His supporters launched an attack on Saigon in March 1913, drinking potions that purportedly made them invisible and planting bombs at several locations.

Led by Tôn Thất Thuyết and Phan Đình Phùng—two high-ranking mandarins—Hàm Nghi's Cần Vương movement battled against French colonisation in the decade leading up to 1895.

[4] From then on, the French retained the monarchy of the Nguyễn dynasty, exiling any emperors who rose against colonial rule and replacing them with more cooperative relatives.

Cường Để was a direct descendant of Emperor Gia Long, who had established the Nguyễn dynasty and unified Vietnam in its modern state.

[4] His associates Hiep and Tri found an elderly man from Cholon, and presented the senior citizen to the populace as a "living Buddha".

[2] 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.

[4] 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.

[6] Long's strategy of proclaiming himself as a royal descendant 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.

Quickly gathering large numbers of disciples, they staged rebellions against Vietnamese imperial and French colonial armies alike.

[12][13] 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 Trương Định and Nguyễn Trung Trực.

[14][15] 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.

The village chieftain predicted that a new Vietnamese monarch would descend from the sky at Cholon in March 1913,[10] and that only the royalists would survive this miracle.

[18] Long's supporters presented them in the form of a royal edict on wooden blocks, declaring their intention to attack French military installations.

[17] 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.

[18] Long's supporters called on merchants to flee and convert their colonial bank notes into solid copper cash.

[18] 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.

[1][9] 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.

[2][10][17] 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.

[19]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.

[19] The prosecutor thought that Long's movement was affiliated with the Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội (VNQPH), an exiled monarchist organisation led by the leading anti-colonial activist Phan Bội Châu, and Cường Để.

[18] Cường Để had also secretly re-entered southern Vietnam and had been travelling through the countryside when Long's uprising was launched in March.

[24] 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.

[21] The French had anticipated the trouble, and police, whose presence had been increased along the waterways,[24] arrived quickly, dispersing Long's followers with ease.

[24] The French declared a state of emergency and continued their crackdown against Long's followers and other rebels,[6] making a further 1,660 arrests, which resulted in 261 incarcerations.

[9][24] Within a month, the French had passed laws to restrict travel between Vietnam and Cambodia of people who claimed to be monks, believing that many of them were disguised nationalists.

[16] 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 Đài politico-religious sect based in Tây Ninh.

[27] 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.

[28] During World War II, Huỳnh Phú Sổ 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 Viet Minh independence movement, before being killed by the latter.

[31] Phan Xich Long is a quickly developing street at the junction of Districts 1, Binh Thanh, and Phu Nhuan.