Download
1 / 64
680 likes | 836 Vues
Part I: Prehistoric Vietnam (circa 30,000-111BCE) and the Chinese Domination (111BCE-939CE). I. The Role of History. Does history matter? Does history matter to the Vietnamese people today? Does history matter to the Vietnamese people in the past? When did Vietnamese history begin?.
E N D
Part I: Prehistoric Vietnam (circa 30,000-111BCE)and the Chinese Domination(111BCE-939CE)
I. The Role of History • Does history matter? • Does history matter to the Vietnamese people today? • Does history matter to the Vietnamese people in the past? • When did Vietnamese history begin?
Vietnamese historical writing was born out of the millennial grappling with the problem of its stronger neighbor, erstwhile colonizer, and model to the north, China. The chroniclers of the Tran (1225-1400 CE) and early Le (1428-1527 CE) dynasties dealt with this problem by seeking an ancient genealogy for Vietnamese autonomy.
Le Va Huu (1230-1322), the director of the Office of Historiographers and the Minister of War, was ordered by King Tran Thanh Tong (r. 1258-78) to revise a certain history book, And Huu completed the 30-volume Dai Viet su ky (History of the Great Viet) in 1272, selecting the first ruler of Nam Viet (southern Viet) Trieu Da/Zhao Tuo (r. 203-137 BCE) as the starting point.
This was because facing the Mongol invasion in 1257-58, the Tran ruling house tried to solidify its power and learn something from the past to preserve the dynasty’s independence. Huu chose Trieu Da as the starting point because he wanted to assert Dai Viet’s equality with China.
In 196 BEC, Trieu Da treated the envoys from the Chinese Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) not as a vassal of, but as an equal to, the Han emperor. He received the Han envoys with the local Viet manner (meaning “impolite”): “hair in chignon and squatting.” He even asked: “Who is greater, me or the Han emperor?”
When told that the Han was surely the greatest empire, Trieu Da replied: “Had I ruled in China, Would I not be just as great as the Han emperor?” In 183 BCE, Trieu Da changed his title to Vu De (martial emperor) and asserted his equality with the Han emperor.
Nan Yue/Nam Viet did pay tributes later on to the Han court as a vassal, but inside his own kingdom, Trieu Da continued to call himself “emperor.” • Le Van Huu, living in a time with the menace of Mongol invasion, definitely was troubled over how his country could maintain independence and avoid humiliation in diplomatic relations. • Thus Trieu Da must have seemed like an ideal historical figure to Huu.
Ngo Si Lien (c. 1400-) completed his 15-volume Dai Viet su ky toan thu (the complete history of Dai Viet) in 1479. He even traced further the origins of Dai Viet to Lac Long Quan, a descendent of the Shen Nong emperor (mythical ruler of China), making Vietnamese history at least as long as Chinese history, in order to assert Dai Viet’s equality with China.
Thus, the (legendary/fictional) Hong Bang dynasty /Van Lang kingdom (2879-258 BCE): 18 Hung Kings ruled successively, With the first king being the descendent of Lac the Dragon Lord (Lac Long Quan) and his consort Au Co who gave birth to 100 boys (or 50 boys and 50 girls).
The authenticity of the Hong Bang dynasty, the Van Lang kingdom, and the Hung kings has been debated by scholars inside and outside of Vietnam; • Promoted by the government of Vietnam since the 15th century, celebrating Hung Kings has become a long-lasting tradition, national and sacred event to the Vietnamese people. • The 10th day of the third month as a national holiday since 2007.
II. Prehistoric Vietnamese history from an archaeological perspective: • Themes: 1) Technological advance from stone to metal; • 2) Economic change from hunting-gathering to agriculture; • 3) Social change from simplicity to complexity; • 4) Political change from tribal to chiefdom and state organization.
Record of human settlement in Southeast Asia: 1 million years. Australoids (dark-pigmented and curly-haired) may have dominated Southeast Asia around 40,000 years ago. • From 7,000 years ago, the replacement and/or assimilation of the Australoids by the Southern Mongoloids (lightly-pigmented and straight-haired) who lived in modern Southern China (south of the Yangtze River).
