Podcasts about red river delta

Today I sit down with Christopher Goscha to discuss his new book, Vietnam: A New History. In Vietnam, Christopher Goscha tells the full history of Vietnam, from antiquity to the present day. Generations of emperors, rebels, priests, and colonizers left complicated legacies in this remarkable country. Periods of Chinese, French, and Japanese rule reshaped and modernized Vietnam, but so too did the colonial enterprises of the Vietnamese themselves as they extended their influence southward from the Red River Delta. Over the centuries, numerous kingdoms, dynasties, and states have ruled over -- and fought for -- what is now Vietnam. The bloody Cold War-era conflict between Ho Chi Minh's communist-backed Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the American-backed Republic of Vietnam was only the most recent instance when war divided and transformed Vietnam.Purchase the book HERE.Check out the website.Support the show!

One of the Four Immortals, who's legendary battles over a beautiful princess, describes how and why Vietnam lives through a monsoon season. Wrongly called a genie (djinn) by Wikipedia, Sonny (as we inappropriately call him) is more rightly called a Saint, a chief figure in the beliefs of the Red River Delta peoples. These peoples are the ancestors of the modern Vietnamese.  His daughter is of great importance too, being a ruler of one of the Four Palaces.

Last time we spoke about the final battles to push the Qing forces out of Tonkin. The Qing, Black Flag and Vietnamese forces were fighting bitterly, on the open field and as guerillas to kick France out of Tonkin. The guerilla activity led to bloody months at the isolated outposts of Thai Nguyen, Hung Hoa and Tuyen Quang. To dislodge the Qing army from Tonkin, the French attacked them at Nui Bop and seized Lang son thus saving the outposts from being taken. After securing their outposts the French recommenced their offensive attacking Hoa Moc. But the Qing and Black Flag forces erected a siege at Tuyen Quang, to which the French beat them again. Then at Dang Dong, the French finally pushed the Qing forces across the Gate of China back to their homeland. The war over Tonkin was fierce, costing countless lives and all for a war never officially declared, but was it all won and done? Well we are about to find out.   #47 The Sino-French War of 1884-1885 part 4: Of War and Peace   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. General Francois Oscar de Negrier took his 2nd brigade and absolutely smashed the remnants of the Guangxi army at Dang Dong, sending them fleeing back into their homeland. For good measure the French literally blew up the Gate of China, also known today as the “Gate of Friendship” which was the border between Guangxi and Tonkin. The customs building, walls, gate itself, all of it was blown sky high. Once this was done the 2nd brigade pulled back to Lang Son at the end of February of 1885. Thus by March the the Guangxi army had been pushed out of Tonkin by General Oscar, while the Yunnan army had been defeated heavily at Tuyen Quang and Hung Hoa by the 1st brigade of Giovanninelli.  Despite the sweeping victories, the Qing were not truly defeated by any means they still held considerable forces across the border. General Briere de L'isle thought about launching an offensive against the nearest target within China, such as the military depot at Longzhou, but he did not have enough men to really pull it off, he had to wait for reinforcements. Reinforcements would arrive in mid march. He sat down with his officers and devised a course of action. It was agreed the 1st brigade would attack the Yunnan army to push them beyond the Yen Bay while the 2nd brigade would hold its position at Lang Son.  The Guangxi Army in the meantime was rebuilding its strength and by March 17th had been bolstered to 30,000 men. Soon the Guangxi army was pressing upon the Tonkin border with two major camps at Yen Cua Ai and Bang Bo with over 9 separate military commands. At Yen Cua Ai were 10 battalions led by General Feng Zicai, around 7500 men strong. Behind Yen Cua Ai in the village of Mufu, 2-3 kms away were another 7000 men led by Generals Su Yuanchun and Chen Jia; another 15kms behind Mufu at the village of Pingxiang was another 7000 men led by General Jian Zonghan and Fang Yusheng. 50 kms to the west AT Aiwa village was 3500 men led by Wei Gang. 15 kms east in at Cua Ai sitting just a toehold within Tonkin was 3500 men led by General Wang Debang. And overall commander of the Guangxi army, General Pan Dingxian was at Haicun, over 30 kms behind Mufu village with 3500 men. General Oscar had around 1600 men to hold Lang Son, yes it was not looking good for the french boys. On March 22nd, Feng Zicai led a raid against a French outpost at Dong Dang. That said outpost was held by forces under Lt Colonel Paul Gustave Herbinger, someone we spoke a tiny bit about in a previous battle who made the rather idiotic decision to outflank the enemy by going way too far around, so far that his superior simply sent another force to attack the enemy. Herbingers french foreign legionnaires fought off the raid once the rest of the 2nd brigade came up to support his outposts defense. Upon driving off the raiders, General Oscar decided it was a good idea to strike back. He hoped to take the enemy by surprise and led the men to cross over to the Zhennanguan pass which held the Guangxi encampment at Bang Bo. Oscar did not intend for a major offensive against Guangxi province, his simple aim was to raid them back and give some breathing room for Dong Dang.  