Mongols in Vietnam: End of one Era, Beginning of Another

By

Paul D. Buell

Horst-Grtz-Stiftung Institut, Charit Medical University, Berlin

The Mongols are best known for their role as conquerors. As a consequence, their empire united more of
the Old World under a single regime than any empire before or after them. Less well known is their role
in promoting trade during what became the first true era of commercial globalization, one that has, in
many ways continued down to our own day. In this paper we will look at one aspect of this globalization,
the efforts of Qubilai-qan (r. 1260-1294) of the Mongol qanate of China, the later Yuan Dynasty
(1279-1368), 1 to achieve an empire not only over China and surrounding parts of Central Asia controlled
by him and by his house, but also over the seas and the distant nations lying in and around them. This
particularly involved the states of peninsula Southeast Asia and Indonesia. By way of understanding what
happened, also examined will be the background to Qubilais endeavor in the long-term growth of
Chinese commerce in the South Seas and the remarkable cosmopolitanism and exotic consumption,
largely supported by imports, of Mongol China.

Rise of Mongol Power in China

Mongol control in China began with land conquest, at first of the China borderlands, then interior Jin
Dynasty (1125-1234) domains, bringing north China under definitive Mongol control. The advance
continued with a movement into west China, to outflank the major Mongol enemy, the Southern Song
Dynasty (1125-1279), and from there the march continued into what is now Yunnan , then ruled by
the Thai state of Dali. They Mongols seem to have been particularly interested in the Yunnan plateau
in its own terms, as a possible center for their own tribal presence, although it too was well situated to
attack outlying Song domains. Leading the Mongol advance south was Qan Mngke (r. 1251-59)
personally, seconded by his younger brother, prince Qubilai (ruled in China 1260-1294), the latter having
at first primary command of the Dali operation. This latter advance had a particular impact since thanks to
Mongol efforts, Yunnan ultimately became truly a part of China for the first time in its history. 2

Each further advance brought Mongol armies closer to the maritime world of China although a final
Mongol attack was postponed due to the premature death of Mngke just as his western operation was
getting underway and the Mongol world momentarily fell into civil war. It took Qubilai, his challenged
successor in China, nearly 10 years to stabilize his new regime and resume the advance.

1
For an introduction to Mongol China see Paul D. Buell, Historical Dictionary of the Mongolian World Empire, Lanham, Md.,
and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. (Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, No. 8), 2003, 53-70.
2
See Buell, 2003, 49-50. See also Paul D. Buell, Saiyid Ajall, in Igor de Rachewiltz, Chan Hok-lam, Hsiao Ch'i-ch'ing and
Peter W. Geier, editors, In the Service of the Khan, Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yuan Period (1200-1300), Otto
Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 466-479.
 Song China, his opponent, which never left his sight, had come into being through a remarkable
compromise with the sea. Deprived of most of its contacts with Central Asia and even the Chinese
heartlands of the north though the nearly fatal attacks of the Jin Dynasty, Song and had no choice but to
turn to the sea and its increasingly rich commerce. 3 Like the last great era of Chinese history, that of the
Tang (618-906), the Song proved remarkably cosmopolitan but its cosmopolitanism was no longer
directed west but rather south to the world of the South Seas. It was linked to it by merchants of various
nationalities, not just Southeast Asian, but also Persian and Arabic, and also by growing numbers of
Chinese. Such contacts are well documented in our sources, including the Zhufan zhi , Record
of the Various Barbarians, principally those doing business with Song by sea, of Zhao Rugua
(1170-1228), who served in the Song customs administration at Quanzhou .4 There is also the
slightly older Lingwaidaida by another geographer, Zhou Qufei covering some of the
same ground. 5 Contacts are also well documented in non-Chinese sources, particularly those of the
Islamic world very much on the receiving end during the period, and by archaeological discoveries. The
Indian Ocean littoral, for example, is littered with fragments of Chinese pottery from Song times on.
Some is even earlier, and dating of African sites is often through the Chinese pottery found in association
with them. As marine archaeology advances the trade is becoming even better known, including some
major finds. 6

