Celebrity Nguyen Cong Tru: Life and career

The workshop on the famous person Nguyen Cong Tru, jointly organized by the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (VNU) and the People's Committee of Ha Tinh province, took place on December 19, 2008 in Ha Tinh province. More than 40 reports were presented on two main topics: Famous person Nguyen Cong Tru: historical and contemporary imprints and Famous person Nguyen Cong Tru - great cultural figure.

Nguyen Cong Tru (1778-1858), whose given name was Ton Chat, and whose pen name was Ngo Trai and Hi Van, was born into a Confucian family in Uy Vien village, Nghi Xuan district, Ha Tinh. From a young age, Nguyen Cong Tru showed an unusually intelligent disposition. In the second year of Gia Long (1803), on the occasion of the King's Northern tour, Nguyen Cong Tru took the lead in presenting the "Ten Books of Thai Binh". In the 18th year of Gia Long (1819), Nguyen Cong Tru passed the Nghe examinations, then held a probationary position at the National History Institute when he was 42 years old. During his nearly 30 years as an official, Nguyen Cong Tru spent about 25 years as a mandarin (a governing official), the highest being the position of Minister of Justice, the position of Governor General, and then for a few months (at the age of 66) he was stripped of all titles and ranks and demoted to a private soldier. As a Confucian general, Nguyen Cong Tru was probably the one with the longest military career, participating in many battles and campaigns in all regions of the country, in all areas, confronting all kinds of opponents and bringing back the most military achievements. Not only was he an official in the court, an official in the capital, in cultural places, he also held many positions and fought in border areas, mountainous areas, river areas, plains, offshore, on islands, and even overseas. He was also a good economist in the field of land reclamation, an architect of irrigation, land reclamation, and encroachment on the coastal areas of the North, opening up a source of life for the poor.

[img class="caption" src="images/stories/2008/12/26/p1120195.jpg" border="0" alt="Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khanh - Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - speaking at the conference" title="Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Khanh - Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - speaking at the conference" width="280" height="188" align="left" ]

For nearly 30 years as an official, sometimes promoted and sometimes demoted, Nguyen Cong Tru was always a loyal mandarin of the Nguyen Dynasty, a citizen of the Vietnamese land, devoting all his intelligence and enthusiasm to contributing with the Nguyen Dynasty to build a new society. He was proclaimed the title of Uy Vien Tuong Cong by the court, and was revered by the people as a heroic and heroic man, a talented and outstanding man, both literary and martial, with a good record wherever he served as an official, with a liberal and unpretentious disposition.

The reports presented at this conference are a collection of very rich and quite comprehensive documents about Nguyen Cong Tru in many positions and titles: a military strategist, a talented economist with the idea of ​​reforming the country, a talented land reclamation worker, an intellectual with many ideas of educational reform, a patriotic ruler who loves his people, a great thinker and culturalist, a unique personality, a great personality in the history of Vietnam in the first half of the 19th century. Because of the rare diversity and richness in the life and career of Nguyen Cong Tru, the reports all try to provide the most specific evidence and documents, associated with each specific period in his life, in the specific places where he took office or worked, thereby most accurately assessing his contributions and influence in many fields, in many localities in particular and on the Nguyen Dynasty in general. The presentations contributed to highlighting the image, spirit and character of Nguyen Cong Tru as a person - a celebrity - converging the historical and cultural characteristics of a period but also a creative individual with great thoughts, aspirations, passion and ambition. It is also a life that many people in the past and present yearn for and admire. Above all, with a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research approach following the motto "reviewing the past and showing gratitude", the discussions at the workshop gave objective and comprehensive assessments of a person whose values ​​from the heritage and historical lessons of Nguyen Cong Tru's period as well as his life still contain many meanings for the innovation journey of Vietnamese society, country and people today.