Some notes on Vietnamese history

Before the French colonized it, most of Vietnam, except in the far north, wasn’t a country as much as a series of ports, with surrounding culturally-associated rice-growing areas, and not far beyond, peoples of other cultures and unrelated languages, people who usually also grew and ate rice.
Countries, with borders, citizenship, international travel restrictions and patriotism, as opposed to city-states and empires, started to become a norm less than 250 years ago, as oligarchy began to supersede monarchy. Many old ethnic distinctions merged into new ones, like Mexican, Thai, Russian, Indonesian, or French. It’s claimed that 85.7% of the Vietnamese population is Viet (Kinh), Cham, Funanese, Tran Ninh, Chinese or other roots forgotten or simply submerged into the distant past. Was Hitler Bavarian or Austrian? Who cares? What is interesting is a pattern of behavior involving extensive acceptance of self-deceit. When the US tried to “protect” whatever in South Vietnam while Ho Chi Minh tried to liberate it, no-one much wanted to remember that a century before it had been “Cochin China” and far more closely affiliated with Cambodia than with Hanoi. But hey, right now Scots are British; in a few years that may well no longer be so.
In the 2nd Century, when we begin to have historical documentation for the area, the coastal north, middle and south of what is now a country were relatively unrelated, having different roots, while just inland lived tribal peoples. These became known under the French as Montagnards, over 30 tribes that became confused as a single entity, as happened with the Kachin, or Jingpo, of northernmost Burma/Myanmar (Lisu, Lachik, Anung (Rawang), Zaiwa, Zauzou, Nusu, Anung, Derung/Taron and others), or the “Sioux” of the northern US Great Plains (Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Blackfoot/Siksiká, Assiniboine, Mdewakanton, Sisseton, Teton, Wahpekute, Wahpeton, Yankton, Yanktonai and etc). The main tribes, vaguely in order of population, are the Jarai (Gia Rai), Rade, Bahnar, Koho, Mnong, Katuic , Stieng, and K’Ho. Many were originally inhabitants of coastal areas, driven inland by invading peoples beginning prior to the 9th century. Others are what we call indigenous, having arrived to the area they reside in now before records were kept.
What we now know as Vietnam combines Chenla, Champa, part of Funan, Annam (prior to 1945 sometimes used for the whole country, but now the central region and long ago, between 679–939, the southernmost province of Imperial China – an area now part of northern Vietnam) and the northern Tonkin and Red River estuary heartland of the Viet people.
Most countries amalgamate various peoples and cultures – most especially those that were colonies, or had borders demarcated by non-natives (Britain, remember, was a colony of Rome, and later, much later if you want to see it that way, drew borders for others with little, if any, consideration for actual facts on the ground, especially for Iraq, but if you look at how international borders have changed over time, you may well notice extensive lack or logic or concern for the hoi-palloi (or less pretentiously, common people, you know, unremarkable folk like you and me).

Twenty years ago I had been asked to teach Thai Social Studies at what was called the “best high-school in the north” (or Thailand). I found the local history fascinating, and eventually wrote about it and posted that on the web. Someone impressed with what I’d done wrote to say that he wanted to do the same for the Isaan (northeast) area of Thailand. I knew that that wouldn’t be possible, as sufficient records for anything good simply aren’t to be found.
I long considered the case to be similar with Vietnam, as it is with Laos. Then suddenly, I just decided that there were lots of interesting things to say about it. As with much of history, there is variation between tellers, but there are also things which I feel can be established for any intelligent audience, despite being almost entirely neglected by historians.

