"Vietnam" a Vietnam Travel Page by JohanIsWeg

After the creation of earth and sky, people settled the deltas of the Hong Ha (Red) river in northern Vietnam and called the land Lac Viet. A sea god Lac Long Quan visited the mountains. He saw a monstrous demon bird swoop down to seize a virginal white crane. Outraged, Lac Long Quan grabbed a rock and hurled it at the demon bird. The bird lost its grip on the crane. Morphing into a tiger he attacked the god.
The fight was bitter but Lac Long Quan prevailed and killed the beast.
The waking bird – in a flurry of feathers – transformed into the beautiful mountain fairy Au Co.
Astonished by her beauty, Lac Long Quan proposed and Au Co gracefully accepted. The couple married.
A year later, Au Co gave birth to a golden pouch with one hundred eggs. Each egg hatched into a perfect baby boy.
Having inherited his mother Long Nu’s ability to transform into a sea dragon, Lac Long Quan preferred to live underwater. This did not suit Au Co, who loved the mountains.
The couple decided to live apart while treasuring the time they spent together. Lac Long Quan announced to his children, "Half of you will accompany your mother to the mountains and half of you will live beside the sea with me. If either group should ever face grave danger, the other group will come to their aid."
So it happened that Bach Viet, the Kingdom of 100 Principalities, came into being. The eldest son, Hung Lang, succeeded his father and became the first of at least 18 Hung dynasty kings who ruled Lac Viet, or Van Lang as it then became known, for 2622 years.

In 258 B.C., a feud developed between Van Lang and a northern family known as Thuc. King Thuc Vuong became angry when King Hung Vuong XVIII refused to grant his daughter’s hand in marriage. Thuc’s nephew, Thuc Vuong Phan, invaded and overthrew the Hung (Hong Bang) dynasty. Assuming the name An Duong Vuong, he combined the family kingdoms and called it Au Lac.
Tensions increased as China’s Tan Dynasty pushed southward. Initially, An Duong Vuong – assisted by his magic crossbow - repelled the Chinese general Trieu Da. The defeated soldier adopted Viet customs and married his son Trong Thuy to An Duong Vuong’s daughter My Chau. Trong Thuy made a false crossbow and convinced My Chau to switch it with her father’s magic weapon. With the stolen bow, Trong Thuy returned north and Trieu Da ordered his troops to conquer Au Lac.
Trieu Da (Trieu Vu Vung) subjugated and ruled Au Lac – which he renamed Nam Viet - from 207 B.C.
Nam Viet fell increasingly under Chinese influence. Trieu Vu Vung’s son, Prince Ahn Te, married a Chinese concubine. After Ahn Te’s death, his son succeeded to the throne. The Chinese sent an envoy – the former lover of the Queen mother – to extend their influence over the young king. The envoy and Queen Mother conspired to make the young king a Chinese lackey. The Royal court uncovered the plot and a senior Mandarin exposed and denounced the betrayal. Court officials killed the plotters and proclaimed An Duong Vuong’s eldest son – born of a Vietnamese woman – the new king.
These developments angered the Chinese. In 111 B.C., they invaded Nam Viet, heralding the advent of ten centuries of Chinese rule.

Nam Viet became a Chinese province known as Giao Chi. The governed people loved some commissioners, such as Tich Quang and Nhan Dien. Others were despised. When To Dinh executed Lac aristocrat Thi Sach in the year 40 for complaining about taxes, Sach’s wife Trung Trac and her sister Trung Nhi led a successful revolt against To Dinh and declared themselves Queens of the restored territory. The Chinese retaliated. In the year 43, they sent their generals to recapture the lost province. The Trung sisters committed suicide by drowning.
The second period of Chinese domination lasted from 44 to 543. The country’s administration became a replica of the Chinese model.

SOUTH VIETNAM

In 225, a girl was born in Thanh Hoa. Her name: Trieu Thi Thinh. At 20 years, she established a military base in the jungle from where she fought and won more than 30 major battles against the Chinese. She administered the reclaimed territory and kept it independent for several months. In 248, the Chinese prevailed against the Lady Queen, who committed suicide by drowning.
Another cruel commissioner provided the impetus for a new revolt. In 541, Ly Bon, military mandarin commander of the Chinese army, resigned his post and initiated an uprising against the Chinese. He defeated the overlords and declared himself King Ly Nam De, ruler of Van Xuan. The Chinese re-established their dominion in 545.
The following 57 years witnessed a see-saw battle between Chinese rule and short-lived Vietnamese dynasties. This ended in 603 with the advent of the third period of Chinese domination under a consolidated Tuy Dynasty in China.

For the next 300 years, until 938, the Chinese extended their influence into all spheres of Vietnamese life.
Chinese rule collapsed in 939 at the famous battle of Bach Dang where military general Ngo Quyen trapped the Chinese fleet in the river and killed their prince Hoang Thao. On hearing the news of his son’s death, the bereft Emperor instructed his army to return to China.
Ngo Quyen established the first great national dynasty and ruled until his death in 944. The kingdom collapsed into chaos and was partitioned into twelve fiefs. The most powerful of the 12 feudal lords, Dinh Bo Linh, reunified the country, which he called Dai Co Viet. He signed a non-aggression treaty with the Chinese in exchange for tribute. However, in 980, a palace guard assassinated both Dinh and his eldest son. Sensing instability, the Chinese Emperor sent an army to attack Dai Co Viet and its new 6-year-old king. Le Hoan, a general in Dinh’s army, entered into an illicit affair with the Queen mother, deposed the child and killed his opponents at court. Le Hoan declared himself king of the Early Ly Dynasty.
The Great Ly Dynasty began in 1010 and produced nine kings. In 1054, they renamed the country Dai Viet. Their reign came to an end in 1225 after crown prince Ly Hue Tong, while in exile as a result of the Quach Boc rebellion, married Tran Thi Dung, the daughter of a rich fisherman. With the Tran family’s backing, Ly quelled the rebellion and ascended the throne. Tran Thi Dung became the official Queen and the Tran family secured the most important Court positions.
Ly abdicated in 1224 in favour of his daughter Ly Chieu Hoang. The old king was later forced to commit suicide by Tran Thu Do.

