only given him direct authority over the northern and central regions of Vietnam. When France had finished its conquest of Vietnam in 1885, only southern Vietnam was made a direct colony under the name of Cochinchina. The northern and central regions were designated as protectorates as Tonkin and Annam. When the Empire of Vietnam was proclaimed, the Japanese retained direct control of Cochinchina, in the same way as their French predecessors. Thuận Hóa, the pre-colonial name for Huế, was restored. Kim's officials worked to find a French substitute for the word "Annamite", which was used to denote Vietnamese people and their characteristics as described in French literature and official use. "Annamite" was considered derogatory, and it was replaced with "Vietnamien" (Vietnamese). Apart from Thuận Hóa, these terms have been internationally accepted since Kim ordered the changes. Given that the French colonial authorities emphatically distinguished the three regions of "Tonkin", "Annam", and "Cochinchina" as separate entities, implying a lack of national culture or political integration, Kim's first acts were seen as symbolic and the end of generations of frustration among Vietnamese intelligentsia and revolutionaries. On 12 June 1945, Kim selected a new national flag—a yellow, rectangular banner with four horizontal red stripes modeled after the quẻ Ly (☲, one of bagua) in the Book of Changes—and a new national anthem, the old hymn Đăng đàn cung (The King Mounts His Throne). This decision ended three months of speculation concerning a new flag for Vietnam. Educational reform Kim's government strongly emphasised educational reform, focusing on the development of technical training, particularly the use of Vietnamese alphabet (chữ Quốc Ngữ) as the primary language of instruction. After less than two months in power, Kim organized the first primary examinations in Vietnamese, the language he intended to use in the advanced tests. Education minister Hoàng Xuân Hãn strove to Vietnamise public secondary education. His reforms took more than four months to achieve their results, and have been regarded as a stepping stone for the successor Viet Minh government's launch of compulsory mass education. In July, when the Japanese decided to grant Vietnam full independence and territorial unification, Kim's government was about to begin a new round of reform, by naming a committee to create a new national education system. Judicial reform The Justice minister Trịnh Đình Thảo launched an attempt at judicial reform. In May 1945, he created the Committee for the Reform and