Qing Involvement in 17th-century Vietnam
From: Nu-Anh Tran
Date: Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 7:17 AM
To: vsg vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
I have a question about Qing involvement in 17th century Vietnam that I thought someone on this list would be able to better answer than me. (I am currently located in Bangladesh, so I don't have access to a research library, so I only have internet resources.)
My question is about the involvement of the Qing in the Trinh-Nguyen Wars. In 1670 (or is it 1673?), the Kangxi emperor helps broker a truce between the Trinh and the Nguyen. I can't seem to find any further detail on this event. Could anyone shed any light on this? What is the backstory? Why does Kangxi get involved, and why do the Qing want a peace agreement between the two warring clans?
Thank you in advance for any assistance!
Cheers,
Nu-Anh Tran
Asian University for Women
Chittagong, Bangladesh
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From: Mike High
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 2:44 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Nu-Any Tran,
My knowledge of this period is rather sketchy, but neither Cadière (Mur de Dong Hoi) or Lê Thành Khôi (Histoire du Vietnam) mention any Qing involvement at the end of the Tr?nh-Nguy?n war of 1672-1673.
At that time, I think the Qing’s relations with the Lê-Tr?nh were primarily concerned with the disposition of the M?c enclave that still survived in Cao B?ng, which is understandable, since the Qing were still consolidating their control of southern China.
I am not sure at what point the Nguy?n were first in communication with the Qing court—that would be interesting to know.
:: Mike High
????
Great Falls, VA
USA
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 3:29 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I was hoping someone would reply to Nu Anh, as my notes are rather sketchy.
It was not at all unusual for a Chinese emperor to intervene in the domestic affairs of one of his vassal states as he was pledged to come to the help of his "younger brother" if the latter was besieged by enemies, whether domestic or foreign. So, Kangxi did broker a truce between the Trinh and the Nguyen, the wall of Dong Hoi having failed to prevent furtherTrinh incursions into Dang Trong.
Another tidbit for which, alas, I cannot remember the source or the exact date. A Nguyen lord petitioned Kangxi to be recognized as vuong, which would have put him on the same footing as the Le emperor and thus recognized Dang Trong as a country separate from Dang Ngoai. Kangxi rejected the request. But think about how Vietnamese history might have turned out differently if Kangxi had acceded to that request!
I must look for the source of my information.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
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From: cwheeler
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 6:55 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Nu Anh,
I would very much like to respond to your request, but unfortunately I am rather pressed by multiple deadlines and can't take the time to look through my frightening piles of unorganized information.
Hue-Tam touched on the two key points. Unfortunately, no one that I am aware of has really explored the Qing's approach to the Trinh and Nguyen conflicts in a whole lot of depth. There's a nice piece that Jack Wills did that begins to explore this, based on his perusal of materials on Vietnam in the Beijing imperial archives, but it is cursory in its information. He would be the best person I can think of to contact about this. I can think of a number of works that touch on related questions, but not yours specifically.
If I were to briefly add any other point, it is the outbreak of the Three Feudatories rebellion in the summer of 1673. Before then, the Qing was weak in the south, leaving the governance of the southern provinces under three viceroys, and weak in the maritime, of course. At sea, it was waging a second war against the Ming loyalist Zheng regime, and it wasn't exactly going well at the time. One great headache that Kangxi had to deal with was the collusion among his enemies. Zheng privateers based in Longmen (now in Guangxi) had a strong presence along the Vietnamese maritime, and Zheng-loyal merchants (many of them the future Minh Huong) had strong relations in both Dang Ngoai and Dang Trong, since they controlled the trade with Nagasaki that was so important to both domains, not to mention Japan and the Zheng. Moreover, one of the feudatories, Shang Kexi, who ruled over Guangdong, operated a giant smuggling racket in cahoots with Zheng allied privateers and Ming Loyalist (aka Minh Huong) traders in Dang Trong, and probably Dang Ngoai, too. Furthermore, the Zheng tried to make contact with Wu Sangui, the most powerful of the Three Feudatories, through Dang Ngoai. If that's not bad enough, there are archival reports that suggest the size of Chinese migration to Vietnam during this period was far larger than we think. Last, people among the Zheng were already considering an alternative base in "Cambodia" (aka, the lower Mekong, aka Dong Nai). In other words, the Qing had a mess on their southern frontier, and the last thing they needed was for one of these feudatories using Dang Ngoai or Dang Trong as a rear base. So I suspect it put pressure on the two lords in order to prevent that possibility. In short, my hunch is that the Qing were motivated by problems of their own, not concern for the conflict in particular.
