Le Van Duyet, (born 1763, Quang Ngai province, Vietnam—died July 30, 1832, Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam]), Vietnamese military strategist and government official who served as a diplomatic liaison between Vietnam and France and defended Christian missionaries against the early Nguyen emperors.
From early youth, Duyet, who grew up in the Mekong River delta near My Tho, was attached to the Vietnamese court, first as a counselor to Prince Nguyen Anh, who became Emperor Gia Long, and later as an adviser to Emperor Minh Mang. Duyet accompanied Anh on military campaigns, and in 1801 he engineered a naval defeat of other contenders for the throne of Vietnam. Duyet’s military strategy, combined with Western armaments and techniques supplied by the French, enabled Anh to conquer all Vietnam and to ascend the throne in 1802. In 1813 Duyet was named viceroy of the southernmost portion of the kingdom of Vietnam and was given the title grand eunuch of the court of Hue. (Duyet had been a eunuch from birth.)
As Gia Long’s trusted adviser, Duyet often acted as intermediary between the emperor and the Europeans who visited Vietnam. He often interceded on behalf of European missionaries, because Gia Long was not sympathetic to their cause. Gia Long’s successor, Minh Mang, who made Duyet governor of Gia Dinh province (1820–32), was more outspoken in his dislike of all Westerners. When Minh Mang ordered the persecution of Roman Catholic missionaries, Duyet refused to apply the orders in the provinces he governed. In defense of the Christians, he wrote to the emperor, “We still have between our teeth the rice which the missionaries gave us when we were starving.” For a time, Minh Mang allowed the missionaries to continue their preaching.
When Duyet died, Minh Mang began his persecution in earnest, killing, imprisoning, or banishing missionaries from the kingdom and indicting Duyet posthumously. The emperor ordered Duyet’s grave desecrated and had a plaque placed over the ruins with the inscription “Here lies the eunuch who resisted the law.” During the reign of Thieu Tri (1841–47) the grave was restored and declared a national monument.