Although it was claimed by the court that the situation was only temporary and that the Southern Song
capital of Hangzhou was only a temporary residence or Xingsozai , the name that Marco
Polo knew it under (Quinzai), the situation lasted more than 140 years and the Song got rich off the
profits from ocean trade. In the end, the Song government had no choice but to extract what it could from
its rivers and sea coast and the results was astounding indeed, as is witnessed not just by the material
records of the peoples and goods involved, but also by the impressions of eye-witnesses. Marco Polo, for
example, describes (in one version of the text) no less than ten major markets in Hangzhou, along with
innumerable others, large and well served by streets, thoroughfares, and bridges, thronged by an abundant
populace (he speaks of 40,00050,000 on market days) and frequented by merchants from all the
countries near and far to China. They offered, among other things, every possible variety of raw and
processed foodstuff. 7 And Hangzhou was just one of Song Chinas ports. 8

The Mongols, by contrast to the Song, had a trade that was based upon the land connections expanded
and created by their empire, including those associated with what is known as the Silk Road. To be sure,
there was no single road for silk and the trade was far more complicated than is usually realized.
Interesting in the Mongol world is that the Mongol elite actively participated. Whereas in China the elite
encouraged trade, even invested in it, but still thought of real status in terms of the imperial examinations

3
For an overview of Song and Jin see F.W. Mote, Imperial China, 900-1800. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University
Press, 1999, 193ff.
4
See Friedrich Hirth and W.W. Rockhill, translators, Chau Rugua: His work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries, Entitled Zhufan-ch, Taibei: Literature House, 1965 (1911).
5
Arlmut Netolintzky, Das Ling-wai Tai-da von Chou Ch-fei, eine Landeskunde Sdchinas aus dem 12. Jahrhundert,
Weisbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag (Mnchener ostasiatische Studien), 1977.
6
On the general topic of Blue and White pottery, which came to be such an important part of this trade, see John Carswell, Blue
and White, Chinese Porcelain Around the World, Chicago: Art Media Resources, 2000.
7
Henry Yule and Henri Cordier, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, vols. 12 (Amsterdam, 1975), II: 2012.
8
On these general topics see also: Gang Deng, Maritime Sector, Institutions, and Sea Power of Premodern China, Westport, CN,
and London: Greenword Press (Contributions in Economics and Economic History), 1999; Hugh R. Clark, Community, Trade
and Networks: Southern Fujian Province from the Third to the Thirteen Centuries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991: and Billy K. L. So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China, the South Fukien Pattern, 946-1368,
Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press (Harvard University Asia Center), 2000.
and government service, in the Mongol world, Mongols and others freely engaged in trade. They did so as
part of corporate entities, ortaq, with the elite providing capital, protection and, we expect, contacts, and
merchants and other participants the physical labor involved in actually moving goods from one end of
the world to the others and their own sets of contacts, including in the then developing banking world of
the time. 9

Although the end of Mongolian unity in 1259, and the resulting civil wars, limited a by-then world-wide
trade, even by then reaching into Africa, it never totally abolished it. Later the trade revived greatly when
conditions improved in the early 14th century, when the feuding parties momentarily made peace. Even
before that time, the trade never entirely ceased, even to the extent that new trading centers continued to
appear, probably reflecting rerouting of at least part of the trade, although land traffic was a great deal less
convenient after 1259. Even before the breakdown of unity, this apparently was why Mngke-qan sent
one of his other brothers, Hle (died 1265) to Iran and Iraq, where he took Baghdad in 1258. The area
was unquestionably better suited for sea commerce at the time than any place else in the Mongol world,
although the Mongols did have contacts with the seas of the outside through south Russia and through
north China and were in the process of conquering Korea definitively. In many ways the taking of the
seas became a new, collective venture of the Mongols. In the case of Mngke-qans own house, contact
with the sea may even have provided a means of competing more effectively with the existing Mongol
power bases, that of the Golden Horde, for example, whose princes had emerged as kingmakers in the
Mongolian world including for Mngke himself who would not have come to power but for the support
of Golden Horde ruler Batu (died 1255). 10

Qubilais Conquest and Absorption of the South

By 1264, Ariq-bk, Qubilais younger brother and principal rival for the vacant throne of the great
khans of the Mongol Empire, had been defeated and the problem of Chinese warlords who were just too
powerful had been contained. Qubilai was now ready, while continuing to push his position and authority
in Central Asia, he never gave that up, to plan serious expansion into the maritime south. The final
advance began in 1267 and went on, more or less continuously, for 12 years. The details do not concern
us here other than to say that the Song temporary capital of Hangzhou was taken in 1276 and Song
resistance finally crushed in the great sea battle of Yaishan ,off present-day Macau. 11