Oscar left a single company of the 2nd African battalion with some batteries to hold Lang Son and the 23rd battalion to hold Dong Dang which would act as his supply line as his main body marched to Zhennanguan. On March 23rd, 1600 men with 10 artillery pieces made their way. The next day the French were met with fierce resistance when they approached Zhennanguan. There they found the Guangxi army utilizing outwork fortifications. Along with the defense, Wang Debang sent his force from Cua Ai to launch a counterattack hitting the French right flank. Oscars men were able to repel the counterattack and seize the outworks and the next day he had his men launch an attack against the enemy's main at position of Bang Bo. He planned to hit the front while simultaneously sending men to sweep around the rear. The frontal defensive line of Bang Bo held a long trenchline which the french named the Long trench. To attack the front, Oscar sent the 111th battalion led by chef de bataillon Francois Leon Faure and for the rear attack, the 2nd legion battalion of chef de bataillon Digeut and the 143rd battalion of chef de bataillon Farret. Herbinger who was leading the 3rd regiment was ordered to guide Diguet and Farret to perform their rear attack maneuver. Unfortunately a thick fog hit the area causing Herbinger to get lost. Oscar, unaware of Herbingers plight mistook a Guangxi army column moving towards the Long Trench to be Herbingers 2 battalions, and promptly ordered Faure to launch his frontal attack.  Fauvre's 111th formed their line and charged into the fray. They immediately came under intense fire from Feng Zicai's infantry manning the Long trench and other Guangxi units manning nearby hills. Within seconds several officers were killed. Two companies made it to the trench and after a very short hand to hand fighting match were fleeing from a major counter attack led personally by Feng Zicai. The carnage was intense, and what saved many of the fleeing French was the Guangxi army's resolve to behead the wounded and plunder them of their arms.  Meanwhile to the right of the battlefield, Ferrets 143rd battalion and Diguets 2nd legionnaires leapt into the fray of battle, several hours longer than expected. They quickly seized a Qing held fort. At 3pm, Pan Dingxin after watching the 111th battalion flee for their lives saw Herbingers command and tossed a counterattack their way. Herbingers command was nearly encircled, in fact a single company of the 143rd battalion led by the Irish officer, Captain Patrick Cotter were completely encircled. Harbinger ordered the men to retreat and leave Captain Patrick's company behind, but the French foreign legionnaires ignored the order and charged at the Qing to break free the company. Despite the company being able to break free, Captain Patrick was killed in the action. Gradually Digeut and Farret's men fell back, performing a fighting withdrawal to keep the Qing onslaught at bay best they could.  During the chaos, the 3rd legion battalion of Lt Colonel Schoeffer had been ordered to stay on Tonkinese soil around Dang Dong to protect their flanks found themselves fighting desperately to keep a line of retreat for the incoming french. Schoeffer's men had to fight off both flanks enabling the rest of the army to fight their way back down the middle. General Oscar was leading the rearguard to try and maintain morale and was successful at stopping a complete rout of his forces. Oscar spent the majority of the late afternoon quelling disorder amongst differing commands, trying to keep the men together. The entire brigades morale was dropping as was their ammunition, so Oscar called for a general retreat back to Lang Son. On the night of March 24th they camped at Dong Dang  exhausted and shell shocked. Sergeant Maury of Digeuts 2nd legionnaires had this to say about the feelings of the men.  “The night was very dark. The soldiers marched in complete silence. We felt cheated, ashamed, and angry. We were leaving behind us both victory and many of our friends. From time to time, in low murmurs, we established who was missing. Then we relapsed into the silence of mourning and the bitterness of loss. And so we reached Dong Dang, without being disturbed. We slept in the field hospital huts, after drinking some soup. We were harassed and hungry. We had not eaten all day, and had drunk nothing since morning except a single cup of coffee. In spite of my weariness, I spent a troubled night. My spirits were haunted by the day's memories, by images of the fighting and phantasms of our misfortunes. I was shaken with spasms. I trembled as I have never done on the battlefield. I lay down, but was unable to sleep.” The French