Why did the Ming Chinese fail to hold northern Vietnam in the 15th century?

[Roma_Victrix]

As some of you here may already know, the northern half of Vietnam was under Chinese dominion from roughly 111 BC to 939 AD, with two notable interruptions and also occasional Chinese invasions of the Champa Kingdom in southern Vietnam. The Vietnamese won their independence after defeating the Southern Han forces at the Battle of Bach Dang in 938 AD, allowing for the establishment of the Ngô Dynasty and the Kingdom of Dai Viet. The Vietnamese Ly Dynasty and Chinese Song Dynasty fought a brief war in the 11th century AD and Vietnam was threatened by the Mongol Empire (styled in the east as the Yuan Dynasty) once they conquered the Southern Song Dynasty of China in 1279 AD. However, things were fairly peaceful from then until the 15th century AD, when the Chinese felt the need to reassert their authority in the region.

In 1407 AD the short-lived Hồ dynasty of northern Vietnam was toppled by the Ming Dynasty of China, then led by the Yongle Emperor, the same ruler who financed the famous Treasure Fleet voyages of Admiral Zheng He into the Indian Ocean and all the way to East Africa. The Ming Chinese attempted to establish traditional Chinese bureaucratic rule over northern Vietnam. Revolts occurred almost right away and were initially crushed, but Chinese rule only lasted until 1427 when the Lam Sơn uprising, led by Lê Lợi, managed to oust the remaining Ming Chinese forces. Lê Lợi then went on to establish the Later Lê dynasty, which would last until 1789 and manage to subjugate Champa as a vassal state.

The loss of northern Vietnam for the fourth time in Chinese history cannot exactly be blamed on the death of Ming China's Yongle Emperor in 1424, since the uprising of Lê Lợi began in 1418. Ming Chinese rule was already deteriorating merely a decade after the Ming conquest. How did it happen? Or rather, how did the Ming Chinese allow it to happen, whereas they had earlier managed to successfully rule the country for centuries on end? I can't really seem to find good, detailed sources for this rebellion, but I suppose it goes without saying that the Vietnamese have a reputation for guerrilla tactics and legacy of being skilled insurgents going into modern times. Were there logistical concerns that the Ming Chinese weren't meeting and if so why? Was the imperial court in Beijing simply apathetic about maintaining their new southern province? Or were the Vietnamese simply that good at kicking their asses?

[Basil II the B.S]

Le Loi was probably a more capable leader than anything the Ming could throw at him at the time.

Half-assed answer but sometimes one man with the right ideas make a difference. Yi Sun Sin similarly single-handedly stomped a militarily superior Japan a century later.

[NorseThing]

I cannot answer the op really, but I wonder if the Ming relied more upon the army than a navy. If so the mere fact that the provinces are coastal would not mean a thing. Then the reason to hold would have more to do with overland routes for trade as well as defense. I am willing to bet a bit has to do with all regions not primarily Han Chinese being harder to hold. Allocation of resources and Vietnam may have been the least valuable to hold.

I did look at wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth...ion_of_Vietnam

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

They kept having to put down revolts. Something like two dynasties were declared by Vietnamese rebels. Le Loi was one of these. The issue ultimately came down to the Ming wanting to withdraw since it was more expensive to stay than to leave.

[Roma_Victrix]

They kept having to put down revolts. Something like two dynasties were declared by Vietnamese rebels. Le Loi was one of these. The issue ultimately came down to the Ming wanting to withdraw since it was more expensive to stay than to leave.

That makes sense, in the same way that the Roman Empire settled for colonizing Germania up to the Rhine River and saying "screw that" to virtually everything northeast of it thanks to the Teutoburg fiasco (and the fact that they were developing a wooded wilderness dotted by Germanic villages and a handful of oppida forts). Obviously by the 15th century AD northern Vietnam was far more developed than it was in the 1st century BC when it was first conquered by Han China under Emperor Wu's leadership, but the comparison still holds when you consider the drain on the imperial government's treasury having to replenish a bunch of fatigued garrisons. I pretty much figured this was the case but it would be nice to see some sort of modern scholarship confirming it by piecing together suitable evidence for this hypothesis.