Qubilai was now in control of all China, reunified for the first time since late Tang times. Probably
thinking in terms of establishing an expanded powerbase to assert his right to the vacant Mongol imperial
throne, once and for all, he refused to rest on his laurels and simply rule China, and, for that matter, Tibet,
Mongolia and eastern Turkistan, also under his control. He consolidated instead in a creative way and
stove to create a new mixed regime that would effectively control all the different societies coming under
his authority in ways doing minimal violence to any single one of them. Thus he adopted Tibetan
Buddhism, which was comfortable to Mongolian shamanists but also not that alien to many Chinese and
other Buddhist groups present in and about China. His government was Chinese on the surface but

9
See Thomas T. Allsen, Mongolian Princes and Their Merchant Partners, 1200-1260, Asia Major, 3rd series, 2:2 (1989), 83-
126.
10
I am indebted to Dr. Judith Kolbas for discussing trade issues connected with the Mongolian world of post unity in emails to
the author of 19 and 21 February, 2009. See also Judith Kolbas, The Mongols in Iran, Chingiz Khan to Uljaytu 1220-1309,
London and New York: Routledge, 2006; and Ralph Kauz, The Maritime Trade of Kish During the Mongol Period, in Linda
Komaroff, ed., Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan, Leiden and Boston: Brill (Islamic History and Civilization, Studies and
Texts, 64), 51-67.
11
See Paul D. Buell, "The Sung Resistance Movement, 1276-1279: The End of an Era," Annals of the Chinese Historical Society
of the Pacific Northwest, III (1985-6), 138-186.
Mongolian in its essence and staffed by a truly multinational personnel. He established a Chinese capital
but still went on nomadizing and hunting, in the time honored manner.

Nowhere was his effort to create mixed institutions and mixed cultural forms more evident than in the
highly acculturated official imperial cuisine of the new empire, which strove to combine many traditions,
Central Asian, Chinese and beyond. It was to include something for everyone and in so doing very much
reflected the exotic world that had been produced by budding international trade. After the conquest of
the south, South Seas goods flowed over all of China, even including the Yuan winter capital of
Qanbaliqh. Situated where Beijing is now, its cooks were free to take new spices and new foods
into consideration in creating culinary masterpieces.

Two examples will suffice. While the single most important basic form of food in the Mongol imperial
dietary manual, Yinshan zhengyao , Proper and Essential Things for the Emperors Food and
Drink, presented to the emperor in 1330, but reflecting tradition reaching back to Qubilais time, is a
banquet soup, a shlen, occurring in various forms, its signature spice is a large smoky cardamom. This is
Amomum tsao-ko, well known all over Southeast Asia, India and beyond, even into interior areas near the
Indian Ocean such as Afghanistan. And this is not the only exotic spice called for in the recipes of the
text. Also appearing is grain-of-paradise, A. villosum or A. xanthoides, obviously occurring by then in the
Indian Ocean trade but rare and ultimately from interior Africa. The list could be prolonged.12

Also clear evidence of the South Seas trade are many of the recipes, this time medical, found in the
fragments of what was apparently once an official encyclopedia of Arabic medicine as practiced in
Mongol China, although this medicine was very mixed and already assimilating to other medical
traditions, including Tibetan, Chinese and even Mongolian. The following recipe, assigned to India, but
with a Persian title, is typical and contains many exotic medicinal, most of which had to be imported from
distant places generally over the seas:

[Pr.] jawrish-e Hind recipe ([Subtext] This is a pill medicine formed from decocting various medicinals
with black sand sugar)

It can treat [Arabic] qlnaj ([Subtext] this is intestinal wind internal knotting) symptoms and pain of each
bone joint, foot qi and stomach main artery weakness.