I suspect that somewhere in that archive, or the Palace Museum Archive in Taiwan, is a record of the court discussion about this affair, and I suspect it will say that the Qing court was worried about how conflict in Vietnam would affect its ability to prosecute the war against the feudatories.
I'd be happy to share more with you of what I know, or put you in touch with Jack Wills, if you wish to contact me offline. Now I use go back to my cave.
Best regards,
Charles.
Charles J. Wheeler
Hong Kong Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences
The University of Hong Kong
Room G-09, May Hall
Pokfulam, Hong Kong
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From: Liam C. Kelley <liam@hawaii.edu>
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 7:04 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Nu-Anh and list,
As far as I can tell, the only source for this is D. R. SarDesai's Vietnam: Trials and Tribulations of a Nation, a work which doesn't cite sources. I think he made it up. There was a tribute mission from the Le which went north in 1673, and it is mentioned in both Vietnamese and Chinese sources, but there's nothing about any "truce" or "mediation" or anything of the sort. And that makes sense because that was totally out of place. That's what contemporary American presidents do with the Israelis and Palestinians. The main cause for an emperor to get involved in a tributary state was to protect the invested ruler, particularly if he had been overthrown. The Le were not in danger. In 1673, Kangxi probably didn't even know that the Trinh and Nguyen were fighting. If he did, I doubt that he would have cared much as he still had his hands full trying to bring his own empire under his control.
But none of this really matters, because now thanks to Profesor SarDesai and the Internet we can marvel at Kangxi's great skills as a mediator.
"In a diplomatic success, the Kangxi government helped mediate a truce in the long-running Trinh-Nguyen War in the year 1673. The war in Vietnam between these two powerful clans had been going on for 45 years with nothing to show for it. The peace treaty that was signed lasted for 101 years (SarDesai, 1988, 38)."
I wonder how he did it? He must have taken the representatives from both sides to his summer retreat in the grasslands of Mongolia, and there after a day of hunting and falconing together, and after a banquet of lamb and kumiss, the Trinh and Nguyen representatives probably warmed up to each other. Then the next day as they sat in a round tent, symbolizing the unity of purpose of the negotations, the Trinh and Nguyen representatives, with a gentle prod and nudge from the benevolent emperor, decide to end their quarrel and live in peace for the next 101 years.
Wait, I like this. I need to get this on Wikipedia fast!!
Liam Kelley
University of Hawaii
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From: Nu-Anh Tran
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 7:33 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Liam, Charles, Mike, Tam, and others,
Thanks for this! What fascinating answers! This question was sparked by a question from one of my students during my lecture on Monday, and your responses are arriving just in time for my next class.
I was thinking of printing out your responses and showing my students as an example of how historians may disagree. If that's a problem, please let me know... maybe in the next 48 hours? (If that's breaking any VSG rules, I won't do it.)
Cheers,
Nu-Anh
PS Last time, I tried to send this email, it got lost in the internet ether, so sorry for any double postings.
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From: cwheeler
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 7:58 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Rich indeed. Perhaps Jimmy Carter was there. But, for argument's sake, we don't have any evidence to say it didn't happen, either. Especially given the state of archives today in relation to such a question. My colleague here in HK, Matthew Mosca, has dug up all sorts of fascinating material on Qing intelligence on its frontiers during the Kangxi period, including Southeast Asia, and it emphasizes just how much our assumptions about many things related to places like Vietnam and China are still built on some pretty flimsy old assumptions. I agree, there's nothing Westphalian or Fairbankian that went on here. While I would much rather find a description of two shivering Vietnamese sitting gagging on goat milk at some Panmunjom style meeting in Mongolia--while a stern Kangxi glowers down at them his throne, only to occasionally look over almost school-boyishly at America's thirty-ninth president (how does he do it?)--the timing of the ceased hostilities does pique my curiosity, and I suspect that it did, faintly, in Beijing, and I suspect a few scribbles to the effect are likely to be found. Who knows what they might say?