had 74 deaths, 213 wounded, amongst the dead were 7 officers. They estimated the Qing casualties to be around 1650. The defeat shocked France who were becoming accustomed to victory reports. Oscar kept the men marching back to Long San, as their coolies all abandoned them creating a sever supply issue. The Guangxi army pursued them the entire way, leading to another battle at Ky Lua on march 28th. This time the French had rested a bit and took up defensive positions behind earthworks. The rationale for the battle was to hold onto the road to Long San for as long as possible and they managed to repel an intense attack from the enemy. The French saw 7 deaths with 38 wounded but inflicted severe casualties upon the pursuing enemy. The French claimed to have seen over 1200 corpses scattered around the battlefield and perhaps wounded over 6000 Guangxi soldiers if its to be believed. Towards the end of the carnage, Oscar was severely wounded in the chest while helping his scouts find Qing positions. He was forced to hand command over to the most senior officer, Herbinger. At this point many officers had commented on his lackluster performance during the undeclared war, he had seriously messed up on quite the occasions. It seems Herbinger began his command in a rather panicked state, for despite the fact they had battered the Qing pursuers, he was convinced they were going to encircle the brigade at any moment. Against the majority of his officers' protest, he ordered the 2nd brigade to abandon Lang Son on the night he took command. They were to retreat to Chu and initially they were divided marching in two columns with Herbingers going towards Thang Moy and Schoeffer's going to Dong Song. Herbinger began to fear the men towing the artillery would slow down his retreat so he ordered the artillery pieces tossed into the Song Ki Cong river alongside their brigades treasure chest. At the same time Herbinger send a runner over to Briere de l'isle over in Hanoi claiming he did not have enough ammunition to fight a second battle for Lang Son and that he was retreating. His claim of not having enough ammunition would later prove to be incorrect.  Both Herbinger and Schoeffer forced a intense pace for their marches and by the time the men reached Thang Moy and Dong Song they were exhausted. Briere de L'ilse upon receiving the message from Herbinger was shocked he abandoned Lang Song. He prompted sent word back to Paris about the ordeal. The next day Briere de l'isle sent a message over to Herbinger demanding him to hold his position at Thanh Moy and Dong Song. Herbinger thought it insane to do so, but he obeyed the orders nonetheless.  On the 30th, the French prepared their defenses at Thanh Moy and Dong Song. Herbinger tossed some cavalry patrols to figure out where the Guangxi army would hit them from and they came back with reports they were heading down the Mandarin road south of Lang Son. Harbinger sent word to Briere de l'isle, stating he believed the enemy would soon encircle them. The French defenders were told by Herbinger to fasten their bayonets and hunker down. Now it seems Herbinger's nerves were shot, because on the night of the 30th he told his fellow officers he believed they were all going to be massacred the following morning. He went to bed at 8pm and an hour later he began to hear firing from forward outposts. It would turn out to be a false alarm, but one officer rushed over to Herbinger to wake him up and report the action to which Herbinger allegedly said “'I'm sick, and the column is just as sick as me! Leave me alone!' Meanwhile Briere de l'isle was receiving Herbingers panicked reports throughout the night and he reluctantly gave Herbinger permission to retreat back to Chu at 10pm if in his words “if the situation demanded it”. That was more than enough for Herbinger who immediately ordered a retreat to Chu that very night. Harbinger's message back to Briere de l'isle read this 'I will take advantage of the night and the moon to retire, in conformity with your instructions”. And so the men packed up and began their trek from Thang Moy and Dong Song linking up along the way. Schoeffer's force were attacked by some Qing patrols, but it did not amount to much. Harbinger yet again, ordered artillery pieces to be spiked and abandoned believing they would slow down his column. However the gunnery officers disobeyed the orders and kept carrying the pieces all the way safely to Chu. At dawn the on the 31st, the Guangxi army caught up to the French near the village of Pho Cam, just as Herbinger received reinforcements, a squadron of Spahi cavalry. Upon seeing the cavalry, the French officers and soldiers rejoiced, seeking to direct them to charge into the forward Guangxi army patrols to break them down a bit, but Herbinger forbid a charge and instead ordered the retreat to continue at pace. Now, while Herbinger thought the entire Guangxi army was coming after him, this was not the case. Back on the 29th, the bulk of the Guangxi army was actually retreating back towards Zhennanguan. That was until some Vietnamese caught up to them, giving them reports the French were shockingly