[Ingredients:]

[Ar.] Sharaj Hind [Fumitory, Fumaria officinalis, also pepperwort or rose-colored wort,
Lepidium latifolium or Plumbago rosea of India] ([Subtext] [Ar.] sharaj Hind)
[Ar.] Sdhaj Hind [Indian malabathrum, Laurus malabathrum] ([Subtext] This is loquat leaf. Each
four qian [Chinese ounce]) 13
Nutmeg
[Ar.] Nnakhwah [bishops weed, Ammi copticum] ([Subtext] nnakhwah)
Black myrobalans ([Subtext] Three liang [ten qian])
Long pepper ([Subtext] Each five qian)
12
See the Paul D. Buell, Eugene N. Anderson and Charles Perry, A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol
Era as Seen in Hu Szu-hui's Yin-shan Cheng-yao, London: Kegan Paul International (Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series), 2000.
13
Under the Mongols, a qian was about 4 g. See Matsui Dai, Unification of Weights and Measures by the Mongol Empire as
Seen in the Uigur and Mongol Documents. In Turfan Revisisted, The First Century of Research into the Arts and Cultures of the
Silk Road, eds. Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, Simone-Christiane Raschmann, Jens Wilkens, Marianne Yaldiz and Peter Zieme.
Berlin: Dietlich Reimer Verlag (Monographien zur Indischen Archologie, Kunst and Philologie, 17), 2004: 197-202.
 Dried ginger ([Subtext] Five liang)
Pepper
[Ar.] Nrmushki ([Subtext] This is musk or dangmenzi [musk]. Two liang)
Cloves ([Subtext] Five qian)
Nutmeg flowers ([Subtext] Four qian)
[Pr.] Fandh [sugar candy or sweetmeat] sand sugar ([Subtext] This is the sand sugar of the Fandh
land. Ten liang)

Combine the above ingredients according to method. Each dose is two qian. Take along with
fresh grape liquor. 14

This particular recipe may have been transmitted to China with Tibetan intermediation. The Tibetans at
the time, in fact, had their own traditions of Middle Eastern Medicine, as well as being in contact with the
mainstream tradition as practiced in such places as Iran. 15 Nonetheless, most of the medicinals called for
here probably came to China by sea when the existing version of the text, called Huihui yaofang
, Muslim Medicinal Recipes, was compiled during the early Ming, and even during the Yuan
Dynasty when the original documents involved in the encyclopedia were first compiled.

Qubilai Takes Control

Once he had become ruler of all of China, two facts imposed themselves on Qubilai. One was that, in
spite of his successes, he was still isolated within the Mongolian world as a whole. Although he had
defeated his rival Ariq Bk, a new rival emerged in Qaidu (1236-1301), scion of the defunct house of
qan gdei, pushed aside and purged by Mngke in 1251. Qaidu proved even more obstinate in his
resistance than Ariq Bk and, at times, far more successful. Qaidus campaigns set Central Asia aflame
and as a result Qubilai lost what few contacts he did have outside of Mongolia itself, and even that was
threatened by Qaidu, and in war-torn Turkistan where times were difficult for Uighur allies. 16 Whatever
his delusions of Mongolian imperial grandeur, Qubilai remained thrown-back on his Chinese base and its
maintenance and development was now of increasing importance. A second fact was that, as master of the
former Song domains, Song maritime concerns had now become Qubilais concerns and as had been the
case with Central Asian trade, Qubilais government was actively involved in promoting trade in its new
domains almost from the very beginnings. It made major new alliances, e.g., including that with former
Song maritime officer Pu Shougeng whose change of allegiance was critical in the conquest of
Song. Pu now worked for Qubilai not just as a military ally, controlling Fujian trade as before, 17 but
Qubilai wanted more than commercial control and was in any case less constrained to peaceful expansion
that the Song had been.

14
See the discussion in Paul D. Buell in Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim , eds., Tibetans, Mongols and
Cultural Fusion, Islam and Tibet, Interactions along the Musk Route, Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2010, forthcoming. Text in
Kong, S.Y. , et al., Huihui yaofang . Hong Kong: Hong Kong Zhong Bianyi Yinwu Youxian Gongsi
, 1996, 447.
15
On the movement of medicines and medical traditions under the Mongols see also Paul D. Buell, How did Persian and other
western Medical Knowledge Move East, and Chinese West? A Look at the Role of Rashd al-Dn and others, Asian Medicine,
Tradition and Modernity, 3 (2007), 279-95.
16
Qaidu took over, with a little help from the Golden Horde, also hostile to Qubilai, the rump Caadai ulus in western Turkistan
leaving Qubilai with only one Mongolian ally, the Iranian Ilqanate, from which he was physically disconnected. Access of the
seas now became critical for Qubilai if he was to maintain connections with his Iranian ally as well as offering the possibility of
participation in a rich trade, a trade, in fact, as richer or richer than what had and still moved through Central Asia. On this period
see Buell, 2003: 71-99.
17
On Pu see now the discussion in So, 2000: 301-305.
 Qubilais attempts at overseas expansion actually preceded his conquest of the south, just as did his
efforts to build up a navy, in former Jin domains, and in cooperation with Koryo Korea. 18 Likewise, his
first efforts at maritime expansion predated the fall of Song. Even before his final attack on the Song
capital, Qubilai launched his first reconnaissance in force to Japan in 1274, although the great invasion of
1281 is usually the one remembered. Delgado, basing himself on recent Japanese scholarship and
archaeology strongly suggests that both invasions had economic as well as political causes, the former
even predominating. 19 A still more serious effort was made towards mainland and insular Southeast Asia,
already somewhat within the Mongol sphere of influence.