Cheers,
CW
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 8:07 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Say hi to Matthew Mosca for me, Charles. I didn't know that he was at HKU. Encourage him to keep digging for stuff about Qing/Vietnam relations.
We're getting a student from Fudan who writes beautiful Vietnamese for the workshop. He's going to present a paper on Qing/VN relations. We could ask whether he's found anything specific.
Hue Tam
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From: Mike High
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 8:10 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I truly enjoyed Liam’s rewrite for this period, but his original concept fits what I know of the era. It’s awfully hard to imagine how mediation would have worked in those days. The structure of the imperial-tributary system, and the “divine right” of the tributary rulers, did not lend itself to meetings of plenipotentiaries (or even quasi-potentiaries) to negotiate multi-lateral treaties.
For comparison’s sake, the Ming were not able to do much to slow down the nam tiên of the Lê In the 15th century, other than to issue periodic calls for the both sides (Cham and Vi?t) to “respect each other’s borders.” The Ming were still quite strong at the time, probably more so than the Qing In the 1670s.
The envoy missions took a long time to make a roundtrip, and the communications with different tributary states were decidedly “asynchronous.” These messages were often woefully behind the pace of events, with the Ming envoys arriving to confer titles and instructions on rulers who no longer existed.
Cadière’s account (painstakingly drawn from the competing Vietnamese annals), indicates that the invasion that the Tr?nh launched against the Nguy?n simply petered out in 1673 after numerous attempts to breach the Nguy?n defenses. The next 100 years are often referred to as a period of “truce” between the two sides, but I’ve never heard of any formal agreement between the two. The wording for any such an agreement would be very interesting, since It would have at least Implicitly recognized the Nguy?n’s claims. On the symbolic and military fronts, neither side had much to trade.
:: Mike High
????
Great Falls, VA
USA
PS. If I’m recalling correctly, the Qing did try to exert their influence with respect to the Tr?nh-M?c wars that were waged in Cao B?ng on the border with southern China, 1667-1676, taking the long-standing position of the Ming that the M?c’s kingdom-in-exile should be left alone. Eventually, though, the Tr?nh had their way and the M?c line finally came to an end.
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From: Liam C Kelley <liam@hawaii.edu>
Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 8:15 PM
To: Nu-Anh Tran <tran_n_a@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Nu-Anh,
It's fine with me. You don't have to tell your students this, but actually, I don't think we really disagree all that much. We just made comments from different angles, and with different information in our heads. I don't think any of us claim to be experts on this issue, so we all spoke with some knowledge and some instinct.
What Charles has said is definitely true. There was an article which Chen Jinghe wrote in English many years ago for a conference in Bangkok which talked about the Mac (the Ha Tien Mac) and Taksin in Siam and the various Chinese in the area and it was amazing in that it showed the long reach of Qing "intelligence gathering" as they had tentacles stretching down to places like Ha Tien to try to figure out, from the backside, what was going on as they were attacking Burma. They were a veritable early modern CIA.
So yea, I would not be surprised at all if there were reports that were submitted about the Nguyen-Trinh conflict.
The problem, however, is why is there this "fact" floating across the Internet that "Kangxi mediated a truce for this conflict"? SarDesai seems to be the only source, but he didn't read Qing documents, especially the ones which haven't been read and written about yet. There also doesn't seem to be any evidence in the "obvious places," such as the ones Mike High checked, and I took a quick look at the Kham dinh Viet su thong giam cuong muc and the Dai Nam thuc luc today, as well a couple of Qing sources.
From an historical perspective, what interests me is how statements like SarDesai's become "fact" and then serve as building blocks for other projects/ideas.
Liam
PS I forgot to mention that Kangxi's main consort demonstrated her exquisite vocal skills by singing a rousing rendition of "The Steppe in Bloom" at the mutton/kumiss banquet. It was truly beautiful. Everyone was moved to tears.