abandoning Lang Son and in a full retreat. General Pan Dingxin could not believe it, and he immediately ordered his battered army to turn around to seize Lang Son. Once Lang Son had been taken he sent out smaller forces to skirmish with the retreating French to prod them along, because the reality was his army was in no condition to fully attack them. When he received word his skirmishers were hitting the French around Pho Cam, he ordered his main body to occupy Dong Song and Bac Le, knowing they were undefended. Thus Herbinger had unknowingly lost everything gained during the last offensive to kick the Guangxi army out of Tonkin! On April 1st, the 2nd brigade finally got to Chu, exhausted and bitterly demoralized. Briere de l'isle had ordered the 1st brigade to depart Hung Hoa for Chu and told Colonel Gustave Borgnis Desbordes to take command of the 2nd brigade. On the 2nd of April Colonel Desbordes relieved Herbinger of his command and issued the following order to the 2nd Brigade,  “In view of General de Négrier's serious wound, I have been asked to take provisional command of the brigade. I have arrived with fresh troops and ammunition. I have been told by the general-in-chief that there is to be no further retreat. We are to remain here at all costs. And that is precisely what we shall do.” Minecraft Ompf sounds. Now the 1st brigade had not sat by idle while all the chaos and disorder befell the 2nd brigade. Back on March 23rd, the 1st battalion led by chef de bataillon Simon were ordered to depart from Hung Hoa to perform a preliminary reconnaissance of the village of Phu Lam Tao. The reason for this was because the French had been receiving reports the Black Flags along with remnants of the Yunnan army had begun occupying it. Simons men, 1000 strong went to the village discovering the reports to be true. Simon ordered his men to attack and disaster struck. According to Lt Colonel Bonifacy the troops quickly fell into disorder, tossed their equipment down, including rifles and fled the scene. A military report of the operation indicated 400 uniforms and large quantities of arms were abandoned. The French suffered around 50 casualties. Now while this was by no means a large engagement nor that significant of a defeat, in combination to the disastrous Long San retreat, it would lead to a devastating effect for France. The situation these two combined events created is known as the “Tonkin affair”. Briere de L'isle while in Hanoi had begun to plan moving his HQ over to Hung Hoa where he further planned to launch an offensive against the Yunnan Army believed to be still operating around Tuyen Quang. However the disastrous retreat of Herbinger combined with the defeat of Simon's force. This led Briere de l'isle to believe the entire Red River Delta region was threatened and he sent a fateful telegram, under duress which made its way to the French government on the 28th, here is the Lang Son Telegram, “ I am grieved to tell you that General de Négrier is seriously wounded and Lạng Sơn has been evacuated. The Chinese forces advanced in three large groups, and fiercely assaulted our positions in front of Ky Lua. Facing greatly superior numbers, short of ammunition, and exhausted from a series of earlier actions, Colonel Herbinger has informed me that the position was untenable and that he has been forced to fall back tonight on Dong Song and Thanh Moy. All my efforts are being applied to concentrate our forces at the passes around Chu and Kép. The enemy continues to grow stronger on the Red River, and it appears that we are facing an entire Chinese army, trained in the European style and ready to pursue a concerted plan. I hope in any event to be able to hold the entire Delta against this invasion, but I consider that the government must send me reinforcements (men, ammunition, and pack animals) as quickly as possible.” The telegram created a political crisis, the stock market plunged and many called for Jules Ferry to resign. Ferry dove into a heated debate calling for the need to avenge the loss at Lang Son and to secure Frances hold over Tonkin. To do this, Ferry demanded 200 million francs to be handed over to the army and navy which met a bitter rebuttal from George Clemenceau who absolutely tore Ferry for everything. Here is a bit of his speech, “We're completely finished with you! We're never going to listen to you again! We're not going to debate the nation's affairs with you again! We no longer recognise you! We don't want to recognise you!You're no longer ministers! You all stand accused (long pause) of high treason! And if the principles of accountability and justice still exist in France, the law will soon give you what you deserve!' A motion of no confidence was immediately tabled and  Ferry was voted down 306 to 149. Ferry left in absolute disgrace as all of Paris blew up blaming him for what became infamously known as “the tonkin affair”. The humiliating blow saw Henri Brisson become Prime Minister who started his premiership by trying to negotiate a peace with the Qing dynasty. Meanwhile back over in Formosa, the French were still effectively blockading its northern territory. The war in Formosa had never quieted down, Liu Mingchuan as you might recall received reinforcements in the form of Anhui and Xiang army units, by April of 1885 he had 35,000 men. They were also armed with more modern firearms such as the Lee Model 1879 rifle, Winchesters, Remingtons and Mausers. The french considered these forces to be the cream of the Qing military, well dressed, well armed, and noticeably tall and sturdy. Liu Mingchuan did not stop there, he began hiring more local Hakka militiamen and head-hunting Formosan aborigines.  