and renamed the country An Nan (Annam), the "Pacified South." Javanese raids kept Champa occupied during the last half of that century, but once the peril was over, the Chams renewed their attacks against the Chinese who again controlled the contested provinces.

When a rebellion in 934 led to the termination of China's direct rule, Tonkin's relationship with the "Middle Kingdom" became those of a tributary state. As a result, China would continue to exert her pervasive influence until a decisive naval action late in the nineteenth century brought the political relationships to an end. In the light of two millenia of close relationships, it is scarcely surprising that China's support and the threat of her intervention would play key, and perhaps decisive, roles in the Vietnam conflict in the twentieth century and have a major effect on the operations of the United States Navy.

Conflicts between the states in northern and central Vietnam were resumed later in the tenth and eleventh centuries. As result of a series of wars, Annam (the name having been retained) conquered and annexed territory down to the 17th parallel. By 1069 the Annamese had gained control of the entire area later known as North Vietnam.

Another source of conflict was Cambodia (Chenla), which started a series of campaigns against Annam and Champa in 1123. In an early example of riverine warfare, the Chams responded by building ram-equipped galleys. These proceeded up the Mekong River and looted the Khmer capital. Cambodia constructed a similar fleet, won a victory on the country's largest lake, Tonle Sap, and then headed down the Mekong. As a result, Cambodia dominated Champa from 1203 to 1220.5

The Extension of Chinese Influence by Sea

Seapower played key roles in China's exercise of suzerainty over lands to the south. Early in the twelfth century, the Southern Sung created the first Chinese navy organized on a permanent basis and functioning as an independent service. By 1237 the Southern Sung navy-equipped with incendiary weapons, rockets, and explosive weapons-had grown to twenty squadrons manned by over 50,000 men. China truly qualified as a naval

power for the next 200 years. Operations by the Sung navy included raids on Annam and Champa."

Naval power was next brought to bear on Vietnam by the Mongols, whose first invasion of Annam, by land in 1257, had been unsuccessful. The Mongols brought about the final collapse of the Sung dynasty by destroying the Chinese fleet in the battle of Yai-shan off the South China coast in 1278. Later that century, 800 ships were employed to invade Annam and Champa. In a campaign mounted by Kublai Khan, a twopronged attack was launched, as one force struck Annam, the other Champa. A raid by the southern force into northern Cambodia resulted in an offer of tribute and recognition of Mongol suzerainty.

Annamite guerrilla-type actions during this period have been likened to those of the twentieth century. Although waterborne expeditions achieved success, land campaigns often met with frustrations. The terrain was hardly favorable for the usual cavalry tactics of the Mongols and the climate took its toll. When a Mongol force moved north from Champa through swampland and jungles to join the fight against Annam, it was defeated. Then, after Hanoi was taken in 1285, resistance outside the capital continued and the Mongols once again withdrew. Another Mongol invasion two years later met a similar fate.

One of the legends of Vietnamese history relates how Tran Hung Dao ordered his soldiers to drive stakes into the bed of the Red River during one of these attacks. By pretending a frantic flight the Vietnamese lured the Mongol ships upstream at high tide. As the tide ebbed the ships were impaled on the stakes, boarded, and captured. This was the battle of Bach Dang, the inspirational value of which would be exploited in a later era by the Vietnamese as an example of how to defeat a foreign invader.' Seapower played an important part in the decline of Mongol power after the death of Kublai in 1294. One who rebelled against the Mongols was a ruler of the southern provinces of China, Fang Kuo-chen, a former salt merchant. Starting in 1348, his ships, gaining control of southern waters, intercepted rice shipments and tributes enroute to northern Chinese ports.

Charles P. FitzGerald. A Concise History of East Asia (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), p. 101; Jung-Pang Lo, "The Emergence of China as a Sea Power during the Late Sung and Early Yuan Periods," The Far Eastern Quarterly. XIV, No. 4 (Aug. 1955), pp. 489–503. 'FitzGerald, Southern Expansion, pp. 26, 82–83; Reynolds, Command of the Sea, pp. 98–104; Buttinger, Smaller Dragon. p. 130: Vo Nguyen Giap, Banner of People's War, the Party's Mili tary Line (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), p. xiii.

"FitzGerald, Southern Expansion, pp. 85-86.

8

In 1407, during the period of the great Ming fleets, China once again conquered Annam, which now extended as far south as the area of Danang. Following the death of Yung Lo, Chinese seapower declined. An Annamite victory at Lang Son, south of the Chinese border, and the recapture of Hanoi ended a twenty-one year period of Chinese rule.

Although the Chams temporarily regained their northern provinces, they suffered a disastrous defeat in 1471 and Annam annexed territory all the way down to Cape Varella. The area from the Chinese border to the cape was for a time under one ruler, but the basic causes of north-south conflict continued. Finding the lands to the south difficult to control, a viceroy, the head of the Nguyen family, was appointed in 1558 to rule there. His capital was Hue. Later those in the north attempted to oust the Nguyen ruler and in 1627 launched a major attack by land and sea. The south successfuly defended its territory in a prolonged war which ended in a truce in 1673. The area later to be known as Vietnam remained a divided land.

