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Vietnam The Tran Dynasty and the Defeat of the Mongols
In 1225 the Tran family, which had effectively controlled the
Vietnamese throne for many years, replaced the Ly dynasty by
arranging a marriage between one of its members and the last Ly
monarch, an eight-year-old princess. Under the Tran dynasty
(1225-1400), the country prospered and flourished as the Tran
rulers carried out extensive land reform, improved public
administration, and encouraged the study of Chinese literature.
The Tran, however, are best remembered for their defense of the
country against the Mongols and the Cham. By 1225, the Mongols
controlled most of northern China and Manchuria and were eyeing
southern China, Vietnam, and Champa. In 1257, 1284, and 1287, the
Mongol armies of Kublai Khan invaded Vietnam, sacking the capital
at Thang Long (renamed Hanoi in 1831) on each occasion, only to
find that the Vietnamese had anticipated their attacks and
evacuated the city beforehand. Disease, shortage of supplies, the
climate, and the Vietnamese strategy of harassment and scorchedearth tactics foiled the first two invasions. The third Mongol
invasion, of 300,000 men and a vast fleet, was also defeated by
the Vietnamese under the leadership of General Tran Hung Dao.
Borrowing a tactic used by Ngo Quyen in 938 to defeat an invading
Chinese fleet, the Vietnamese drove iron-tipped stakes into the
bed of the Bach Dang River (located in northern Vietnam in
present-day Ha Bac, Hai Hung, and Quang Ninh provinces), and
then, with a small Vietnamese flotilla, lured the Mongol fleet
into the river just as the tide was starting to ebb. Trapped or
impaled by the iron-tipped stakes, the entire Mongol fleet of 400
craft was sunk, captured, or burned by Vietnamese fire arrows.
The Mongol army retreated to China, harassed enroute by Tran Hung
Dao's troops.
The fourteenth century was marked by wars with Champa, which
the Tran reduced to a feudatory state by 1312
(see
fig. 4).
Champa freed itself again by 1326 and, under the leadership of
Cham hero Che Bong Nga, staged a series of attacks on Vietnam
between 1360 and 1390, sacking Thang Long in 1371. The Vietnamese
again gained the upper hand following the death of Che Bong Nga
and resumed their southward advance at Champa's expense. Despite
their earlier success, the quality of the Tran rulers had
declined markedly by the end of the fourteenth century, opening
the way for exploitation of the peasantry by the feudal landlord
class, which caused a number of insurrections. In 1400 General Ho
Quy-ly seized the throne and proclaimed himself founder of the
short-lived Ho dynasty (1400-07). He instituted a number of
reforms that were unpopular with the feudal landlords, including
a limit on the amount of land a family could hold and the rental
of excess land by the state to landless peasants; proclamations
printed in Vietnamese, rather than Chinese; and free schools in
provincial capitals. Threatened by the reforms, some of the
landowners appealed to China's Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) to
intervene. Using reinstatement of the Tran dynasty as an excuse,
the Ming reasserted Chinese control in 1407.
Data as of December 1987
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