Vietnam and the Indochinese Peninsula 20

The Mongols first came into contact with what is now northern Vietnam during the period of unified
empire, in connection with their advance on Yunnan. At the time there was, strictly speaking, no Vietnam
yet. Certainly there was no state even remotely similar to the Vietnam of today which, in many ways,
grew out of the very Mongol attack soon underway against it. Vietnamese speakers did dominate in what
in todays North Vietnam, then as now the cultural heartland. To the Chinese it was still known as
Annam, , pacifying the south, an old name. 21 Although Vietnamese, this state was weak with little
sense of national identity and disunited. Powerful clans were more interested in fighting each other than
mobilizing against any potential enemy. 22

Further south, modern central Vietnam, the area around modern Hu, was dominated by the kingdom of
Champa, by then largely Muslim although once subject to substantial Indian cultural influence. In spite of
their geographical position, in what is now Vietnamese heartland, the Cham people were not Vietnamese
culturally but spoke a Malayo-Polynesian language. 23 This contrasts to Vietnamese, a Mon-khmer
language heavily influenced by the Thai tonal system and which has been subject to centuries of Chinese
influence. This has left an enormous residue in the Vietnamese literary language.

The center of the kingdom was the large and prosperous city called Zhancheng , by the Chinese,
Champpura by the locals, near modern Da Nang . Its greatest asset was its ideal positioning both for
international trade and river traffic, quite unlike the inland capital of Annam, upland and in an area with
fewer waterways. Champpuras location was also ideal defensively, as the Mongols were to find out.

18
Nonetheless, it was the adherence of powerful Song turncoats such as Pu Shougeng and their ships that truly turned Mongol
China into a naval power. See the discussion in Buell, 1985-86, and the literature cited there. On the rise of the Yuan navy see
also Lo Jung-Pang, The Emergence of China as a Sea Power During the Late Song and Early Yuan Periods, The Far Eastern
Quarterly, 14 (1955), 489-503, and Deng, 1999: 188-89. For a survey of Mongol control in Korea see William E. Henthorn,
Korea, the Mongol Invasions, Leiden: J.E. Brill, 1963.
19
James P. Delgado, Khubilai Khans Lost Fleet, in Search of a Legendary Armada, Vancouver and Toronto, Douglas and
McIntyre, 2008.
20
The material here is drawn with modifications from Paul D. Buell, Indochina, Vietnamese Nationalism, and the Mongols, in
Volker Rybatzki, Alessandra Pozzi, Peter W. Geier and John R. Krueger, eds., The Early Mongols: Language, Culture and
History Studies in Honour of Igor de Rachewiltz On the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, Bloomington: Indiana University Press
(Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series 173), 2009, 21-29.
Since the 11th century this same area was known locally as i Vit , Great Vit, in the manner of a Chinese dynasty,
21

the origin of our term Vietnam.

22
See Keith W. Taylor, The Early Kingdoms, in Nicholas Tarling, ed., The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, four
volumes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 137-182. Dominating at the time of the Mongol invasions was the Trn
clan, positioned in Thng-long, , the modern H ni .
23
On the history of Champa see Taylor in Tarling, ed., 1992. Also see Charles Wheeler, One Region, Two Histories, Cham
Precedents in the History of the Hi An Region, in Tran and Reid, 2006, 163-193.
 South of Champa were hill tribes and Cambodians. The latter spoke a language related to Vietnamese
but lacking tones. Like the Vietnamese, the Cambodians were Buddhist, but Theravada Buddhists, not
Mahayana like the Vietnamese, whose religious orientation was strongly influenced by China.