Le Loi was probably a more capable leader than anything the Ming could throw at him at the time.

Half-assed answer but sometimes one man with the right ideas make a difference. Yi Sun Sin similarly single-handedly stomped a militarily superior Japan a century later.

That's a good point. On land, Joseon Korea was getting hammered by the Japanese forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and if it weren't for Ming Chinese aid, the Japanese could have been in Korea for much longer than they were (and they were there long enough to build large Japanese-style castles that still stand to this day). Admiral Yi Sun-sin was the right man in the right place at the right time, and his naval victories were the key to disrupting the Japanese war effort, logistics, and steady supply of reinforcements. I do tend to dislike the "big man theory" of history, but in some cases you have to wonder how the British would have handled the onslaught of the Napoleonic Empire without the naval prowess of Horatio Nelson and Field Marshall Arthur Wellesley's keen eye for the battlefield. I'm not saying Le Loi was a total military genius and perhaps he was aided by numerous things such as favorable terrain, local support, incompetence or apathy on the part of the Ming occupiers, etc. However, he seemed like a charismatic enough figure to rally around and clinch victory after a decade-long struggle.

I cannot answer the op really, but I wonder if the Ming relied more upon the army than a navy. If so the mere fact that the provinces are coastal would not mean a thing. Then the reason to hold would have more to do with overland routes for trade as well as defense. I am willing to bet a bit has to do with all regions not primarily Han Chinese being harder to hold. Allocation of resources and Vietnam may have been the least valuable to hold.

I did look at wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth...ion_of_Vietnam

I believe the Ming were adequately aided by their navy, which in the time of the Yongle Emperor, Hongxi Emperor, and Xuande Emperor was basically the strongest it would be for the remainder of the dynasty. By the mid-15th century the Treasure Fleet was dismantled and the subsequent Haijin policies of isolationism severely limited trade/tribute gathering from the outside world (at least until the Portuguese and Spanish began trading heavily with the Ming Empire in the late 16th century, followed shortly thereafter by the Dutch and English).

[Basil II the B.S]

That's a good point. On land, Joseon Korea was getting hammered by the Japanese forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and if it weren't for Ming Chinese aid, the Japanese could have been in Korea for much longer than they were (and they were there long enough to build large Japanese-style castles that still stand to this day). Admiral Yi Sun-sin was the right man in the right place at the right time, and his naval victories were the key to disrupting the Japanese war effort, logistics, and steady supply of reinforcements. I do tend to dislike the "big man theory" of history, but in some cases you have to wonder how the British would have handled the onslaught of the Napoleonic Empire without the naval prowess of Horatio Nelson and Field Marshall Arthur Wellesley's keen eye for the battlefield. I'm not saying Le Loi was a total military genius and perhaps he was aided by numerous things such as favorable terrain, local support, incompetence or apathy on the part of the Ming occupiers, etc. However, he seemed like a charismatic enough figure to rally around and clinch victory after a decade-long struggle.

It's a chain reaction effect.

One man with the right ideas can result in his generation of soldiers becoming an unstoppable force, because the more they win, the more they acquire experience, confidence etc.

Look at Phillip's reform of the Macedonian army. He creates the generation for Alexander's conquests. Nonetheless, you look at the latter Gaugamela's plan and it's nuts: overloading the right, so that he can overstretch it, then break a segment of it that rushes to the center to kill Darius while the Persian center is pinned by the phalanx. What's even crazier, it worked for the most part. Would it have been possible without a) a quality Macedonian army and b) Alexander's boldness/intuitions? No. So they go together.

[hellheaven1987]

I believe the Ming were adequately aided by their navy, which in the time of the Yongle Emperor, Hongxi Emperor, and Xuande Emperor was basically the strongest it would be for the remainder of the dynasty.