Vietnam’s historical records date to the mid-to-late 3rd century BCE, when Âu Lạc and Nanyue (Nam Việt in Vietnamese) were established. Since the late 3rd millennium BCE northern Vietnam was populated by farming communities, most likely of people from the original centers of rice and millet domestication in the Yangzi and Yellow River valleys. The Red River valley formed a natural geographic and economic unit, bounded to the north and west by mountains and jungles, to the east by sea and to the south by the Red River Delta.
Vietnam’s geography made it difficult to attack; but once taken, foreign rule proved difficult to escape. In 111 BCE Chinese Emperor Wu Di’s armies incorporated Nam Viet into the Han empire. The Chinese wanted to extend their control over the fertile Red River Delta, especially to serve as a convenient supply point for Han ships engaged in the growing maritime trade with India and Indonesia. For a century or so, Vietnam was governed leniently; the Lac lords maintained their feudal offices. In the first century CE, however, China raised taxes and instituted marriage reforms aimed at turning Vietnam into a patriarchal society more amenable to political authority. Rebellions ensued, but for 1,000 years, the northern part of what is now Vietnam was successively governed by a series of Chinese dynasties. There were many uprisings; at periods Vietnam was self- governed (under the Triệus, Trưng Sisters, Early Lýs, Khúcs and Dương Đình Nghệ), but local rulers failed to hang on long. When the T’ang Dynasty fell on 907, China lost control over southern provinces. An indigenous chief, Khuc Thua Du, became governor of Tongkin then led a successful independence movement, but in 937 was assassinated by one of his officers who favored the Chinese. Ngo Quyen decisively defeated the Chinese the next year and formed Đại Việt (Great Viet), an independent kingdom of Tongkin and the three northernmost provinces of Annam (Thanh-hoa, Ngho-an and Ha-tinh).
Meanwhile, independent civilizations flourished in the central and southern regions, particularly the Funanese and Cham. These territories of modern central and southern Vietnam, originally not Vietnamese, were conquered between the 14th and 18th centuries. The indigenous people there had culture quite distinct from the ancient Red River Vietnamese. The ancient Sa Huỳnh culture of present-day central Vietnam, predecessors of the Cham people, left may relics - iron and glass decorative items, semi-precious and precious stones, and stone carvings. The Austronesian Cham people, who for over 1000 years from around the 2nd century CE, occupied central and southern coastal Vietnam. The southernmost sector of modern Vietnam, the Mekong Delta and its surroundings was until the 18th century an integral Khmer principality, like Funan and Chenla.
Funan, with capitol at Vyadhapura “the city of hunters” in present Prei Veng Province, Cambodia, 120 miles from the sea, had extensive irrigation and drainage systems. A large population for the time) lived in lake cities (towns); Chinese visitors mentioned “sailing across Funan” in their ocean-going ships. The Funanese were Malay, sea-traders with strong connection to India and even Persia. A Chinese mission brought K'ang T’ai, who wrote of walled cities with ugly, black, frizzy-haired naked and simple people given to theft who practiced simple agriculture, meanwhile telling of their silver eating utensils, how they paid taxes in gold, silver, pearls and perfumes, and had books with an Indian script.
Chenla, on the Mekong delta at Strung Treng, may like Funan have hosted Persian traders.
Champa, a coastal community centered at Hue’, appears in history about 192 CE, but that name doesn’t occur for another 400 years. It had far less influence from India than Funan.
The classic core population, the Lạc Việt of the Red River basin, are predominantly descendants of agricultural communities of the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys in southern and central China; they appear to have arrived in Indochina around 2000 years BCE. Statehood was developed in the Red River Delta by the second half of 1st millennium BCE.

In 207 BC, Chinese Qin warlord Triệu Đà (pinyin: Zhao Tuo) established an independent kingdom in the present-day Guangdong/Guangxi area at China's southern coast. He proclaimed his new kingdom as Nam Việt (pinyin: Nanyue), to be ruled by the Triệu dynasty. Trieu Da appointed himself a commandant of central Guangdong, closed the borders, conquered neighboring districts and titled himself “King of Nam Viet” - in 179 BCE, he defeated King An Dương Vương and annexed Âu Lạc. This period is controversial among Vietnamese historians, as some consider Trieu’s rule as the starting point of Chinese domination. Others consider it an era of Vietnamese independence as the Triệu family in Nam Việt were assimilated into local culture. They ruled independently of the Han Empire. At one point, Triệu Đà even declared himself Emperor, equal to the Han Emperor in the north.

