been speculated that the family were of Chinese descent . He started as a servant in a French family , before travelling to the That Son ( " Seven Mountains " ) region in the far south of Vietnam , a region that was known as a hotbed of mysticism . There Long trained in mysticism . As a youth , Sanh travelled from Vietnam to Siam , earning his living as a fortune - teller and geomancer . In mid - 1911 , Sanh formed a secret society on the unverified pretense that he was a descendant of Ham Nghi , the boy emperor of the 1880s . Led by Ton That Thuyet and Phan Dinh Phung — two high - ranking mandarins — Ham Nghi ' s Can Vuong movement battled against French colonisation in the decade leading up to 1895 . Their objective was to expel the French authorities and establish Ham Nghi as the emperor of an independent Vietnam . This failed , and the French exiled the boy emperor to Algeria , replacing him with his brother Dong Khanh . From then on , the French retained the monarchy of the Nguyen Dynasty , exiling any emperors who rose against colonial rule and replacing them with more cooperative relatives . Sanh also claimed descent from the Le Dynasty , which ruled Vietnam in the 15th and 16th centuries . He was a strong warrior , further presenting himself as the founder of China ' s Ming Dynasty . At the time of Sanh ' s activities in the 1910s , there were two members of the Nguyen Dynasty who commanded respect among Vietnamese monarchists . The first was the boy emperor Duy Tan , who was himself deported in 1916 after staging an uprising . Duy Tan ' s grandfather , Emperor Duc Duc , was the adopted son of the childless Emperor Tu Duc , the last independent emperor of Vietnam . The second figure who was seen by Vietnamese as a possible leader of an independent monarchy was Prince Cuong De . Cuong De was a direct descendant of Emperor Gia Long , who had established the Nguyen Dynasty and unified Vietnam in its modern state . Cuong De was a prominent anti - colonial activist who lived in exile in Japan . Sanh ' s two main assistants were Nguyen Huu Tri and Nguyen Van Hiep , whom he met at Tan Chau in Chau Doc Province ( now in An Giang Province ) . The trio agreed to plot an uprising against the French under the cover of a religious sect . The genesis of their cooperation is unclear , but it may have started before mid - 1911 . Tri and Hiep were said to have been in awe when Sanh produced a golden plaque that read " heir to the throne " . The men agreed that the geographical foci of their movement would be in Cholon and Tan An in Vietnam and Kampot in Cambodia . The trio decided to model their actions on an uprising that had occurred in Kampot in 1909 . On that occasion , a group of Cambodians of Chinese descent had marched into the town wearing white robes , claiming to be followers of a Battambang - based Cambodian prince who would overthrow French rule and lead them to independence . After the formation of the sect , Sanh temporarily moved abroad , spending time in Siam and Cambodia . During this time , he learned sorcery and magic , supplementing his mystical training with a military education . He learned pyrotechnics for the purpose of making fireworks and bombs . Coronation . Sanh returned to southern Vietnam , and began dressing as a Buddhist monk . He travelled through the six provinces of the Mekong River Delta region . His associates Hiep and Tri found an elderly man from Cholon in Saigon , and presented the senior citizen to the populace as a " living Buddha " . After some local elders objected to their activities , they moved to the centre of Cholon . The old man took up residence with Sanh , and peasants and tradespeople soon began flocking to their makeshift temple , located in a house in Cholon ' s Thuan Kieu Street . As their temple was located in a prominent commercial area , the group began to collect more funds . The donors made offerings of gold and silver , with some individual donations being worth as much as 1 , 500 piastres . When the " living Buddha " unexpectedly died in February 1912 , he was interred in the family shrine of a notable follower . Sanh ' s strategists declared that before the old man had died , he named Sanh as the rightful Emperor of Vietnam . In the meantime , the old man ' s remains became the object of veneration , providing further cover for political plotting and fundraising when visitors came to pay their respects . After the completion of the funeral rites , Sanh and his followers staged an impromptu coronation ceremony at Battambang in October 1912 . Sanh took on the name Phan Xích Long and was also known as Hồng Long , both of which mean " red dragon " . Vast crowds of locals began flocking to pay homage to Long , vowing to contribute labour and finance in an effort to expel the French from Vietnam and install Long as the independent monarch . By this time , Long was claiming to have received a letter from Cuong De , which supposedly confirmed his royal descent . Long ' s followers spared no expense in decorating Long with royal accoutrements . They made a medallion inscribed " Phan Xích Long Hòang Đế " ( ) and a royal seal with a dragon ' s head with the words " Đại Minh Quốc , Phan Xích Long Hòang Đế , Thiên tử " ( " Greater Ming State , Emperor Phan Xich Long , Son of Heaven " ) . The words " Đại Minh " were interpreted as either having arbitrarily been copied from local Chinese Vietnamese secret society slogans , or as a strategic ploy to invoke the names of the Ming Dynasty to appeal to the Chinese who had emigrated to Vietnam after the fall of the Ming . Long ' s supporters produced a sword with the inscription " Tiên đả hôn quân , hậu đả loạn thần " ( " First strike the debauched king , next the traitorous officials " ) and a ring inscribed " Dân Công " ( " Popular Tribute " ) . From then on , Long presented himself as the emperor and signed documents under the royal title . Long ' s strategy of proclaiming himself as a royal descendent or claiming to have supernatural powers in order to rally support for political ends was not new ; it has been repeatedly used throughout Vietnamese history . In 1516 , a man calling himself Tran Cao rebelled against the Le Dynasty , claiming to be a descendant of the deposed Tran Dynasty and a reincarnation of Indra . During the 19th century , there was a Buddhist revival and many people masqueraded as monks claiming to have supernatural powers . These false monks were frequently able to start new religious movements and secret societies based on millenarianism . Quickly gathering large numbers of disciples , they staged rebellions against Vietnamese imperial and French colonial armies alike . However , these uprisings were typically incoherent and caused minimal disruption to the ruling authorities . On the other hand , the French were often troubled by resistance movements in southern Vietnam that were led by more conventionally motivated nationalist militants , such as the guerrilla outfits of Truong Dinh and Nguyen Trung Truc . 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 . Failed uprising . On March 22 , the French arrested Long in the coastal town of Phan Thiet , some 160 kilometres to the east of Saigon . His activities and proclamations had attracted the attention of French colonial officials , and just days before , the Resident of Kampot visited the Battambang temple and spotted the collection of white robes , which were similarly styled to the uniforms worn during the 1909 uprising . However , Long ' s disciples were unaware that he had been arrested and continued with their plot . After nightfall on March 23 , the bombs were taken into Saigon and placed at strategic points , with proclamation notices being erected in close proximity . None of the bombs successfully detonated . One source says that the bombs failed because the French authorities had defused all of them after uncovering the conspiracy . On March 28 , the second phase of the operation started when several hundred rebels marched into Saigon dressed all in white , armed with only sticks and spears . Before the march , they had ingested potions that purportedly made them invisible . However , the French military were able to capture more than 80 of the supposedly invisible rebels during demonstrations against French rule . The police raided the homes of several people who were known to be involved with Long ' s plot , resulting in more arrests . They captured most of Long ' s main supporters , rendering the organisation impotent . However , Tri managed to escape . Trial and imprisonment . Those involved were taken before a tribunal in November 1913 , where the leaders freely stated their intentions of overthrowing the French colonial regime . Of the 111 people arrested , the tribunal convicted 104 , of whom 63 received prison sentences . During the trial , some community leaders wrote to the Governor - General of Indochina , blaming French oppression of the populace through corvee labour and the confiscation of land , for the discontent that led to the uprising . The prosecutor also criticised the way in which colonial authorities operated . Ernest Outrey , the French Governor of Cochinchina , the southern region of Vietnam , was known for his support of colonial enterprise and rigid rule of the colony . He was unmoved by claims that the uprising had been fuelled by a sense of injustice . He said The governor went on to excoriate the French press for their criticism of colonial policy , claiming that they boosted the morale of anti - colonial activists . The prosecutor thought that because Long ' s movement was affiliated with the Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi ( VNQPH ) , an exiled monarchist organisation led by the leading anti - colonial activist Phan Boi Chau , and Cuong De . The suspicion was based on the fact that the VNQPH had printed their own currency and circulated them into Vietnam at the same time that Long ' s monetary policy had led to a depreciation . Cuong De had also secretly re - entered southern Vietnam and had been travelling through the countryside when Long ' s uprising was launched in March . The prosecutor claimed that activists from northern and central Vietnam , the main source of the VNQPH ' s followers , were behind the plot . The defendants denied this , asserting that most of the participants were " illiterate peasants " , while the VNQPH were dominated by members of the scholar - gentry . The French intended to deport Long to French Guiana , but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 interrupted their plans . As a result , Long remained in Saigon Central Prison , serving his life sentence with hard labour . The French were unaware that Long was still in contact with his supporters . Attempted jailbreak and execution . Over time , resentment against French rule rose again , due to World War I . The colonial authorities had forced each village to send a quota of men to serve on the Western Front . In Vietnam , rumours circulated , claiming that France was close to defeat . Believing that the colonial hold had been weakened by the strain of war in Europe , Vietnamese nationalists were buoyed . In February 1916 , uprisings broke out in southern Vietnam , with rebels demanding the restoration of an independent monarchy . One of their many objectives was to secure Long ' s release by breaking down Saigon prison , and this was the most noted incident during the tumult . Attacks on prisons were not uncommon in French Indochina , as rebels often viewed the prisoners as a source of reinforcements . Georges Coulet , regarded as French Indochina ' s leading scholar on anti - French religious movements , said that " The attack on Saigon Central Prison was not simply an attempt to release the pseudo - Emperor , Phan Xich Long , but was intended to deliver all prisoners " . Before daybreak on February 15 , 1916 , between 100 and 300 Vietnamese wearing white headbands , white trousers and black tops , armed with sticks , farm implements and knives , sailed along the Arroyo Chinoise waterway and disembarked near the centre of Saigon . They had pretended to be working the transport industry , delivering fruit , vegetables and building materials . The plan was that this advance party would give signals to a larger party of rebels , who were waiting on the outskirts of Saigon with the majority of the weapons , to move into the city for the main part of the uprising . The advance party then attempted to proceed to the Central Prison to forcibly release Long , shouting " Let ' s free big Brother [ Long ] " . Long had provided his followers with a detailed strategy from his prison cell , and the attack was led by a Cholon gang leader named Nguyen Van Truoc ( also known as Tu Mat ) with Tri ' s assistance . Truoc was the leader of a powerful underworld gang that was linked to the Heaven and Earth Society . The French had anticipated the trouble , and police , whose presence had been increased along the waterways , arrived quickly , dispersing Long ' s followers with ease . Although some of the disciples reached the prison , none managed to breach its defenses . Ten of Long ' s men were killed , whereas only one sentry perished . The French arrested 65 rebels on the spot , including Tri . Of these , 38 were sentenced to death . Long was sentenced to death for his participation in the uprising , and he was executed on February 22 , 1916 . The French Governor - General of Indochina wrote to the French Minister of Colonies , describing the incident as " a serious attempt to put in execution a vast plot that has been prepared carefully and for a long time by a secret society which grouped together with professional bandits all the enemies of our domination " . The colonial authorities commissioned the publication of poems , which praised French rule and warned the populace against insurrections . Similar events occurred across southern Vietnam , and in one case in Ben Tre , another self - proclaimed mystic launched an uprising that was similar to Long ' s 1913 effort . In all , riots or uprisings broke out in 13 of the 20 provinces of Cochinchina . The French declared a state of emergency and continued their crackdown against Long ' s followers and other rebels , making a further 1 , 660 arrests , which resulted in 261 incarcerations . Aftermath and legacy . The damage inflicted on Long ' s organisation led many of his followers to disperse and join a group that has now developed into the Cao Dai politico - religious sect based in Tay Ninh . Nevertheless , Long ' s uprising was significant because of its abnormal roots . It was the first uprising led by a self - styled religious leader whose support base came about due to man - made discontent . Prior to Long , peasant uprisings with religious themes had always been preceded by floods , outbreaks of disease , famine , crop failure or other natural phenomena , as sections of the rural populace attributed such disasters to the wrath of the heavens and sought help from leaders who purported to have supernatural powers . Long ' s demise did not end the sequence of self - proclaimed mystics who raised armies and engaged in politics . During the interwar period , a sorcerer named Chem Keo claimed to be Long ' s reincarnation . During World War II , Huynh Phu So claimed to be a living Buddha and quickly gathered more than a million supporters . He raised a large peasant army and battled both the French and the communist Vietminh independence movement , before being killed by the latter . In another case in 1939 , a Taoist attempted to demonstrate that he was immune to French bullets . Furthermore , in the years immediately after World War II , the Cao Dai ' s numbers swelled to 1 . 5 million .