Page 4 - Vietnam Destination Guide - Alluring Asia

became more plentiful, the population grew, forcing scholars fell out of official favor because of their close the Vietnamese to seek new lands on which to grow cultural links to China; at the same time, the early Ly rice. monarchs, whose dynasty had come to power with Buddhist support, promoted Buddhism. The During this era, Vietnam was a key port of call on the Confucian philosophy of government and society, sea route between China and India. The Vietnamese emphasizing educational attainment, ritual were introduced to Confucianism and Taoism by performance and government authority, reasserted Chinese scholars who came to Vietnam as itself with the graduation of the first class from the administrators and refugees. Indians sailing eastward Temple of Literature in 1075. brought Theravada (Hinayana) Buddhism to the Red River Delta while, simultaneously, Chinese travelers Following years of study which emphasized classical introduced Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhist monks education, these scholars went into government service carried with them the scientific and medical becoming what the West came to call mandarins. knowledge of the civilizations of India and China; as a During the Ly Dynasty, the Chinese, Khmers and result, Vietnamese Buddhists soon counted among Chams repeatedly attacked Vietnam but were repelled, their own great doctors, botanists and scholars. most notably under the renowned strategist and tactician Ly Thuong Kiet (1030-1105), a military INDEPENDENCE FROM CHINA (10th Century) mandarin of royal blood who is still revered as a In the aftermath of the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in national hero. China in the early 10th century, the Vietnamese revolted against Chinese rule. In 938 AD. Ngo Quyen TRAN DYNASTY (1225-1400) vanquished the Chinese armies at a battle on the Bach After years of civil strife, the Tran Dynasty overthrew Dang River, ending 1000 years of Chinese rule. the Ly Dynasty. The Tran increased the land under cultivation to feed the growing population and LY DYNASTY (1010-1225) improved the dikes on the Red River. From the 11th to the 13th centuries, the independence of the Vietnamese Kingdom (Dai Viet) was After the dreaded Mongol warrior Kublai Khan consolidated under the emperors of the Ly Dynasty, completed his conquest of China in the mid-13th founded by Ly Thai To. They reorganized the century, he demanded the right to cross Vietnamese administrative system, founded the nation's first territory on his way to attack Champa. The Vietnamese university (the Temple of Literature in Hanoi), refused this demand but the Mongols - 500,000 of them promoted agriculture and built the first embankments - came anyway. The outnumbered Vietnamese under for flood control along the Red River. Confucian Tran Hung Dao attacked the invaders and forced them back to China, but the Mongols returned, this time with 300,000 men. Tran Hung Dao then lured them deep into Vietnamese territory; at high tide he attacked the Mongol fleet as it sailed on the Bach Dang River, ordering a tactical retreat of his forces to lure the Mongols into staying and fighting. The battle continued for many hours until low tide, when a sudden Vietnamese counteroffensive forced the Mongol boats back, impaling them on steel-tipped bamboo stakes set in the river bed the night before. The entire fleet was captured or sunk. When the Tran Dynasty was overthrown in 1400 by Ho Qui Ly, both the Tran loyalists and the Chams (who had sacked Hanoi in 1371) encouraged Chinese intervention. The Chinese readily complied with the request and took control of Vietnam in 1407, imposing