¹ An example might be Griffing's comment: “Historically, Annam was subject to China for over a thousand years, from the end of the third century B.C. into the tenth century A.D. It was later annexed by the Chinese from shortly after 1400 until 1428. Clearly, Chinese cultural inspiration was dominant from early on. Even though there was a hiatus of some 500 years separating the two periods of outside control, it is unthinkable that the influence of the advanced culture of China could have diminished to any significant degree while Annam was politically independent. From this point of view the Chinese occupation of 1400–28 served merely to solidify and strengthen a tradition already firmly established.” Griffing, R. P. Jr., “Dating Annamese Blue and White”, Orientations 7, no. 5 (1976): 35Google Scholar. Compare also Gaspardone's, E. “Les langues de Pannamite litteraire”, Tʼoung Pao 39, nos. 4–5 (1950): 213–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Woodside, A., “Early Ming Expansionism (1406–1427): China's Abortive Conquest of Vietnam”, Papers on China 17, no. 4.Google Scholar

³ For a Vietnamese Marxist precis of the socio-economic factors leading to this decline see Huy Le, Phan and Doan, Phan Dai, Khoi-nghia Lam Son va Phong-trao Dau-tranh Giai-phong Dat-nuoc vao Dau The-ky XV (Hanoi, 1969), pp. 9–15Google Scholar. The standard view of the period, as currently taught in Vietnam, is reflected in Lich Su Viet Nam, ed. Vietnamese Social Science Committee (Hanoi, 1971), tap I, pp. 225–35.Google Scholar

⁴ Khoi, Le Thanh, Le Vietnam: histoire et civilisation (Paris, 1955), pp. 198 – 99, passim.Google Scholar

⁵ That is, Chu Nom (). See O'Harrow, Stephen, “French Colonial Policy towards Vernacular Language Development in Vietnam and the Selection of Pham Quynh”, Aspects of Vernacular Languages in Asian and Pacific Societies (Honolulu, 1973), pp. 114, 116Google Scholar, passim. Also discussed in John DeFrancis's Colonialism and Language Policy in Vietnam (forthcoming), pp. 46–47.

⁶ Scholars like Hanham, Alison [Richard III and his Early Historians (Oxford, 1975)]Google Scholar, trying to clear up the controversies surrounding the usurpation of Richard in 1483, bemoan the lack of documentation surrounding the events — yet they are rich in comparison with even the best known happenings in medieval Vietnam.

⁷ It is commonly stated that Nguyen Ung Long (later known under the name of Nguyen Phi Khanh (1353? – 1407?) placed second in the examinations of 1374 (see Phan Huy Le and Phan Dai Doan, op. cit., p. 111, inter alia.) This contradicts, however, the official histories which hold the “bang nhan” of that year to have been a certain Le Hien Phu (), Kham Dinh Viet Su Thong Giam Cuong Muc (CM) (), Chb. X: 35, and Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu (TT) Q. VII: 165.

⁸ The Birth Ngo Dai Cao specifies forced mining of gold as one of the crimes of the Ming occupation. How much of the booty taken from Vietnam found its way into the government's coffers, as opposed to being pocketed by occupation officials, is difficult to affirm (see Woodside, op. cit., pp. 25 – 28), but it would also be of interest to know whether many collaborationist Vietnamese officials profited from the increased exploitation of their compatriots. In particular, did those whose landholdings diminish as a result of the decrees of Ho Quy Ly use the new situation to recover or expand landholdings?

⁹ Ibid., pp. 24–25.

¹⁰ Le Thanh Khoi, op. cit., p. 204.

¹¹ Some question has been raised, especially in view of certain poetic allusions in his later writing, as to whether Nguyen Trai himself might have briefly flirted with the idea of collaborating with the Chinese during a visit to China shortly after his capture. See Tan, Van, “Nguyen Trai co sang Trung-quoc hay khong?” [Did Nguyen Trai go off to China or not?], Nghien-cuu Lich-su (NCLS), no. 53 (1963)Google Scholar.

¹² All quotations from the works of Nguyen Trai hereinafter have been translated by this researcher from the Uc Trai Tap (UTT) held by the Bibliothèque Nationale (Manuscrits orientaux, fonds annamite: A68) in Paris, unless otherwise noted. The UTT is supposed to represent the works of Nguyen Trai as assembled in the twenty-first year of the reign of Tu Due (), i.e., 1868, from a manuscript which in turn ultimately (though how directly is another question) derives from an anthology made sometime after 1464, when Nguyen Trai was posthumously rehabilitated by the crown and when such of his works as were still available (they had been ordered burned in 1442 after his execution on trumped up charges of regicide) were first put together in one place. The text of the Binh Ngo Dai Cao, with slight variations, is to be found in the UTT, the TT, the Lam Son Thuc Luc (LSTL) (), and several other works (hence its wide renown), but a curiously abbreviated version occurs in the CM.