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From: Tai VanTa
Date: Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 6:48 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I support Liam Kelley' s opinion that "The Le were not in danger", and Mike High's statement that Trinh Nguyen had tacit truce for 100 years because of war weariness,not from any formal treatise, espc. with help from the Qing [their opinions highlighted in yellow background below]--with this excerpt from one of my writings on Nguyen's respect for Le's sovereignty and both sides being tired of war :
During the Restored Lê period, despite the dominance of the two families of Tr?nh and Nguy?n Lords (Chúa) in the Northern and Southern parts of divided Vietnam (called Ðàng Ngoài and Ðàng Trong), both of them did not dare to call themselves emperors, apparently still ceding the Mandate of Heaven to the nominally ruling Lê emperors . When Lord Nguy?n Phúc Khoát (1738-1765) of Southern Vietnam, then called Duke Hi?u Qu?c Công, was suggested in 1744 by his followers to declare himself King (Vuong), on the ground that he had 3000 li of territory, much more than the area of the first Shang emperor in China. He decided to become King with the title of Thiên Vuong, vis-a-vis the tributary countries to the southern borders ; he made himself a royal seal, and changed the verb used by officials to present documents to him from thân (submit) to t?u (memorialize), and called the ancestor worship house (t? du?ng) as royal temple and mausoleum (tông mi?u); but he still used the calendar of the reign year of the Lê emperor who, alone, was the Son of Heaven (Thiên T?). Thus, although he had become a king, he still adhered to the concept of anMandate of Heaven and respected the duty of faithfulness to the emperor (trung quân) , upholding the Lê emperors [Mandate of Heaven to rule] in opposition to the usurpers Trinh lords (phò Lê di?t Tr?nh) while at the same time he really did not want war with the Trinh. In other words, it seems that Nguy?n Phúc Khoát, in carving out for himself a more independent regime, justified his kingship with his lower Mandate of Heaven to support the higher Mandate of Heaven of the Lê emperor. Only much later, under the first Gia Long Emperor of the next Dynasty of the Nguy?n, was he bestowed by Gia Long the posthumously the reign title of Võ Hoàng Ð? (Emperor Võ)
Tai Van Ta
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From: Carl Robinson
Date: Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 1:53 PM
To: Tai VanTa <taivanta@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
If I may just pop into this fascinating discussion to point out that the Qing were from Manchuria and not Mongolia. So, all this imaginary chat about a confab up on the steppes of Inner Mongolia is totally incorrect. Kangxi was having enough problems at that time making sure the Mongols, who were his first allies in the conquest of China, wouldn't rebel against him.
Best,
Carl Robinson
Author, Mongolia Nomad Empire of Eternal Blue Sky (Odyssey Publications, 2010).
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From: <brian.turner@yale.edu>
Date: Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 9:13 PM
I passed on Nu-Anh's question and the discussion that followed to Peter Perdue
and he replied as below.
Cheers
Brian Turner
History doctoral student
Yale Univ.
"Charles and Liam have covered most of what can be found out, I suspect, and the
whole thing could well be a fabrication.
Still, there might be some materials in the Qing archives. Nearly all of the
Kangxi material in Chinese is published and
available online, and the Qingshilu is available online, so some searching for
Nguyen and Trinh might turn up something.
There are some Manchu materials from Kangxi period that might be revealing,
though I doubt that this issue was discussed in Manchu.
More interesting is Charles's mention of involvement by the feudatory powers and
by the Zheng regime. They may well have had reasons to
meddle in Vietnamese affairs: certainly Wu Sangui was creating connections to
Tibet which deeply concerned Kangxi and were one of the main reasons he
intervened to squelch the feudatories. Never underestimate the long tentacles of
Chinese provincial rulers in the south! Vietnamese should have no illusions
that Chinese are interested in peace in the region, not unless it benefits the
Great dynasty... We really need a more comprehensive study of south China in
this period.
One of Joe Esherick's students whose name escapes me has been working on
Kangxi's evacuation of the southeast coast for his PhD: he may have dug up
a lot more,
Peter"
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From: cwheeler
Date: Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 9:47 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Eshreick's student is Dahpon Ho. I was on his committee. His dissertation from UCSD should be available online.
Best,
Charles.