To consolidate his family’s power, Thu Do sent his 8-year-old nephew Tran Canh to serve Chieu Hoang. She became dependent on Canh and agreed to marry him. In 1225, Chieu Hoang ceded the throne to her husband, ending the Ly Dynasty and starting the Tran Dynasty.
The new Dynasty became mired in conflicts with the Mongol Dynasty to the north and the Champa Kingdom in the south. In a famous victory, Tran Hung Dao – vastly outnumbered – defeated a 500 000 strong Mongol army who had demanded and was refused the right to cross Vietnamese territory to attack Champa.
However, the fiscal demands of war chipped away at the stability of the Tran Dynasty. This allowed court minister Le Qui Ly, descendant from a Chinese family, to usurp power in 1400. He reverted to his ancestral Chinese name and established the Ho Dynasty, renaming the country Dai Ngu. Tension with Champa and the Chinese continued, and the Chinese allied themselves with the deposed Tran. The Ho Dynasty collapsed in 1407 and the Chinese moved in to re-establish Giao Chi.
The Trans were outraged by this treachery and a Tran prince raised an army to proclaim himself Emperor Gian Dinh. He won a famous victory over the Chinese, but the beheading of two generals who cautioned against his “over-enthusiasm”, eroded public support and the Chinese eventually regained their hold on the country’s administration.

CENTRAL VIETNAM

The Chinese tried to eradicate Vietnamese culture. Aristocratic landowner, Le Loi, rebelled in a guerrilla campaign eroding Chinese power. In a decisive 1427 battle, he defeated the Chinese who withdrew their forces the following year.
Tran Cao was crowned king, but Le Loi soon ascended the throne as Le Thai To, renaming the country Dai Viet. He died in 1433.
Court intrigues, assassinations and instability ended with the reign of Le Thanh Tong. Successful campaigns against the Champa, most notably in 1471, increased land availability and southward migration. By 1673, the Champa was assimilated.
Following Thanh Tong’s death, the Le Dynasty self-destructed in court intrigues and assassinations. A fisherman, Mac Dang Dung, took advantage and established the Mac Dynasty in 1527.
The Le attained control of the southern court. Indecisive wars against the Mac’s northern control continued until 1592, when the Trinh, who usurped military power from the Le, captured and beheaded northern Emperor Mac Mau Hop.

Further South, the country prospered under the increasingly autonomous Nguyen Hoang, succeeded in 1613 by his son Nguyen Phuc Nguyen. The Trinh attempted to dislodge the Nguyens. In retaliation, the Nguyens withheld taxes from Hanoi. The Trinh launched seven unsuccesful campaigns against the Nguyen which forced the north to accept the division of the two territories.
In the south, the Cambodian population offered paltry resistance to the settlement of the Mekong delta. However, the lot of the peasant worsened as economic development failed to match territorial expansion.
Simmering insurrections gave rise to the Tay Son brothers, who routed both the Nguyen and Trinh. In 1777, Nguyen Hue united the country and became Emperor under the title Quang Trung. He died in 1792, unable to consolidate his power.
In the south, Nguyen Ahn – successor of the Nguyen lords – garnered French support and attacked the Tay Son. In 1802, he seized Hanoi and proclaimed himself Emperor Gia Long of Viet Nam. He was succeeded by his son Minh Mang.
Tensions between Viet Nam and the West increased. Nguyen Emperors issued strict edicts against foreign incursion; the West interpreting this as incitement. Invasions and military campaigns resulted in treaties in 1862 and 1874, ceding Viet Nam to the French.
In 1940, Japan ruled through the Vichy French administration until a coup in March 1945, which gave them complete control. Emperor Bao Dai proclaimed Vietnamese independence under Japanese protection. Having lost the war, the Japanese surrendered to Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh rather than the Allies. Abolishing Emperor Bao Dai’s monarchy, Ho Chi Minh established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

French troops, returning after the war to reoccupy their former colony, met fierce resistance from Vietnamese nationalists.
Vietnamese forces recorded an emphatic victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu. As a result, the Geneva Agreement of 21 July 1954 divided the country at the 17th parallel with elections scheduled for 1956. Ngo Dinh Diem rejected the agreement and became President of South Vietnam.
From the North, weapons and dissidents flowed into the south along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Diem was overthrown and killed in 1963.
The US committed themselves to war by landing combat troops in Danang. The conflict lasted until the withdrawal of US troops, starting in 1969, and the signing of a ceasefire in 1973.
Bereft of US military support, South Vietnam fell rapidly and communists seized Saigon on 30 April 1975. Again, the country reunified.
In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, toppling Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge government.
The following year, Vietnam fought a brief but bloody border war against China.
In 1986, the Vietnamese government adopted their Doi Moi policy, which resulted in economic renewal and a thawing of relations with the West. They withdrew from Cambodia in 1989. In 1995, Vietnam joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, positioning the country as a top tourist destination.

NORTH VIETNAM