long advocated the expedition. The missionaries wanted the French administration to facilitate their work converting the Vietnamese to Roman Catholicism, while military and business figures saw commercial opportunities in Vietnam. Napoleon's motivations were primarily imperial, strategic and commercial, but he found it convenient to cite "freedom of religion" as his justification for taking action. The Nguyễn Dynasty was Confucianist and had restricted the activity of missionaries. The belief system of Christianity was incompatible with the Confucian belief that the monarch was the "son of heaven". In response to the razing of the Citadel of Saigon, Định organised his local levies into a guerrilla force that initially numbered between 500 and 1000 men, operating out of Thuan Kieu. They were armed with bladed spears, fire lances, knives, sabres, bamboo sticks and swords, trained and on call as necessary. As a local notable who was respected for his leadership and military ability, Định naturally assumed a lead role in the partisan movement that responded to Tự Đức's appeals for popular resistance against European aggression. In the initial phase of the conflict, the local militias concentrated on evacuating the populace from areas that had been taken over by the French, while urging those who chose to stay to not cooperate with the Europeans. Snipers were deployed into French areas to assassinate isolated soldiers. In 1861, Định moved his men to Tân Hòa sub-prefecture in the Gò Công area. Tan Hoa was an ideal location for a resistance base. It was close to newly formed resistance groups led by Nguyễn Trung Trực, Tran Xuan Hoa and others in the Gò Công and Mỹ Tho area, yet was also close to Saigon. In February, the French attacked the citadel of Ky Hoa, seizing the fort after two days, along with a large quantity of weapons, artillery and food supplies. Having fought at Ky Hoa, Định incorporated soldiers from the defeated imperial army into his ranks, because its commander Vo Duy Ninh had committed suicide. In May 1861, Admiral Léonard Charner ordered the dissolution of the đồn điền of Gò Công. He went about confiscating the land of those Vietnamese who remained loyal to the monarchy, giving it to his collaborators. French impositions against the trade of rice via nearby waterways caused a further backlash from the locals of Gò Công. In 1861, the resistance leaders in the Gò Công area delegated Định to travel to