¹³ UTT, Q. V., pp. 1–2.

¹⁴ Woodside, op. cit., p. 4.

¹⁵ See Khanh, Dinh Gia et al. , Hop-tuyen Tho-van Viet-Nam, (Hanoi, 1965), vol. 2 (Van Hoc Viet-Nam the -ky X — the-ky XVII), 201.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Emile Gaspardone makes a case for Le Loi's submission to the Chinese after his first attempt at revolt [see “La supplique aux Ming de Le Loi”, in Silver Jubilee Volume of the Zinbun-Kagaku-Kenkyusyo (Kyoto, 1954), p. 159] but this view arouses great ire in some Vietnamese historians: To be of the opinion that Le Loi had surrendered to the Ming Army is totally without foundation and contradicts official histories as well as [other] trustworthy documentation of ours, (Phan Huy Le and Phan Dai Doan, op. tit., pp. 103–4).

¹⁷ Gaspardone (op. cit., passim) again flies in the face of convention in his assertion that it was a disputed decision brought in by a Ming court of law involving a land claim and the subsequent denunciation of Le Loi by his Vietnamese rival in the affair which was the major cause of his decision to revolt. While this conclusion will also displease some, it is precisely the operations of Chinese courts during the occupation period to which we refer in note 8 and which merit further investigation (if possible). It may turn out that members of the Vietnamese elite loyal to the Ming, such as Luong Nhu Hot (), sought to profit from the Chinese presence at the expense of anti-Chinese elements such as those who later attached themselves to Le Loi.

¹⁸ On the other hand, many of Nguyen Trai's letters to enemy generals, available in Quyen IV of the UTT (subtitled “Quan Trung Tu Menh Tap” ) were obviously intended for the eyes of other people than the addressee. They were propagandistic in nature and designed to incite those who read them to abandon atl support for the Ming overlords. A kind of medieval military special delivery system seems to have been in use: a letter to the commander of a besieged city, dispatched by his tormentors, would be enveloped in wax, attached to an arrow, and shot over the city walls. Of course more than a single copy could be sent, with the hope that the text would end up in the hands of those who were capable of sedition. See H. Franke in Chinese Ways in Warfare, ed. Kierman and Fairbank (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 171, 176, 180.

¹⁹ It must be noted that while several translations of the proclamation exist, none are without some major defect. The original is poetic (a form called “phu” ) and is of such literary grace as to merit a proper poetic rendering. Lam's, Truong Buu version [in Patterns of Vietnamese Response to Foreign Intervention: 1858–1900 (New Haven, 1967), pp. 55–62]Google Scholar is the best available but is in prose and contains certain errors (as noted in this paper) which are also found in a French prose translation by Qua, Ung (“Un texte vietnamien du XV^e siècle, Le Binh Ngo Dai Cao”, Bulletin de l'École Francaise d'Extrême Orient 46 (1952 – 54): 279 – 95)Google Scholar. Unfortunately, the version in French poetry by Huy, Cao Xuan and Gamarra, Pierre [“Proclamation sur la Pacification des Ngo”, Europe, no. 387–88 (1961): 106–10]Google Scholar, though sonorous, is plagued by inaccuracies while a French poetic rendition from Hanoi (Vien, Nguyen Khac et al. , Anthologie de la litterature vietnamienne, vol. 1 (Hanoi, 1972), pp. 143–48Google Scholar), which is more faithful, lacks resonance and the offering of some one identified to us only as “D.T.B., ” [Vietnam: A Historical Sketch (Hanoi, 1974), pp. 86 – 92Google Scholar] is downright turgid. This is not to omit mentioning that a number of versions are available in modern Vietnamese, such as Buy Ky's (in Dinh Gia Khanh et al., op. cit., and elsewhere) and Anh's, Dao Duy [in the Vietnamese Social Science Committee's modern Vietnamese translation of the TT, vol. 3 (Hanoi, 1968): 51–55Google Scholar, and elsewhere], both laconic but quite accurate;

²⁰ The term “binh” () is rendered “to lay low (i.e., to cut down)” because of the overtones it carries above and beyond the more standard translation “to pacify” which is closer to the meaning of “an” () as used in the appellation “An-Nam”(), Pacification usually implied subsequent occupation or administration whereas the Vietnamese did not occupy or administer Chinese territory; they merely expelled the Chinese from their own. Curbing Ming ambition and inflicting bloody defeat on their army might rightly be called “laying them low”.