On the other side the Formosa expeditionary corps had also been bolstered, now 4000 men strong led by Lt Colonel Jacque Duchesne who had gained fame serving a major defeat to Liu Yongfu's black flag army at the battle of Yu Oc. The two opposing forces skirmished quite often, until January of 1885 when a real offensive began. Duchesne ordered his men to seize Yeuh-mei-shan known as “la table” to the french. The offensive started out rough due to terrible torrential rain. The French and Qing forces fought for days at a place known as Fork Y, but in the end Duchesne's men were able to push the Qing out of the way and they continued to march upon La Table. By February La Table was seized and the Qing forces bombarded their position by mid february until the French silenced their artillery using their own. In March Duchesne launched a second offensive, successfully breaking the Qing encirclement of Keelung, delivering an outstanding outflanking maneuver. Duchesne's men pushed the Qing past the Keelung river losing 41 men dead and 157 wounded, while estimating they inflicted up to 1500 casualties on the enemy. The French seized numerous forts the Qing had built up to surround Keelung at Shih-ch'iu'ling, Hung-tan-shan and Yeuh-mei-shan, renaming them La Dent, Fort Bamboo and fort La Table.  It was an incredible French victory given the odds, but these feats were done at the same time as the famous Siege of Tuyen Quang and thus remained largely unknown to the French public. Alongside this, Duchesne's victories enabled Admiral Courbet to follow them up by landing marine forces from the Keelung garrison to capture the Pescadore islands in late March. Controlling the Pescadore islands allowed the French to thwart Qing reinforcement of Formosa, thus France was gradually consolidating its control over the entire island. But this also came right smack dab in the middle of the Herbinger Lang Son retreat disaster. Admiral Courbet almost had to evacuate Keelung to take the forces over to Tonkin to save the situation, but the peace talks had begun before he could do so. Imagine that, a French controlled Taiwan? What the alternate history peeps would do with that one I do not know.  So things were not going well for France, the French public were losing their minds over the Tonkin debacle forcing them to the peace table. However, things were going wildly worse for the Qing dynasty. Because if you can remember way back when, before we began this French adventure, the Qing were having troubles with Japan over Korea. The Gapsin coup had occurred in December of 1884 drawing the Qing attention towards the threat of Japan. Things in Korea were beginning to get much worse and to be honest, as grand a success as Herbinger had delivered the Qing during his disastrous retreat, in truth the Guangxi army was decimated by the war. Yes they grabbed their positions back within Tonkin, but holding them was another matter entirely. To add to their misery it looked like they were going to lose Formosa, thus Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the Qing envoys to the peace table.  The Qing sent Li Hongzhang to meet with Jules Patenotre and they opened up by agreeing to the provisions of the Tientsin Accord. The French would get their protectorate over Vietnam, but they were to drop the longstanding demand of reparations for the Bac Le ambush. Negotiations carried on into April of 1885 where they finally agreed to a preliminary peace protocol and an immediate ceasefire in Tonkin and Formosa. The French agreed to life their rice blockade and the Qing finally agreed to pull out the Yunnan and Guangxi armies from Tonkin with an official deadline stated for May of 1885. The Qing also made sure to pressure Liu Yongfu and his Black Flag Army to withdraw from Tonkin so he did not screw up their peace deal. By June of 1885 the new Tientsin Accord was signed.  A by product of this war, was the absolute destruction of a capable Vietnamese resistance movement. France added Tonkin and Annam to their holding of Cochinchina and would seize Cambodia by 1887 thus creating French Indochina. By 1893 Laos would also be added after the Franco-Siamese War, thus creating a large French Far east colonial empire. It would not be until the Pacific War whereupon France would lose its iron control over southeast asia.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. And so, France had won an undeclared war over the Qing dynasty and in the process would control a large portion of Southeast Asia, known to them as French Indochina. The Qing had been dealt yet again another humiliating blow. 

