Gallery of the Nations
Vietnam
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Vietnam is located on the east side of the Indochinese Peninsula. The country is bordered on the north by China,
on the west by Laos and Cambodia and on the south and east by the South China Sea.
There are about 50 distinct ethnic groups in Vietnam, but the ethnic Vietnamese make up about 90 percent of the total
population. The second largest ethnic group is the Chinese, followed by the Khmer, Cham and others.
People began migrating to the area of present Vietnam from southern China
well before 1000 BC. They settled in the Red River Valley and practiced agriculture.
Sometime around 1000 BC, the ancient kingdom of Van Lang in the Red River Delta was conquered
by Thuc Phan, who founded a small Vietnamese kingdom called Au Lac. After the death of Chinese emperor, Shih
Huang Ti, who founded the Ch'in dynasty in 221 BC, one of the emperor's generals in the south, conquered Au
Lac and included it in his own kingdom, Nam Viet. In 111 BC, Chinese rulers of the Han Dynasty conquered Nam
Viet and began imposing Chinese culture on the Vietnamese. For about a thousand years Vietnam was ruled by
China with only brief periods of independence. Finally in 939 AD, with the
powers of the Chinese rulers in
decline, Vietnam, led by Ngo Quyen, defeated local Chinese rulers and asserted Vietnam's independence.
In 1010 AD the Ly dynasty was founded by Ly Thai To and the dynasty lasted 215 years. During this time,
Vietnam's military power grew. In 1225, the eight-year-old Ly empress was married to a member of the Tran
family and thus power was transferred to her new husband. The Tran dynasty extended the power of the
Vietnamese Kingdom (Dai Viet or Great Viet) southward.
The Vietnamese were also preoccupied in warding off invasion from the north. The Mongols had conquered China
in 1279 and established the Yuan Dynasty. Subsequently, they invaded Vietnam in an attempt to conquer and
incorporate the region into their Chinese empire. The Vietnamese army, led by General Tran Hung Dao,
successfully resisted the invasion and drove back the Mongols.
The Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China was overthrown in 1368. The new Chinese rulers established the Ming dynasty
and, in 1407, invaded and occupied Vietnam. Resistance to the new Chinese occupation started almost immediately.
The initial resistance was led by Tran Qui, but he could not keep unity among his troops and was defeated by the
Ming in 1413. Other Vietnamese patriots took up the fight in 1418. Under their leader, by Le Loi, the patriots
drove out the Ming Chinese in 1428 and Le Loi assumed the throne as emperor, thus establishing the Le dynasty in
Vietnam.
The presence of the Cham, a Malay-speaking people, whose Kingdom of Champa lay south of the Red River Valley,
limited Vietnam's southward expansion. Rivalry between the two kingdoms meant that several times Champa armies
invaded the Vietnamese capital. In 1471, king Lê Thánh Tông led a Vietnamese invasion of Champa and captured its
capital, Vijaya, near present-day Da Nang. The Vietnamese were thus able to colonize what is today central
Vietnam. The Vietnamese also occupied the lower Mekong Delta and threatened the Khmer kingdom of Angkor.
In 1527 General Mac Dang Dung deposed and killed the Le emperor and proclaimed himself ruler. Within two years
of the Mac dynasty, Nguyen Kim, an official of the Le dynasty, started a rebellion to restore the Le leadership.
He set-up a royal court in the southern Thanh Hóa area and installed Lê Trang Tông as king. Two royal courts thus
existed: the Mac Court in the north and the Le Court in the south. Nguyen Kim was assassinated in 1545 and
military power fell to his son-in-law, Trinh Kiem. In 1558 Nguyen Kim's son, Nguyen Hoàng, fearful for his life in
the Trink Kiem government requested and was granted the governorship of the wild southern provinces within the Le
Court realm. In 1592, the southern (Le) Court defeated the northern (Mac) Court and killed the Mac king. The
survivors among the Mac family escaped into the northern mountains until 1667 when they were finally conquered by
the Trinh.
After the defeat of the Mac, the real rulers of Vietnam were the Trinh generals and administrators. Trinh Tùng
was lord in the Le court. The Le king was merely a figurehead. In 1600 Nguyen Hoàng also declared himself lord in
the south and refused to acknowledge the power of the Trinh. When he died in 1613, his son and successor, Nguyen
Phúc Nguyên, continued to pledge allegiance to the Le King but also refused to acknowledge the power of the
Trinh.
