Relations with Cambodia

When Nguyen Phuc Tan died in 1687, his 39-year-old second son, Nguyen Phuc Tran, came to power and shifted the seat of government to Phu Xuan, the modern city of Hue. Nguyen Phuc Tran’s elder brother, Nguyen Phuc Tan’s designated heir, had died three years before. Nguyen Phuc Tran’s short four-year rule shows him to have been an uninspiring leader and a poor judge of character. No sooner had he assumed command than the far south began to slip out of his control, and the people he sent to deal with it were famous failures.

Nguyen Phuc Tan had left a situation on the southern frontier that was unstable but full of promise. The two kings of Cambodia, the “first king” Chei Chéttha III and the “second king” Ang Nan, had been in a more or less continual state of war since the 1670s, with Siamese troops intervening on behalf of Chei Chéttha III and Vietnamese troops intervening on behalf of Ang Nan. Cambodia was partitioned between the two Khmer princes with Ang Nan’s territories generally coinciding with the parts of the country that would eventually become Vietnamese.