Last time we spoke about the descent into full scale war between the Qing dynasty and France because of the Tonkin campaign. The French sought to annihilate the Black Flag Army, knowing full well it might entice the Qing to war and so it did. The Tonkin campaign saw the battle of Bac Ninh which led to direct confrontation with Qing forces and soon both sides hit the negotiating table. The Tientsin accord was agreed upon, but no set deadline for the Qing withdrawal led to more conflict and it seems full scale war had finally kicked off. Admiral COurbet was ordered to hit Fuzhou and there he smashed the Fujian fleet utterly embarrassing the Qing dynasty leading to panic, chaos and outrage amongst the Chinese people. How will things change going forward now that France had landed a death blow to one of the Qing dynasties fleets? Could the sabers of war be sheathed?   #45 The Sino-French War of 1884-1885 part 2: The Sino-French War at Sea   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The battle of Fuzhou certainly made a splash. 9 Qing warships were sunk, several others were severely damaged and possibly 2-3 thousand Qing forces were killed. Admiral Courbet then went about the Min River bombarding all the forts and batteries he could before making his exit utterly humiliating the Qing. Now until the battle of Fuzhou the Qing and French were playing footsy under the table when it came to a full scale declared war. Basically everything up until now could be seen as an undeclared war. To give a example of this, think about China and Japan from 1931-1937. They were to be blunt fully at war, but neither side wanted to officially acknowledge it to the international community for a variety of reasons, thus it could be seen as an undeclared war. Here to we see France and the Qing dynasty not wishing to make formal declarations of war, for a variety of reasons. Now while it would remain undeclared, it by no means meant they were not at war.  News of the catastrophe and destruction of the Fujian Fleet were met with public outrage in China. Mobs began to attack foreign concessions, and in Europe the mood was sympathetic to the Chinese cause. The British, Germans and American military's began to extend their hand to the Qing dynasty offering advisers. Perhaps it was less about the Qing plight and more so to stick the middle finger to the French, as one does, but its the thought that counts. Over in Hong Kong, still a colony of the British empire, dock workers began to refuse to repair French warships like La Galissonniere in september of 1884. La Galissonniere had received some hits in August and came in for some work, but a strike occurred in September. Now a large reason for this was Chinese workers refusing to work and by proxy it hindered the British dock workers. Things got dicey and some riots and fights broke out prompting British authorities to deploy forces to defend their dockyards and workers from continuous harassment from Chinese. This by no means was organic by the way, the Qing government were pulling strings of their citizens to cause such conflicts to hinder any aid to France.  Now Admiral Courbet was given orders to smash Fuzhou, which he did, but if the Qing continued their “defiance” he was also ordered to go smash the port of Keelung in northern Formosa, modern day Taiwan. These actions of course were done to push the Qing to get their forces out of Tonkin as pertaining to the Tientsin Accords. Well the Qing were not budging, so Keelung was put on the menu. Admiral Courbet argued vigorously not to launch a campaign against Formosa, and instead to target major ports in the Liaodong region like Port Arthur or Weihaiwei. The French military planners thought these prospects to difficult to hit as the Far East Squadron was not large by any means and Keelung was a much easier target. In mid september the French cabinet after deliberating the issue decided to launch attacks against Keelung and Tamsui. Their rationale in the end was that the towns held nearby coal mines that could be seized to provide the Far East Squadron a wartime base. Thus on October 1st, Lt Colonel Bertaux-Levillain, haha that last name again, landed at Keelung with 2250 men taken from the Tonkin Campaign forces. They were to be called the Formosa Expeditionary Corps. They sailed out of Saigon escorted by the Far East Squadron and came ashore as Courbet's forces bombarded the shore batteries and Qing forces trying to mount a defense. The French casualties as usual were claimed to be small, 4 deaths and 12 wounded while the Qing casualties according to Formosans were around 100 dead and hundreds wounded. The first week of October saw French forces occupying several hills around Keelung and they sent scouts to look at the Pei-tao coal mines.  