The Tran Dynasty and the Defeat of the Mongols

 

In 1225 the Tran family, which had effecitvely controlled the Vietnamese throne for many years, replaced the Ly dynasty by arragnging a marriage betweeen one of its members and the last Ly monarch, an eight-year-old princess. Under the Tran dynasty (1225-1400), the country prospered and flourished as the Tran rulers carried out exdtensive land reform, improved public administration, and encouraged the study of Chinese literature. The Tran, however, are best remembered for their defense of the country against the Mongols and the Cham. B y 1225, the Mongols controolled most of northern China and Manchuria and were eyeing southern China, Vietnam, and Champa. In 1257,1284, and 1287, the Mongol armies of Kublai Khan invaded Vietnam, sacking the capitall at Thang Long on each occasion, only to find that the Vietnamese had anticipated their attacks and evacuated the city beforehand. Disease, shortage of supplies, the climate, and the Vietnamese stratedgy of harassment and scorchedearth tactics foiled the first two invasions. The third Mongol invasion, of 300,000 men and a vast fleet, was also defeated by the Vietnamese under the leadership of General Tran Hung Dao. Borrowing a tactic used by Nog Quyen in 938 to defeat a invading Chinese fleet, the Vietnamese drove iron tipped stakes into the bed of the Bach Dang River, and then, with a small Vietnamese flotilla, lured the Mongol fleet into the river just as the tide wwas starting to ebb. Tranpped or impaled by the iron stake the entire Mongol fleet of 400 craft was sunk, captured, or burned by Vietnamese fire arrows. The Mongol army retreated to China, harassed enroute by Tran Hung Dao's troops.

The fourteenth centry was marked by wars with Champa, which the TRan reduced to a feudatory state by 1312. Champa freed itself again by 1326 and, under the leadership of Cham hero Che Bong Nga, staged a series of attacks on Vietnam between 1360 and 1390, sacking Thang Long in 1371. The Vietnamese again gained the upper hand following the death of Che Bong Nga and resumed their southward advance at Champa's expense. Despite their earlier success, the quality of the Tran rulers had declined markedly by the end of the fourteeth century, opening the wasy for exploitation of the peasantry by the feudal landlord class,whcich caused a number of insurrections. In 1400 General Ho Quy Ly seized the throne and proclaimed himself founder of the short lived Ho dynasty (1400-07). He instituted a number of reforms that were unpoplar with the feudal landlords, including a limit on the amount of land a family could hold and the rental of excess land by the state to landless peasants; proclamations printed in Vietnamese, rather then Chinese; and free schools in provincial capitals. Threatened by the reforms, some of the landowners appealed to China's Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) to intervene. using reinstatement of the Tran dynasty as an excuse, the Mign reasserted Chinese contro in 1407.