Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [336]
In the confusion that marked the end of the Tran Dynasty, an ambitious court minister, Ho Qui Ly, usurped the throne in 1400. Though the Ho Dynasty lasted only seven years, its two progressive monarchs launched a number of important reforms. They tackled the problem of land shortages by restricting the size of holdings and then rented out the excess to landless peasants; the tax system was revised and paper money replaced coinage; ports were opened to foreign trade; and public health care introduced. Even the education system was broadened to include practical subjects along with the classic Confucian texts.
Just as the Ho were getting into their stride, so the new Ming Dynasty in China were beginning to look south again across the border. Under the pretext of restoring the Tran, Ming armies invaded in 1407 and imposed direct rule a few years later. This time, however, the Chinese occupation faced a much tougher problem as the Viet people were now a relatively cohesive force. The Chinese tried to undermine Viet culture by outlawing local customs and destroying Vietnamese literature, works of art and historical texts. Slowly, Vietnamese resistance gravitated towards the mountains of Thanh Hoa, south of Hanoi, where a local landlord and mandarin, Le Loi, was preparing for a war of national liberation. For ten years Le Loi’s well-disciplined guerrilla force harassed the enemy until he was finally able to defeat the Chinese army in open battle in 1427.
Le Loi, as King Le Thai To, founded the third of the great ruling families, the Later Le Dynasty, and set in train the reconstruction of Dai Viet, though he died after only five years on the throne. Initially the Le Dynasty reaped the economic rewards of its expanding empire, but eventually their new provinces spawned wealthy semi-autonomous rulers strong enough to challenge the throne. As the Le declined in the sixteenth century, two such powerful clans, the Nguyen and Trinh, at first supported the dynasty against rival contenders. Towards the end of the century, however, they became the effective rulers of Vietnam, splitting the country in two. The Trinh lords held sway in Hanoi and the north, while the Nguyen set up court at Hué; the Le, meanwhile, remained monarchs in name only.
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History | Independent Vietnam |
The Vietnamese dynasties
Ngo 939–65 AD
Dinh 968–80
Early Le 980–1009
Ly 1009–1225
Tran 1225–1400
Ho 1400–07
(Ming Chinese 1407–28)
Later Le 1428–1788
Tay Son 1788–1802
Nguyen 1802–1945
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History |
The arrival of the West
The first Western visitors to the Vietnamese peninsula were probably traders from ancient Rome who sailed into the ports of Champa in the second century AD. Marco Polo sailed up the coast in the thirteenth century on his way to China, but more significant was the arrival of a Portuguese merchant, Antonio Da Faria, at the port of Fai Fo (Hoi An) in 1535. The Portuguese established their own trading post at Fai Fo, then one of Southeast Asia’s greatest ports, crammed with vessels from China and Japan, and were soon followed by other European maritime powers. At this time Vietnam was breaking up into regional factions and the Europeans were quick to exploit growing tensions between the Nguyen and Trinh lords, providing weapons in exchange for trading concessions. However, when the civil war ended in 1674 the merchants lost their advantage. Gradually the English, Dutch and French closed down their trading posts until only the Portuguese remained in Fai Fo.
With the traders came missionaries. Portuguese Dominicans had been the first to arrive in the early sixteenth century, but it wasn’t until 1615, when Jesuits set up a small mission in Fai Fo, that the Catholic Church gained an established presence in Vietnam. The mission’s initial success in the Nguyen territory encouraged the Jesuits to look north. The man