The imperial commissioner responsible for the defense of Formosa was Liu Mingchuan who could only watch helplessly as the French bombarded 3 shore batteries in the port of Keelung and began to prod the Pei-tao coal mines as his 2000 or so Qing troops were overwhelmed. Now knowing the French would likely hit Tamsui as well he tried to establish better defenses there by planting torpedo mines in the river approach and creating boat and stone barricades. He also armed locals to try and augment his Qing forces. These locals were known as Hakka hillmen and they were armed with primitive matchlock rifles, but despite being undergunned were deemed very brave warriors. Tamsui was protected by two forts west of the city, the White fort and a still under construction Fort neuf. The French were unable to enter the Tamsui River due to the barricade and mines and thus began bombarding the two forts on October 2nd. The forts and warships exchanged fire, but as usual the outdated cannons in the forts were no match and were silenced quickly. Testimony from a Canadian Presbyterian missionary named George Mackey, had to add this one being Canadian myself, who was housed in Tamsui said this of the bombardment. “When the bombarding began we put our little children under the floor of the house, that they might not be alarmed. My wife went out and in during these trying hours. I paced the front of the house with A Hoa, while shot and shell whizzed and burst all around us. One shell struck a part of Oxford College, another a corner of the Girls' School, and still another a stone in front of us, and sent it into mid-air in a thousand atoms. A little to the west of us another went into the ground, gouging a great hole and sending up a cloud of dust and stones. The suction of one, as it passed, was like a sudden gust of wind. Amid the smoke from forts and ships, and the roar and thunder of shot and shell, we walked to and fro, feeling that our God was round about us.” The French bombardment was not very precise and while the two forts had been neutralized, countless shells hit the town and surrounding area endangering civilians. The French followed up the bombardment by landing ashore forces to seize the forts from which they then could begin operations to blow up the mines and barricades in the riverway. Now the Qing defense of the city was led by General Sun Kaihua and General Zhang Gaoyuan. They expected the French to come from the direction of the seized forts and began to set up defensive lines and trenches to meet this. The Far East squadron anchored near the harbour entrance to support the men as they marched. However disaster struck. The men marched and many landed ashore at some beaches, but the sand dunes further inland made it impossible for the ships to see over them to support the mens offensive. As the French marched over the dunes, expected to see large rice paddy field terrain, it was actually thick woods and ditches everywhere. General Sun Kaihua was making great use of the terrain concealing his men everywhere he could and they ambushed the French as they made their way through the brush. The forward French units were thrown into chaos, quickly screaming for backup as General Zhang Gaoyuan sent his forces to smash their left flank. Zhang's men were able to push the French left flank into the main bodies position leading to the firefight extending to the entire French formation. The Qing and French forces were separated by a distance of around 100 meters. While most of the French forces kept the volley system accordingly, many sailor forces too excited by the mayhem began mindlessly firing into the brush wasting ammunition. French officers screamed to stop. General Zhang kept up the momentum by ordering his forces to push the French left flank even further into the main body. Meanwhile General Kaihua motioned forces to hit the French right flank. The entire French frontlines were engulfed in a battle between them and unseen enemies in the brush. After an hour of engagement, 2/3rd of the French ammunition had been used and casualties were mounting. The French commanders ordered the men to make a fighting withdrawal as General Zhang and Sun ordered their men to try and cut off the left and right flanks escape. By midday, the French were in full retreat back to the warships, nearly 1/10 were wounded, many dead. It was estimated the French had 17 deaths and 49 wounded. Captain Garnot of the formosa expeditionary corps had this to say about the failed attack, “There is no doubt that the main reason for the repulse was that the landing force was too small, but poor tactics also played their part. There was no vanguard to cover the advance of the line of battle. The firing line advanced without a preliminary reconnaissance into difficult terrain, under fire from Chinese snipers who were well dug-in and protected. Confusion and lack of direction was evident in the conduct of the battle. The courage and dash shown by our officers and sailors, who had not been trained for a land battle, cannot conceal the fact that we opened fire in a disorderly manner; that the reserves came up to join the line of battle prematurely, without orders; and that our troops lost our heads, firing wildly at the enemy and using up their ammunition in a few minutes. Infantry tactics cannot simply be improvised, as our landing companies learned by bitter experience.” Later on 6 French soldiers had their heads placed in the Tamsui markets, allegedly done by the Hakka hillsmen. The French commanders sent word to General Sun demanding they be buried. The French defeat at Tamsui heavily bolstered the hardliners back in the Qing court. The court convened in late october and Empress Dowager Cixi decided the undeclared war against France would continue until France agreed to withdraw their indemnity demands for the Bac Le