The Beginnings of European Maritime Influence

The arrival of a Portuguese ship in 1535 and the establishment of a trading post at Fai Fo (later known as Hoi An) marked the beginning of European influence in Indochina. Missionaries soon followed. The Mekong Delta was found to be a particularly fertile region for conversions to Catholicism.

With the decline of Portuguese seapower in the early seventeenth century, maritime supremacy in Southeast Asia passed to the Dutch. Predictably, in 1633, Dutch ships arrived at Turon or Tourane (later known as Danang) and four years later traders from Holland set up a factory in Tonkin.

A French missionary, Father Alexandre de Rhodes, visited Cochin China and Tonkin at this time. His belief that the area was excellent for future evangelizing caused him to go to Rome in 1645 to inform the Vatican of the need to expend more resources on Christianizing Indochina. He then visited France on a similar mission. The success of his efforts soon became evident when two French bishops were sent to Indochina as Vicars Apostolic of Tonkin and Cochin China, respectively. As evidence of the diligence of

Father Alexandre and his equally zealous successors, the Vietnamese Christian community soon grew to an estimated 300,000 people."

More than a century later, it would be through the efforts of the Vicar Apostolic of Cochin China, one Monsignor Pigneau de Behaine, that France began to play an important part in the affairs of Vietnam. The occasion was the so-called Tay Son rebellion. When the Tay Son rebels invaded from the north, Nguyen Anh took refuge in Siam. After the Tay Son forces captured Hanoi, a single rule was established over the northern and southern states. Later returning and capturing several provinces, Nguyen Anh was defeated when Tay Son forces were brought in by sea. After a second abortive attempt, Nguyen was advised by Pigneau to seek aid from King Louis XVI. Pigneau's trip to Paris as an emissary resulted in a 1787 treaty providing for military support in return for territorial concessions and a trade monopoly.

The French ministers secretly instructed the French Governor of India at Pondichéry to veto the treaty if, in his opinion, the plan for aid seemed impractical. Having neither the four ships, the 1,650 men, nor the guns and other equipment requested by Pigneau, the governor did not approve the mission. Unable to move the governor, the energetic monsignor approached French traders and merchants and convinced them of the riches to be gained if Nguyen Anh were on the throne granting preference and privilege to his French supporters. The result was that by June 1789 Pigneau acquired two corvettes which he loaded with 100 French and other European mercenaries. They landed in Vietnam, organized a mission to support Nguyen Anh, and taught the men how to cast cannon, build ships, and operate field artillery."

A Vietnamese Navy

With French guidance and assistance a small navy was created. The royal fleet, commanded by Jean Marie Dayot, destroyed the "navy" of the Tay Son rebels in 1792, displayed the flag from the China Sea to the

"Donald Lancaster, The Emancipation of French Indochina (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 23-27.

10

Buttinger, Smaller Dragon, pp. 233-39; Lancaster, Emancipation of French Indochina, pp. 28-29; Bernard B. Fall, "The History and Culture of Vietnam," Naval War College Review, XXIII (Feb. 1971), p. 51. For a copy of the treaty, see Eugene Teston and Maurice Percheron, L'Indochine Moderne (Paris: Librairie de France, 1931), p. 25.

Bay of Bengal, and reputedly made it respected throughout the Orient. As a result of raids and small invasions along the southern coast and in the Mekong Delta, Nguyen Anh gained control of the delta within ten years. Saigon was captured in 1788. In 1802 occupation of Hanoi ended the Tay Son rule. With the area from the northern border to the Gulf of Siam now under one ruler, the Chinese emperor, to whom Nguyen paid tribute, designated the country Viet Nam.

Significantly, 400 Frenchmen remained in Gia Long's (as Nguyen Anh became known) service. Some like Théodore Lebrun, built the citadel at Saigon and most of the forts throughout Annam.'

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Alarmed by the growing number of aggressive Western traders in Canton, Hong Kong, and other ports, and fearful that Christian missionary teachings were undermining imperial authority, the Emperor of China initiated a policy designed to push the "barbarians" out of the Middle Kingdom and its tributaries. The new Vietnamese king, Minh Mang, adopted a similar policy of isolation. Becoming convinced that France planned to conquer his people by mass conversion to Christianity, a religion that he believed was at variance with traditional Vietnamese order, Minh Mang began a campaign of persecuting Christians and authorizing the execution of certain French missionaries.12

American Attempts to Establish Relationships with Vietnam

During this troubled time, a ship of the United States Navy first visited Vietnam, as America attempted to expand its trade with the Orient. Edmund Roberts, an experienced merchant-ship captain, was appointed as a special diplomatic agent and sent in the American sloop-of-war Peacock (Commander David Geisinger commanding) on a cruise to Asia. Roberts's instructions called for him to conclude treaties of commerce and trade with Cochin China (the name then being used by Americans to refer to all Vietnam), with Siam, and with Muscat, a state bordering the Arabian Sea. Peacock arrived at Tourane Bay on 1 January 1833. Anchoring off

"Teston and Percheron, L'Indochine Moderne, p. 26; Buttinger, Smaller Dragon, p. 306; Bernard B. Fall, The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967), p. 9.

12

David J. Steinberg et al, In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), pp. 127-30.