1. Hunters and Gatherers • (circa 30,000-10,000 BP [before present]): • Including Son Vi (c. 23,000-13,000 BP) and Hoa Binh (c. 18,000 BP); • Hunting and food-gathering economy; • Hunting a range of mammals: fish, shellfish, pig, deer, civet cats, wild cattle, water buffalo, rhinoceros, birds, turtles. • Tools: stone scrapers/points; stone axes, adzes, hoes; pebble core tools.
2. The Neolithic Settlement • Agriculture (cultivation of rice) • By circa 7,000 BP, a Neolithic (“new-style stone”) Revolution in the Yangtze Valley: • Transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture); • The expansion of agricultural communities further to the south, including the Red River Delta,
With the Phung Nguyen culture as the representative (c. 2,000-1,500 BCE). • Ceramic, bone, and stone artifacts: • Spindle whorls (weaving industry); • Bone harpoons and arrowheads (hunting); stone adzes in abundant and variable size and form; • Nephrite (soft jade) rings, bracelets, beads and other jadeite (hard jade) ornaments—representing a link with Chinese neolithic culture in the Yellow River region.
3. The Bronze Age (circa 1,500-500 BCE) • With Dong Dau and Go Mun being the representative sites in Vietnam. • Bronze artifacts: spearheads, arrowheads, bracelets, fishhooks, etc. • Economic activities: harvesting rice, maintaining domestic stock (pig, cattle, dog), hunting, trapping, fishing, collecting shellfish, dung beetles, bamboo shoots, wild yams, mushrooms, frogs, and termites and ants (as delicacies).
Bronze technology (melting copper and tin into bronze) in Southeast Asia may have come from North China, and ultimately from the Middle East through exchange, • though most forms of bronze artifacts were indigenous.
4. The Iron Age (c. 500 BC-early CE) • Iron may have come from either India or especially China (to the Red River Delta), and ultimately from the West. • Earliest appearance of iron in China (9th century BCE) and Mongolia (650 BCE). • Charles Higham: “The direct Chinese contact with Dong Son people is the most likely means whereby knowledge of iron casting reached Bac Bo (north Vietnam).”
Iron is harder than bronze, providing much better agricultural tools (plough) and military weapons, • leading to far-reaching technological, social, and political changes (formation of “chiefdoms,” early form of state organization; the Lac lords). • Best represented by Dong Son culture (bronze drums) in North Vietnam and Sa Huynh culture in Central Vietnam (forerunner of Cham culture).
Modern Vietnamese have been concerned with their history as well! • The heated debate over the origins of bronze drums between Vietnamese and Chinese scholars in the 1970s-80s: • Who invented the bronze drums? The Chinese or the Vietnamese? • The answer?
Historically identifiable dynasties related to Vietnam: • 1) The Thuc dynasty (258-207 BCE) • Thuc Phan was the first figure in Vietnamese history documented by reliable sources; • he was from Shu/Thuc (Sichuan in modern southwestern China; or Cao Bang in northern Vietnam according to Vietnamese scholars), • who conquered and put an end to the legendary Hong Bang dynasty or Kingdom of Van Lang (2879-257 BCE). • Thuc Phan built his capital at Co Loa (south of modern Hanoi), declared himself “King An Duong” and his kingdom “Au Lac.”
2) The Trieu dynasty (207-111 BCE): • Or the kingdom of Nam Viet; • The founder Trieu Da, a Han Chinese born in north China, • was a general of the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE) originally sent to the south,
And built his own kingdom Nam Viet when the Qin was in decline. He conquered the Kingdom of Au Lac in 207 BCE and divided into two prefectures Giao-chi (Jiaozhi; in the Red River plain) and Cuu-chan (Jiuzhen; in the Ma River plain to the south). (The name “Giao-chi/Jiaozhi” is from “Kecho,” meaning “market” and referring to what is now Hanoi; the conventional understanding it as “intertwined toes” is wrong!)
Trieu Da allowed the Lac lords to rule as before, • Thus the traditional Lac order remained intact. • Trieu Da was remembered by later Vietnamese historians as a king who defended their lands against Chinese aggression, • While by Chinese scholars as the first great Chinese ruler of this remote region.
III. Vietnam under Chinese Domination/Colonization (111BCE-939) • Charles Higham: China was “a potent, expansive, and innovative civilization in the valley of the Yellow River to the north.” • The southward expansion of the Chinese empire is an important part of Chinese history and also of Vietnamese history. • Like Vietnam (and other countries), “China” grew from small to big.
