The government of the Nguyễn dynasty, officially the Southern dynasty (Vietnamese: Nam Triều; chữ Hán: 南朝)[a] and commonly referred to as the Huế Court (Vietnamese: Triều đình Huế; chữ Hán: 朝廷化), centred around the emperor (皇帝, Hoàng Đế) as the absolute monarch, surrounded by various imperial agencies and ministries which stayed under the emperor's presidency.

[1] During World War II the Japanese launched a coup d'état ousting the French and establishing the Empire of Vietnam which was ruled by the Nguyễn government.

[4][3] The Minh Mạng Emperor's reforms transformed the Vietnamese bureaucracy from a military apparatus created under Gia Long associated with generals, under the direction of the Công Đồng (公同, "Council"), mainly through top-down orders into a highly centralised meritocratic system.

[5] At the same time, in the first year of coming to power, the Minh Mạng Emperor reorganised the bureaucracy of the imperial court by consolidating the different cabinets into the Văn thư phòng (文書房).

[9] In 1894, the court of the Thành Thái Emperor assigned Resident-Superior Léon Jules Pol Boulloche to take care of the management of the state's revenues, expenditures, taxes, etc.

[7] From this period onwards any imperial edicts issued by the emperors of Đại Nam had to be confirmed by the resident-superior of Annam giving him both legislative and executive power over the Nguyễn government.

[7] The resident-superior of Annam also took over the management of provincial mandarins and was a member of the Supreme Council (Conseil supérieur) of the Government-General of French Indochina.

[11][9] According to researcher Nguyễn Đắc Xuân, in 1907, the imperial court of the Nguyễn dynasty sent Cao Xuân Dục and Huỳnh Côn, the Thượng thư of the Hộ Bộ, to French Cochinchina to "hold a conference on education" (bàn nghị học chính) with the French authorities on the future of the Annamese education system.

[12] This meeting was also recorded in the work Hoàng Việt Giáp Tý niên biểu written by Nguyễn Bá Trác.

[3] While the Học Bộ was nominally a part of the Nguyễn dynasty's administrative apparatus, actual control was in the hands of the French Council for the Improvement of Indigenous Education in Annam (French: Conseil de Perfectionnement de l’Enseignement indigène en Annam; Vietnamese: Hội đồng Hoàn thiện giáo dục Bản xứ Trung Kỳ; Hán-Nôm: 會同完善教育本處中圻), which dictated its policies.

[4] All work done by the ministry was according to the plans and the command of the French Director of Education of Annam (監督學政中圻, Giám đốc Học chính Trung Kỳ).

[13] Among these reforms was an imperial edict signed on 8 April 1933 that reshuffled the cabinet, as the Bảo Đại Emperor decided to govern himself and ordained five new well-known ministers from the academic and administrative circles.

[13] Later the Bảo Đại Emperor also established the Ministry of Finance and Social Relief (Bộ Tài chính và Cứu tế Xã hội).

The Lục Bộ (Council of Six Ministries) was a collective term for six royal agencies that held ministerial and judicial functions, administering the kingdom.

The Vietnamese censorate comprised six lục khoa ("office of scrutiny"), each headed by an Cấp sự trung (senior supervising secretary) official.

During Gia Long's reign, they were Nguyễn Văn Thành (1758–1817)-the Viceroy of Tonkin from 1802 to 06, Lê Văn Duyệt (1763–1832)-the Viceroy of Saigon from 1812 to 32, Phạm_Đăng_Hưng [vi](1764–1825)-the minister of the Ministry of Rites, two Minh Hương Chinese Trịnh Hoài Đức (1765–1825) and Lê Quang Định (1759–1813) who held the minister position of the Ministry of Military, all formerly fought with Gia Long against the Taysons.

[29] For example, Trương Đăng Quế, originally was the minister of the Ministry of Military, earned the position of regent and Văn Minh đại học sĩ (second-highest rank in the Confucian hierarchy) in 1841 at the time when emperor Thieu Tri ascending the throne and became more powerful.

[30] He attained more power after had successfully installed conservative emperor Tu Duc to the crown in 1847, obtained the title đại học sĩ (highest rank in the Confucian hierarchy), quận công (highest noble title of all Vietnam), virtually became the dictator of Vietnam during the early years of Tu Duc.

Each province had a series of smaller jurisdictions: the prefecture (phủ), the subprefecture (châu, in areas whereas having a significant population of ethnic minorities).

[36] Frequently, there were twelve governor-generals and eleven governors, although, in some periods, the emperor would appoint a "commissioner in charge of patrolled borderlands" (kinh lược sứ) that supervising entire northern of the southern part of the empire.