When Trinh Tùng died in 1623, he was succeeded by his son, Trinh Tráng. In 1627 Tráng sent a 150,000 man strong
army to exact allegiance from Nguyen Phúc Nguyên in the south. But the campaign failed. Nguyên, who had acquired
cannons from Portuguese traders, was able to hold of the larger better organized army from the north. After 45
years of civil war, the Tranh and Nguyen sides agreed to a truce in 1672 and the country was effectively divided
into two.
For a hundred years afterwards, there was relative peace, but corruption ate deep into society. In 1771 the
Tây Son revolution, led by three brothers also called Nguyen (no relations to the Nguyen lords) broke out in
Nguyen controlled territory. By 1776, the Nguyen brothers had over-run all Nguyen lords' lands and killed most of
the Nguyen lords, except prince Nguyen Phúc Ánh who fled to Siam. The Tay Son also sacked the northern kingdom in
1786. The Trinh lord committed suicide and the last Le emperor fled to China. Nguyen Hu, the Tay Son commander
proclaimed himself emperor and took the name Quang Trung.
During Emperor Quang Trung's rule, the kingdom was actually divided into three. The emperor controlled the
north with his capital at Phú Xuân Hu?; Tay Son leader, Nguyen Nhoc controlled the center with capital at Qui
Nhon. The last surviving Nguyen lord and Le loyalist kept a stronghold in the south with center at Saigon.
After the death of Emperor Trung in 1792, the Tay Son dynasty became destabilized. This provided Nguyen Ánh an
opportunity, and he marched north in 1799 and captured Qui Nhon. In 1801 he took Phú Xuân. The final defeat of
the Tay Son came in 1802 with Nguyen Ánh's capture of Thang Long (Hanoi). Nguyen Ánh crowned himself Emperor Gia
Long.
A French Catholic missionary, Bishop Pigneau de Behaine, had helped Emperor Gia Long gain the throne. He had
organized a mercenary force that, in 1788, helped reorganize Nguyen Ánh's navy and defeat the Tay Son in Qui Nhon
in 1792. For their help, the French expected to be given trading and missionary privileges, but this was not
forthcoming. The Vietnamese were suspicious of the foreigners and treated the missionaries and their converts
harshly.
The French first attacked the Vietnamese port of Đà Nang in 1858. After a second attack on Saigon in 1857,
Emperor Tu Duc ceded parts of the Mekong Delta to the French in 1862. This became the French colony of Cochin
China. Between 1873 and 1885, the French managed to complete their pacification of all Vietnam and divided the
country into two protectorates named Tonkin and Annam. In 1887 the French established a third protectorate over
Cambodia and renamed all their possessions French Indochina. Laos was added to the union in 1893.
At the beginning of the 20th century the Vietnamese were aware that freedom from French domination may not come
from direct military confrontation. Other means had to be employed. Some people wanted to emulate Japan,
especially after that country's victory over Russia. Others wanted a peaceful transition to independence based on
mass education, modernization and understanding between France and Vietnam. As the French clamped down on the
advocates of these choices, the Vietnamese patriots became more radical.
In 1927, the Vietnamese Nationalist Party was founded. After an armed mutiny in 1930, the Party's leaders were
executed by the French . Three new Marxist parties emerged, the Indochinese Communist Party, the Annamese
Communist Party and the Indochinese Communist Union. In 1930 the Comintern or Communist International (USSR) sent
Ho Chi Minh to Hong Kong to coordinate the unification of the parties into the Vietnamese Communist Party. Ho Chi
Minh, who had been living in France since 1911, help to establish the French Communist Party and had gone to the
USSR in 1924 to join the Comintern.
During the Second World War Japan occupied Indochina. In 1941 Ho Chi Minh formed the Viet Minh Front, an
umbrella group to fight for Vietnamese independence. During WW II the Viet Minh collaborated with the United
States of America against Japan. The Viet Minh organized a successful revolt against the Japanese occupiers in
March 1945. Japan surrendered in August 1945 and the Viet Minh took control of Vietnam in the "August Revolution"
and on August 25, 1945, the emperor abdicated ending the Nguyen Dynasty.
On September 2, 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam an independent state and called it the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam (DRV). The French, reeling from the effects of WW II, were not in a position to respond to Ho Chi Minh.
Britain invaded Vietnam in October ostensibly to disarm the Japanese. But they fought against Vietnamese forces
and rearmed Japanese prisoners of war. The British soldiers were in Vietnam till June 1946. As they withdrew,
they were replaced by the French seeking to regain their former colony. The Viet Minh was victorious in the
Vietnamese National Assembly election of 1946 and set about drafting a new constitution immediately after.
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