Except by the time of Xuande Emperor the government financial situation was in deficit due to taxation inefficiency, poor bureaucracy system, heavy inflation, overtaxation and overspending (by Yongle). Poor financial situation combine with an endless war of constant defeats (Ming had been fighting in northern Vietnam for 20 years by that time) means Beijing saw no other way out besides pull back under a general policy of austerity.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

As was mentioned the Ming in the reign of Xuande were experiencing their first batch of financial troubles. This also coincides with the failure of the aggro-military colonies in the latter part of Yongle's reign. Yongle's reign came about after the overthrow of his nephew in the Jiangnan Campaigns and created administrative problems, as civil wars tend to do, poverty increased as did a failure in crop yield. Yongle was forced to resolve these problems for the first part of his reign and spent a good chunk of it also building construction projects and changing the capital to Beijing (also very costly). He also waged campaigns on the steppe and in Vietnam, both places which his father the Hongwu Emperor had designated as places that should be avoided. As you can see in the tables below the annexation of Annam (1407-1427) did not bring any particular benefits, at best it provided the Ming access to certain goods which they probably could have acquired through trade anyway (the record is actually being generous, it was probably lower taxation yield). A war that lasted 21 years against multiple factions was certainly not within the Ming's interests nor was it their intention to destabilize Vietnam, so ultimately they withdrew and allowed Le Loi to fill the vacuum, they had accomplished their main goal of lifting the pressure from their allies in Champa for the time being. Many would have assumed that the Ming only invaded to aid Champa and then install a puppet regime in Annam but that became moot when the Ming stayed for 20 years and administered the region as a province. Holding onto it was proving more costly in men and money than anyone had bargained for so after a few military losses they opted for withdrawal.

Last I checked Kenneth Swope was actually working on a book about the Ming invasion of Vietnam. If you don't know he actually wrote a book about the Imjin War titled "A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail".

Grain production in Agro-Military Colonies during the reign of Yongle (1400's):
Year...........Grain Production in Piculs
1403..........23,450,799 piculs
1404..........12,760,300
1405..........12,467,700
1406..........19,792,050
1407..........14,374,270
1408..........13,718,400
1409..........12,229,600
1410..........10,368,550
1411..........12,660,970
1412..........11,787,000
1413..........09,109,110
1414..........09,738,690
1415..........10,358,250
1416..........09,031,970
1417..........09,282,180
1418..........08,119,670
1419..........07,930,920
1420..........05,158,040
1421..........05,169,120
1422..........05,175,345
1423..........05,171,218

Population during reign of Yongle 1400's (includes Annam):
Year.......Households..........Population............Grain Tax in Piculs
1403......11,415,829..........66,598,337.......... ..31,299,704
1404......09,685,020..........50,950,470.......... ..31,874,371
1405......09,689,260..........51,618,500.......... ..31,133,993
1406......09,687,859..........51,524,656.......... ..30,700,569
1407......09,822,912..........51,878,572.......... ..29,824,436
1408......09,443,876..........51,502,077.......... ..30,469,293
1409......09,637,261..........51,694,769.......... ..31,005,458
1410......09,655,755..........51,775,255.......... ..30,623,138
1411......09,533,692..........51,446,834.......... ..30,718,814
1412......10,992,432..........65,377,633.......... ..34,612,692
1413......09,689,052..........56,618,209.......... ..32,574,248
1414......09,687,729..........51,524,436.......... ..32,640,828
1415......09,687,729..........51,524,436.......... ..32,640,828
1416......09,882,757..........51,878,172.......... ..32,511,270
1417......09,443,766..........51,501,867.......... ..32,695,864
1418......09,637,061..........51,694,549.......... ..31,804,385
1419......09,605,553..........51,794,935.......... ..32,248,673
1420......09,533,492..........51,446,434.......... ..32,399,206
1421......09,703,360..........51,774,228.......... ..32,421,831
1422......09,665,133..........58,688,691.......... ..32,426,739
1423......09,972,125..........52,763,174.......... ..32,373,741
1424......10,066,080..........52,468,152.......... ..32,601,206

[hellheaven1987]

Yongle Emperor generally financed his works by:

- Print more paper money.
- RISE TAX!!
- FORCE PEOPLE TO WORK FREEEE LONGER (people had to serve some mandatory labor service for government every year during Ming as part of tax)!!!
- Confiscation of property if there is no other choice (and he was legal to do so).