²¹ Ung Qua, op. cit., p. 279.

²² Lam, op. cit., p. 61.

²³ Nguyen Trai uses dynastic titles for specific reference and “Trung-quoc” for general reference himself, e.g., see below in letter to Luong Nhu Hot.

²⁴ Dictionarium Annnamiticum [ sic], Lusitanum, et Latinum (Rome, 1651), p. 529.

²⁵ In the Shih Chi (), ch. 41 ().

²⁶ Ibid. The allusion with which Nguyen Trai was clearly familiar:

²⁷ Its first use in connection with the Vietnamese, and the one to which all later uses allude, appears to have been in the appellation Nam Viet()as applied to the kingdom (?) established by Trieu Da() at the end of the third century B.C. The Trieu Dynasty is mentioned in the Binh Ngo Dai Cao (see below), the first so listed, which leads one to believe that it was held in some regard by Nguyen Trai, perhaps because it was probably the first relatively Sinicized dynasty and could be traced, at least in his view, back to the even earlier kingdom of Yueh.

²⁸ Aurousseau, L., “La première conquête chinoise des pays annamites”, Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extrême-Orient 23 (1923): 137–264.Google Scholar

²⁹ Wiens, H.J., Han Chinese Expansion in South China (Hamden, Conn., 1967), pp. 41, 126–27, 137–38.Google Scholar

³⁰ Le Thanh Khoi, op. cit., p. 86. See also Stephen O'Harrow, “Vietnam as the Chinese Found It”, Asian Perspectives 21 (in press).

³¹ On the question of regional loyalties (e.g., Thanh-hoa vs. the Hong-ha Delta) at the beginning of the Le, see Whitmore, J. K., “The Development of Le Government in Fifteenth Century Vietnam” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1968)Google Scholar.

³² Ung Qua, op. cit., p. 291.

³³ Lam, op. cit., p. 56.

³⁴ Huy and Gamarra, op. cit., p. 107.

³⁵ The irony is of course that the Chinese did so anyway – surely Nguyen Trai must have known this?

³⁶ Nguyen Khac Vien et al., op. cit., p. 143.

³⁷ “D. T. B.”, op. cit., p. 86.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Huy and Gamarra, loc. cit.

⁴⁰ Lam, loc. cit.

⁴¹ Here the urge to employ poetic license won out. The Mongol general 0-ma (-nhi) (], whose name is in reality a phoneticization of Omar, is rendered as “Black Horse”, the literal meaning of the characters employed to pass on the sensation of animal-like ferocity he is said to have possessed — he was particularly hated in Vietnam.

⁴² The very first words of the proclamation pay homage to these concepts:

Though deeds charitable and just

undertake to bring the people peace,

the army, their protector and avenger,

first must fell the tyrant cruel.

Somewhat later in the work he exclaims:

How Justice triumphs over barbarity!

How Charity over wickedness!

The whole question of the true significance of these terms in Nguyen Trai's political philosophy has been the subject of lively debate in Vietnam. See, inter alia, Ky, Le Van, “Tu-tuong ‘dan’ cua Nguyen Trai voi chung ta”, NCLS, no. 81 (1965)Google Scholar; Tan, Van, “Tu-tuong nhan van cua Nguyen Trai NCLS, no. 54 (1963)Google Scholar; and numerous other articles in this publication to be found from the early 1960s on.

⁴³ A descriotion which, though not specified, is not ruled out by official Chinese accounts. See Ming Shih (), ch. 154.

⁴⁴ Original in Kim's, Tran TrongViet-Nam Su-luoc (Saigon, 1951), p. 108Google Scholar. For another translationsee Lam, op. cit., pp. 47–48.

⁴⁵ Lam, op. cit., p. 53.

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 51.

⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 50.

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 52.

⁴⁹ Nguyen Trai's vernacular writings, consisting of the 254 poetic pieces which comprise the rarely seen Quoc Am Thi Tap [] or Q. VII of the UTT, represent, apart from fragments, the oldest extant body of literature in Vietnamese known to date.

⁵⁰ Lam, op. cit., pp. 49–50, 52.