Although first contact with Annam may have been fortuitous, economic motivation cannot be ruled out
even then since Yunnan, from which the first advance on Annam was mounted, certainly had its own
traders and the lure of the sea was probably already becoming noticeable. Qubilai, the later ruler of China,
was, in any case, one of was one of the major architects of the advance towards the southwest in the first
place, although there is no reason to assume that he yet had the sophisticated understanding of the world
that he was to acquire two decades later.

The march towards the sea was led Uriangqadai (1201-1272), the son of the great Mongol general
Sbeetei-baatur (1176-1248). 24 Its claimed purpose was to was to subdue various barbarians, who had
still not submitted 25 in the general vicinity of Yunnan. Among them were the peoples of Jiaozhi ,
another old name for northern Vietnam.

Given the weakness of the Annamese kingdom at the time, the Mongols had no problem penetrating it
and their cavalry performed rather well in the relatively flat areas in the uplands and along the Red River,
the center of Annamese life. This was in 1257-58. Once positioned near the Annamese capital, the
Mongols sent envoys to the king, Trn Thi-Tng or Trn Cnh , (r. 1225-1258) and invited
him to submit. He refused and thus began almost 40 years of Vietnamese outright resistance or
prevarication. After being defeated on the rivers and on land, knowing that he could not face the Mongols
if they attempted to take his capital, Thi-Tng took refuge in an island in the sea and thus placed himself
out of Mongol reach. Uriangqadai and his subordinates then advanced to and took Thng-long where they
discovered that one of their envoys had been killed, a serious breach of diplomatic protocol to the
Mongols. True to tradition, they massacred the city but were forced to retreat again to the safety and
coolness of the Yunnan Plateau after only nine days, due to the damp and hot north Vietnam climate
(summer 1258). 26

After this inauspicious beginning, more than 20 years were to elapse between this first advance and the
next effort to bring Vietnam into the Mongol sphere of influence, this time Qubilais East Asia sub-
sphere. During almost all of these 20 years Annam was ruled by the son of Thi-Tng, who returned to
his ruined capital once again after the Mongols departed, sent back the two Mongol envoys that he still
held captive, and abdicated in favor of his son, Trn Thnh-Tng , or Trn Hong (r. 1258-
1278). The latter build up Annamese strength and did everything possible to avoid further collision with
Annams powerful Mongol neighbors, To placate them, Thnh-Tng sent ambassadors, hostages and
tribute, that is, local Vietnamese products such as spices and aromatics, and talented individuals of

24
There is substantial material on Uriangqadai, including a Yuanshi biography. See Yuanshi, Zhonghua shuju ,
2978-2982.
25
Yuanshi, 4633. In addition to the lengthy section on Annam in the Yuanshi, which provides the fullest account, the other
principal Chinese source for the Mongol advance into Indochina are two texts in Su Tianjue , Yuan Wenlei , Shijie
shuju , Taibei , 1962,Yuan wenlei, 41, 25a-26a, 41, 33a-35b. These texts are supplemented by biographies of the
principal participants. Vietnamese sources include the i Vit s k , Historical Record of Vietnam, of L Vn Hu
(1230-1322), completed in 1272 and containing considerable information about the first Mongol invasions of Vietnam and local
reactions to them, and the later i Vit s k ton th , Completed Historical Record of Vietnam, of Ng S
Lin (fl. 15th century). On these works see Yu Insun, L Vn Hu and Ng S Lin: A Comparison of Their Perception of
Vietnamese History, in Nhung Tuyet Tran and Anthony Reid, Vit Nam, Borderless Histories, Madison, Wisconsin: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 2006, 45-71.
26
Yuanshi, 4633-4634.
interest to the Mongols, including shaman and doctors, although he never appeared himself, despite
repeated requests. 27

The situation changed drastically as the Mongols appeared not only in Yunnan and in areas
surrounding, but in southeast China as they snuffed out final Song resistance. By 1279, much to the
chagrin of Annams Trn rulers, they were now close neighbors and well positioned to exert more direct
influence on Annam and using armies with many Chinese in them used to the climate, not just Mongol
horse-back forces. Interestingly, although Qubilai was very interested in a nominal submission of Annam,
and an Annamese promise not to assist Song refugees as they tried to organize further resistance, it was
Champa that drew his main concern. Our sources in fact state in so many words that Champa was the
main target of Mongol efforts in the direction of Indo-China and that Qubilai or rather his advisors saw
Champa as the key to Indian Ocean trade and hoped to control that trade through controlling Champa. 28