You can see where this would head to...

[Roma_Victrix]

It's a chain reaction effect.

One man with the right ideas can result in his generation of soldiers becoming an unstoppable force, because the more they win, the more they acquire experience, confidence etc.

Look at Phillip's reform of the Macedonian army. He creates the generation for Alexander's conquests. Nonetheless, you look at the latter Gaugamela's plan and it's nuts: overloading the right, so that he can overstretch it, then break a segment of it that rushes to the center to kill Darius while the Persian center is pinned by the phalanx. What's even crazier, it worked for the most part. Would it have been possible without a) a quality Macedonian army and b) Alexander's boldness/intuitions? No. So they go together.

Yes, I suppose one thing fed the other in a circular loop. Alexander was a brilliant commander who never lost a battle that he personally commanded. His first string of victories must have made him seem like a divine, god-like figure to some of his men, or at the very least an invincible wunderkind and lord of war. That would have raised the morale of virtually every soldier in his army, decreasing their fear of potential defeat and hence encouraging them to perform well on the battlefield. It also helped that the phalanxes were drilled and trained in expert fashion since the reign of his father Philip II. Even with a mediocre commander, the Achaemenid Persians would have been in big trouble when facing a united Greece and Macedonia (minus Sparta, which remained defiant, at least until Alexander's regent Antipater stomped King Agis III of Sparta at Megalopolis and Alexander forced Sparta to surrender aristocratic hostages).

Except by the time of Xuande Emperor the government financial situation was in deficit due to taxation inefficiency, poor bureaucracy system, heavy inflation, overtaxation and overspending (by Yongle). Poor financial situation combine with an endless war of constant defeats (Ming had been fighting in northern Vietnam for 20 years by that time) means Beijing saw no other way out besides pull back under a general policy of austerity.

This is a good point that's expanded on by Oda...

As was mentioned the Ming in the reign of Xuande were experiencing their first batch of financial troubles. This also coincides with the failure of the aggro-military colonies in the latter part of Yongle's reign. Yongle's reign came about after the overthrow of his nephew in the Jiangnan Campaigns and created administrative problems, as civil wars tend to do, poverty increased as did a failure in crop yield. Yongle was forced to resolve these problems for the first part of his reign and spent a good chunk of it also building construction projects and changing the capital to Beijing (also very costly). He also waged campaigns on the steppe and in Vietnam, both places which his father the Hongwu Emperor had designated as places that should be avoided. As you can see in the tables below the annexation of Annam (1407-1427) did not bring any particular benefits, at best it provided the Ming access to certain goods which they probably could have acquired through trade anyway (the record is actually being generous, it was probably lower taxation yield). A war that lasted 21 years against multiple factions was certainly not within the Ming's interests nor was it their intention to destabilize Vietnam, so ultimately they withdrew and allowed Le Loi to fill the vacuum, they had accomplished their main goal of lifting the pressure from their allies in Champa for the time being. Many would have assumed that the Ming only invaded to aid Champa and then install a puppet regime in Annam but that became moot when the Ming stayed for 20 years and administered the region as a province. Holding onto it was proving more costly in men and money than anyone had bargained for so after a few military losses they opted for withdrawal.

Last I checked Kenneth Swope was actually working on a book about the Ming invasion of Vietnam. If you don't know he actually wrote a book about the Imjin War titled "A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail".

