Economy of the Nguyễn dynasty until 1884

Landless peasantry tenants (tá điền) had to lend the landlord's farms and work on their fields as labours.

[3] Dikes and canals were rebuilt and checked every year to protect the crops from Vietnam's extremely harsh climates, with constant floods and typhoons that could destroy them.

Beside the main crops rice, sweet potatoes, vegetables and beans,[4] Vietnamese agricultural products were considerable abundant: salt, sugar, tea, silks, cotton, tobaccos, poultry, meat, fishes, bird nests, and various spices.

[9] By the late of the century, Đồn điền (military settlement) in the highlands were transformed into coffee and rubber plantations by French investors.

[14] From 1802 to 1858, over 124 mines of gold, silver, copper, zinc, iron, lead, sulfur, and coal in northern Vietnam were operated.

[15][16][17] The handicraft industry on the other hand was mostly dominated by families, but there were also free workers such as carpenters and bricklayers, which organized into a small company or factory, manufactured porcelains, glasses, metal items domestically.

[18] 19th-century Vietnamese labour forces were never thrived to the phase of industrialization, due to the harsh constraining of the court, low productivity, the strong-affected aspects of traditional village agricultural economy, and the difficulty in competing with ethnic Chinese owned-companies who dominated Vietnamese commerce.

[21] Ships were the backbone of the Vietnamese economy, goods had to be transported by sea and river rather than land routes due to the country's terrain disadvantage.

[25] Chinese merchants who belonged to the thanh nhan (Qingmen) class thus sold Vietnamese rice and smuggled opium back to Vietnam.

[30] The decrease of the latter value was caused by the French seizure of the lower Mekong, failed crops, and rapid population growth.

[34][35] According to Mongolian-born Australian historian Li Tana, 19th-century Vietnamese commerce by the time of the French conquest, had been linking with the global economy.