Although this view was not 100 percent correct, as the Mongols knew themselves from their growing
contacts with India, Champa was powerful economically. It was one of the many states that had arisen to
compete with the great trading empire of Srivijaya, which was to collapse completely in the 14th
century. 29 Ultimately, it was Melaka, then still a minor power, that was to emerge supreme and which,
based upon long-range trading connections with Okinawa and other states in East Asia, was to channel
Indian Ocean trade in exactly the same way that the rulers of Mongol China thought Champa was doing
in its time, but this is to get ahead of the story. In the second half of the thirteenth century no one power
was yet and dominant a China-based maritime empire was a distinct possibility, among many.

In the late 13th century, the trade was very mixed. To be sure, Chinese ships and Chinese merchants
were increasingly involved directly, and Arabic and Persian shipping was less directly involved in the Far
East, as it once had been. Descendents of Arabs and Persians based in China and elsewhere were still
important, but also playing a role was Southeast Asian shipping, from Java and Sumatra, the former being
another target of interest for Qubilai. The important fact is that, whether Champa was the center of things
or not, it could provide a major base that coupled with advanced positions on Java, could lead to an
amazing maritime advance for Qubilai and his Chinese allies.

The push began with a diplomatic offensive as a consequence of which Annam was forced to accept a
Mongol imperial representative or daruqaci. The Annamese policy was to keep them talking,
prevaricating wherever possible. This Vietnamese diplomats did very effectively over the long term,
quoting precedent right back at Qubilais Chinese advisors. 30 Ultimately a crisis developed, in most terms
a manufactured one, due to the in theory illegal ascension of the new Annamese monarch, without the
permission of equally theoretical Mongol overlords. In question was Trn Nhn-Tng , or Trn
Khm , (r. 1278-1293), son of the previous ruler, Trn Thnh-Tng (r. 1258-1278). This
illegal accession and the outright refusal of any Annamese monarch to come to court and bear tribute in
the sanctioned manner strained relations and matters came to a head as Annam was required to assist the
Mongols in their planned attack on Champa. This meant Mongol use of Annam was a base and possible
Mongol movement into and through Annam on the way south.

27
Yuanshi, 4634.
28
On the events leading up to the advance and the campaign and the siege of the city of Champa in particular see details in the
Yuan Wenlei, 41, 33b-35b, Yuanshi, 4661-4664, Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan, His Life and Times, Berkeley and Los Angeles,
University of California Press, 1988, 215-217. On Mongol era relations with India see now Tansen Sen, The Yuan Khanate and
India: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Asia Major, 19, 1-2 (2006), 299-326.
29
See O.W. Wolters, The Fall of rvijaya in Malay History, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970, but not the current
revisionism regarding the extent and actual power of this empire.
30
Yuanshi, 4638-4640.
 Similar pressures had been exerted on Champa, whose king, Indravarman (r. 1266- ?), at first friendly,
also ultimately refused to cooperate with the Mongols, particularly with Mongol efforts to send diplomats
all over the Indian Ocean to press their claims to dominance there. In Champa Mongol efforts were led by
the general Sget (died 1285), Minister of the Right and a hero in the final wars against Song. 31 The
resulting war lasted four years, from 1281 to 1285, during which the conquerors proved quite unable to
fully control the Champa capital, located in difficult terrain surrounded by numerous rivers.