Charles J. Wheeler
Hong Kong Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences
The University of Hong Kong
Room G-09, May Hall
Pokfulam, Hong Kong
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From: Li Tana
Date: Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:06 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
There is one article deals with complicities of the Qing and the 17th century Vietnam. It stated:
"political turmoil and confusion were unpredented, as power was contested within the borders of both sides - the southern Ming and the Qing fought over southern China, and the remnant Mac held out in Cao Bang against the Le/Trinh"
and the wars between Le/Trinh and the Nguyen in dang Trong.
Although not directly deals with the question asked by the list, this is so far the most detailed piece on the Sino-(northern) Viet relations of the 17th century, as far as I know. It also touches the Zheng family and Wu mentioned by the message below.
See Niu Junkai and Li Qingxin, "Chinese political pirates in the 17th century Tongking Gulf", in Cooke, Li and Anderson, Tongking Gulf through History, Penn U Press, 2010, pp.133-142.
Li Tana
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From: cwheeler
Date: Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:07 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, good suggestion, and a great set of articles everyone. While not directly related to the question, Li Qingxin has produced a lot of excellent work that reminds us how important it is to look at Vietnamese history in a regional context. Thanks for the suggestion, Tana.
Charles.
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From: Nu-Anh Tran
Date: Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 3:19 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. This has been fascinating. I also asked around, including some China historians. In addition to the article that Li Tana suggested, here are additional sources that shed light on Ming/Qing relations with Dai Viet, though I don't think any of them answer the question directly. (I also asked a few people offline about the Ming patronage of the M?c.)
-Leo K. Shin, "Ming China and Its Border with Annam," in The Chinese State at the Borders, ed. Diana Lary (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), 91-104.
-Peter C. Perdue, “Embracing Victory, Effacing Defeat: Rewriting the Qing Frontier Campaigns,” in The Chinese State at the Borders, ed. Diana Lary (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), 105-125.
-Kathlene Baldanza, "The Ambiguous Border: Early Modern Sino-Viet Relations" (Ph.D. diss, University of Pennsylvania, 2010).
I could glimpse at the first two through googlebooks, but I obviously can't get access to the third one from here.
Cheers,
Nu-Anh
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From: Daniel C. Tsang
Date: Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 10:17 AM
Here's the dissertation Charles mentioned earlier; Univ of California folks have access to the full-text. Dan
Sealords Live in Vain: Fujian and the Making of a Maritime Frontier in Seventeenth-Century China
by Ho, Dahpon David, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 2011 , 409 pages; AAT 3456153
Abstract (Summary)
From 1661 to 1683, the province of Fujian in southeast China was the scene of the most devastating scorched earth campaign in early-modern history. A thousand-mile stretch of coast lay in wreckage, and the smoke of burning towns darkened the sky for days. Hundreds of thousands were killed, and hundreds of thousands more were uprooted as the Qing state, in the midst of its conquest of China, fought a total war to defeat the sealord Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong).
The present dissertation seeks to uncover the history of the Qing Coastal Depopulation (Qianjie) and the sealords of Fujian. It also aims at an interpretation, through the Fujianese historical experience, of an East Asian maritime system that may furnish a working vocabulary for integrating the Chinese littoral with early-modern world history. It begins by placing Fujian province and her seafaring peoples in the context of a century of evolution from the Wako pirate wars of the mid-1500s to the brutal depopulation of the Chinese coast of the 1660s. It describes how the Seaban or maritime prohibitions of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) militarized the Chinese coast and inadvertently encouraged oligopoly (by a confederation of smuggler-pirates) and then monopoly (in the rise of a sealord). It ends with the brutal story of how the Qing state created a maritime frontier, destroyed the autonomous coastal powers, and reshuffled Fujian into a provincial administration.
References
References (255)
Indexing (document details)
Advisor: Esherick, Joseph W., Pickowicz, Paul G.
School: University of California, San Diego
Department: History
School Location: United States -- California
Keyword(s): Maritime frontier, China, Fujian, Qing Coastal Depopulation
Source: DAI-A 72/08, Feb 2012
Source type: Dissertation
Subjects: History
Publication Number: AAT 3456153
ISBN: 9781124654522
Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=2371405241&sid=9&Fmt=2&clientId=48051&RQT=309&VName=PQD
ProQuest document ID: 2371405241
--
Daniel C. Tsang, Distinguished Librarian
Data Librarian and Bibliographer for Asian American Studies,
Economics, Political Science& Business (interim)