About 2,000 years ago people in North Vietnam began growing rice in the Red River Valley. To irrigate their crops they built dikes and dug canals. The fields were called Lac fields, and Lac, mentioned in Chinese annals, is the earliest recorded name for the Vietnamese people. Besides cultivating rice, the people of Van Lang grew other grains and beans and raised stock, mainly buffaloes, chickens, and pigs. Pottery-making and bamboo-working were highly developed crafts, as were basketry, leather-working, and the weaving of hemp, jute, and silk. Both transport and communication were provided by dugout canoes, which plied the network of rivers and canals.
An organized kingdom called Van Lang emerged but in the 2nd century BCE, the Chinese conquered the area and ruled northern Vietnam for more than 1,000 years, with some brief insurgent interruptions. Chinese civilization had a great impact on the Vietnamese.
However in South Vietnam there was Indian influence. From the 1st century to the 6th century CE the southernmost part of Vietnam was part of a state called Funan. In the middle of Vietnam, an Indian influenced state called Champa arose in the 2nd century CE. In North Vietnam, the people resented Chinese rule and in 40 CE the Trung sisters led a rebellion. They formed an independent state, for 3 years but the Chinese crushed the rebellion and the sisters killed themselves. The Chinese continued to rule North Vietnam until the 10th century. In 938 a leader named Ngo Quyen defeated the Chinese at the battle of Bach Dang River and North Vietnam became an independent state.
In the 15th century Champa became a vassal state of North Vietnam, and Viets began to try invading westward – but they never had much luck with that.
In the early 16th century the power of the Le dynasty declined; during the 17th and 18th centuries, two rival families held power, the Trinh in the north and the Nguyen in the south. The Nguyen family conquered the Mekong Delta from the Khmer. In the 1770s a rebellion began in the town of Tay Son. Three brothers called Nguyen led it. Gradually they took territory from the Nguyen lords in the south and the Trinh lords in the north. By 1786 they were in control of the whole of Vietnam and one brother, Nguyen Hue made himself Emperor Quang Trung. In 1788 the Chinese intervened in Vietnam but the Vietnamese routed them at Dong Da. However, a Nguyen lord named Nguyen Anh escaped. He raised an army and from 1789 he pushed back the rebels. Nguyen Anh took Hanoi in 1802 and made himself Emperor Gia Long. Under him, Vietnam became a strong united kingdom. The Portuguese reached Vietnam in 1516, with missionaries close behind - first Dominicans, then Jesuits. Spanish colonialists assisted the French in their takeover of Champa and Cambodia, which they chose to call Cochin China.

For thousands of years, excellent ways to enjoy wealth and luxury have been to float goods to better markets, and to tax people. Sophisticated people in port cities exploit interior rustic yokel hillbillies, profiting from what they produce or gather in forests. Nationalism has aided in the separation of rentier from worker classes, a semi-pragmatic distortion of custom and habit that eventually only thwarts justice. We could learn from history, but instead utilize it to help deceive ourselves.

The past gets remembered or interpreted this way or that, differing and differing. I have a Rand McNally “Historical Atlas of the World”©2012 which shows “Sukhothai” in control of the whole Malay Peninsula, in 1294 (page 33). This never happened, and absolutely no Malay ever thought it did. There is, however, a carved stone inscription claiming it, so denial is useless, isn’t it? In Champa only one city is shown on that map: “Vijaya”! I quite like that too. SriVijaya was a maritime empire centered at Ligor (now Nakron Sri Thammarat), to which Sukotai might just have briefly conquered, ‘though I doubt it.
There seems to have been a portage crossing of the isthmus, maybe in one of the places the Thai government occasionally proposes putting a “Kra Isthmus” canal, and along that portage supposedly lived 1000 Brahmins married, against their religion, to locals, with also many Persian traders related to Iranian Kambojas. Who knows?