As Mongol fortunes waxed and waned, so did opposition in Annam, supposedly their loyal ally.
Leading it was not the king, but his clansman Trn Quc Tun (1228-1300) who, with a little
help from other princes supporting him, became the Vietnamese national hero in the fight against the
Mongols. It was he who led the battle against renewed Mongol invasion, this time by horseman under
Prince Toqan. The main Mongol supply lines stretched down the Vietnamese coast. Here weakness lay as
the Vietnamese moved from being uncooperative, to sullen hostility, to cooperation with Champa, and
outright resistance, as they refused to permit the passage of a new Mongol army bound for Champa under
Toqan. 32

The key to a successful defense was preventing any juncture between Toqans army and much smaller
Mongol forces, under Sget, situated near Champa. This the Vietnamese did. Toqan was able to
penetrate Vietnam, and even take the capital of Thng-long, but the Vietnamese pursued a scorched earth
policy to deny valuable supplies and sought to engage Mongol troops using the rivers and streams rather
for ambush, rather than fighting them in the open. There Toqans advantage in cavalry would have proven
overwhelming. The Vietnamese also let the Mongols wear themselves down in a climate they were both
unused and unsuited to. In the end, Toqan was forced to retreat, leaving Sget, who found only an empty
camp rather than the army he was supposed to rendezvous with, in the lurch. The latter was defeated and
died in battle. 33 This was in 1285.

The Mongols came back two years later, in even larger numbers, again under prince Toqan, but Trn
Quc Tun used some of the same tactics to defeat this new invasion. In this case they destroyed Toqans
supply base, forcing him to retreat. Toqans armies were not destroyed, but the Mongol fleet was, at the
Battle of Bch ng River (1288). Even the Mongol admiral, Omar, died. 34

Although the Mongols soon abandoned Champa as untenable, the war in Annam went on until the end
of Qubilais reign. His successor, Temr ljeit (r. 1294-1307), finally gave it all up, even plans for a
renewed assault on Japan.35 In the end, a Vietnamese quagmire had entrapped the Mongols just as it was
later to entrap Americans and others. Vietnam lost most of the battles but won the war. In the end it was
Annam, now truly Vietnam, which conquered Champa and not the Mongols. And from Champa the
Vietnamese kept on going south, the area around what is now Saigon becoming Vietnamese no later than
the end of the 18th century. 36

31
See his biography in the Yuanshi, 3150-53.
32
Yuanshi 4641-4643. By this time, to insult Qubilai even more, the Annamese king had even declared himself an
emperor, theoretically equal to Qubilai.
33
Yuanshi, loc. cit., 3152-3153, Yuan Weilei, 41, 25b-26a, Taylor, 1992, 149, Insun, 2006, 63, Rossabi, 1988, 217-
218.
34
Yuanshi, 4645-4648.
35
Yuanshi, 4650
36
On Vietnams Mekong, see Li Tana, The Eighteenth-Century Mekong Delta and Its World of Water Frontier, in
Tran and Reid, 2006, 147-162.
 Qubilai failed just as badly in his concurrent efforts to invade Java. Clearly the times were not yet ready
for a China based maritime empire although, it has been suggested that Qubilais government simply did
not try hard enough and launched some of its expeditions half-baked. But Trn Quc Tun and some
brave Japanese Samurai deserve some credit as well. 37

Although Qubilai failed, Chinas maritime power continued to develop and even grew more, despite the
lack of a Chinese military dominance. Other traders pushed their advantages as well resulting in
remarkable trade fluorescence in the 14th century in particular in Reids view, the direct stimulus to our
own commercial age. 38 The Portuguese, after all, created nothing new after their first voyages into the
Indian Ocean. They came to gain a piece of the action and to hook their own trade networks into existing
ones in the east, including those belonging to Maleka, which they held as a centerpiece of their power in
the east for more than a century, along with other critical points. Meanwhile a Chinese age, one not based
on direct military power and conquest, although military power was always there for the offing, had
followed on the era of Mongol failure. These centered on the Zhenghe voyages of early Ming, the
most impressive exhibition of naval power achieved then to date, in any culture or region. The Chinese,
moreover, showed the way for a more indirect control than what Qubilai had intended and in this they
were followed by the Portuguese, who never felt the need to hold more than a few critical points. There
was, as a consequence, no true colonial empire in the area until as late as the 18th century when the British
gained control of India once and for all and came to physically dominate the rest of the region too, even
those parts held by the Dutch, in decline, and the Spanish, or for that matter, the Portuguese, also in
decline. The latter had lost their vital monopoly in the lucrative Japanese trade in the first third of the 17th
century.

Interestingly, in the end, the world of the South Seas and its trade came to look like something the
Mongols might have intended or at least what they might have achieved if they had been successful and a
little less heavy handed. Qubilai may have failed, but set the pattern for what was to come.

37
See now Delgado, 2008: 154ff, also on the Java invasion.
38
Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680, two volumes, New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1988-1993.