Thanks for sharing all the data here! It's precisely the sort of thing I was looking for. The Hongwu Emperor was kind of a dick, never liked the guy (had crazy ideas about curtailing everyone's economic freedoms), but his son Zhu Di, aka Yongle Emperor, perhaps should have listened to his father about Vietnam. The Yongle Emperor was obviously keen to flex his imperial muscles overseas, feeling that Ming China was powerful enough to invade Sri Lanka in the Kotte War of 1410-1411, removing the Sinhalese ruler there in favor of a friendly, pro-Beijing tributary vassal in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The retraction of Ming imperial overreach and installation of isolationist policies were partly due to a faction at the royal court wanting to curb the power of the palace eunuchs (figures like Admiral Zheng He included), but another obvious explanation would be stemming the mounting fiscal pressures produced by the grandiose projection of Ming power abroad that drained the royal treasury. I guess the anti-eunuch faction killed two birds with one stone there. Although the Ming and Qing were open to having Jesuit missionaries and other Europeans as guests in the Forbidden City (and leasing Macau to the Portuguese), it's the sort of attitude that one sees persisting into the Qing Dynasty as well, with the 1793 George Macartney mission rebuffed by the Qianlong Emperor. They basically told the British that they were uninterested in their trinkets and were content with what China could produced internally, combined with minor trade and tributary relations with neighboring powers.

Yongle Emperor generally financed his works by:

- Print more paper money.
- RISE TAX!!
- FORCE PEOPLE TO WORK FREEEE LONGER (people had to serve some mandatory labor service for government every year during Ming as part of tax)!!!
- Confiscation of property if there is no other choice (and he was legal to do so).

You can see where this would head to...

The Ming certainly created problems of hyperinflation by over-printing paper banknotes during the middle part of the dynasty, but they also got into trouble with Spanish silver from the Americas during the latter half of the dynasty. In this case there was suddenly not enough silver (due to Spain rerouting their Pacific silver trade and Tokugawa Japan shutting off most of their trade except for a couple ports operated by the Dutch). Silver was used as currency by provincial authorities and farmers for paying taxes and was also used as a medium of exchange for copper coins, the latter of which most farmers received for selling their crops and goods at local markets. When the price of silver skyrocketed due to the overall shortage of it, the copper coins received by the common folk for their goods and services started to fetch less and less silver that they needed to pay their taxes. This economic hardship was one of the many reasons, including famine, plague, and natural disasters, which brought down the Ming dynasty in Li Zicheng's rebellion and allowed for the Manchu to swoop in and take over.

[hellheaven1987]

The Ming certainly created problems of hyperinflation by over-printing paper banknotes during the middle part of the dynasty, but they also got into trouble with Spanish silver from the Americas during the latter half of the dynasty. In this case there was suddenly not enough silver (due to Spain rerouting their Pacific silver trade and Tokugawa Japan shutting off most of their trade except for a couple ports operated by the Dutch). Silver was used as currency by provincial authorities and farmers for paying taxes and was also used as a medium of exchange for copper coins, the latter of which most farmers received for selling their crops and goods at local markets. When the price of silver skyrocketed due to the overall shortage of it, the copper coins received by the common folk for their goods and services started to fetch less and less silver that they needed to pay their taxes. This economic hardship was one of the many reasons, including famine, plague, and natural disasters, which brought down the Ming dynasty in Li Zicheng's rebellion and allowed for the Manchu to swoop in and take over.

Ming's monetary history is an interesting one, since it is probably the only Chinese dynasty that had both money devalution and money shortage in same time. The fact is, Ming always had copper monetary shortage, hence it forced the society to use precious metal as currency for trade (in this case silver), which was never a government intention. On the other hand, I remember it at least had two serious devalution of paper banknote throughout its history due to overprinting of paper note, often because of government overspending. Yet an interesting side note is that Chinese copper coins, particularly the coins issued by Yongle Emperor, were exported to oversea large enough that it became the main coinage used in Japan during 15th and 16th Century, to the point that the business-focus warlord Oda Nobunaga actually print the coin Yǒng-Lè Tōng-Bǎo on his flag.