ambush. The Qing relayed peace terms on November 5th, but they included some major demands such as outright canceling the Tientsin Accord; having France abandon their protectorateship over Annam and Tonkin and allowing the Qing to continue to occupy Lang Son, Lao Cai an Cao Bang. The mediator between the Qing and France, British foreign secretary Lord Granville said of the terms “the Chinese terms are those from a victor to the vanquished” and he promptly refused to even transmit them to France. Because of the setback the French were only able to enforce a limited blockade of the northern portion of Formosa as the Formosa expeditionary corps awaited further reinforcements. In January of 1885 command over the corps was handed over to Colonel Jacques Duchesne who augmented them with two additional battalions bringing a total strength of around 4000 men. However also because of the Qing victory, Liu Mingchuan was augmented by over 25,000 reinforcements taken from the Xiang and Anhui armies, the veteran troops of Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang.  As grand as the ground forces boost was to Formosa, on the naval front things were entirely different. The Nanyang Fleet asked for some warships of the Beiyang Fleet to augment their strength to fight the French, but the commander of the Beiyang Fleet, Li Hongzhang himself denied the request. Again, none of the fleet commanders wished to risk any of their advanced ships to face the French and the commanders adamantly did not want other commanders to use their ships for that matter. This created a major divide in the fleet. The northern fleets and southern fleets refused to cooperate and in fact did a lot to oppose another. For example, the French Navy would obviously be operating more so in the southern sea, thus one would imagine the Qing would focus their overwhelming naval strength there. However the northern fleets would hinder this greatly by draining southern China of resources, warships and of course sailors who they began to enlist en masse. This all led to the benefit of the French Navy. Meanwhile the Far East squadron was receiving reinforcements beginning in 1884 and by february of 1885 was a lot stronger. Now in mid January of 1885, the Nanyang Fleet was ordered to try and relieve the French naval blockade of Formosa. On January 18th, the cruisers Nanchen, Kaiji, Nanrui, frigate Yuyuan and sloop Chengqing departed Shanghai for Formosa. The commanding admiral was Wu Ankang and he was supposed to receive additional aid in the form of the Chaoyong, Yangwei of the Nanyang fleet and two cruisers from the Beiyang fleet, but like I said, Li Hongzhang refused to release them and instead diverted them to Korea where Yuan Shikai was busy quelling the Gapsin coup. Admiral Wu's group sailed south hesitantly, fearing an actual engagement. In fact Admiral Wu had hoped by just publicizing the fact his force was enroute to Formosa would lead the French to pull out. When this failed to occur, Wu literally turned his ships around high, tailing it for the port of Ningbo. However the French had received word of the sortie and literally leapt at the chance of engaging such an enemy. Admiral Courbet sailed out of Keelung's water with the ironclads Bayard, Triumphant, cruisers Duguay-Trouin, Eclairuer, Nielly, gunboat Aspic and the troopship Saone. The French were not exactly certain where to find the enemy and first looked into the mouth of the Min River in early February. Not finding the enemy, the French then sailed north along the Chinese coast. On February 8th, Courbet's force were running low on coal so he was forced to dispatch the Duguay-Trouin back to Keelung. On the 10th the French squadron reached Chusen island and by the 11th they entered the Yangtze river scaring the batteries at Wusong, but still no sight of the enemy fleet. The French then received word from Qing newspapers that they had actually passed the Qing fleet on their way north and that they were near Sanmen Bay. Courbet immediately set sail south and by the 13th entered Shipu Bay where they caught sight of the Qing fleet. The French immediately bore down upon their enemy as the Qing took up a V formation led by Admiral Wu's flagship Kaiji. The French were exhilarated upon seeing the Qing formation coming right at them primed for a battle and then as the Qing closed in they suddenly broke formation and scattered. 3 Qing cruisers fled south, with Courbet offering pursuit while the Yuyuan and Chengqing fled further into Shipu bay. According to American naval officer L. C Arlington who was aiding the Nanyang Fleet he said “Admiral Wu had a personal grudge against the captains of the Yuyuan and Chengqing and deliberately tried to sacrifice them to save the rest of his flotilla”. The Qing cruisers were faster and thus outran their French counterpart, leading Courbet to turn right back around to hunt the Yuyuan and Chengqing. On the night of the 14th, the French sent torpedo launches under the cover of darkness which got with 100 meters to the two ships before they were spotted. The Qing began to use rifle fire against the small boats as the French crews frantically tried to spar torpedo the Yuyuans hull successfully crippling her. One French sailor died to rifle fire as they made their escape. Arlington was actually aboard the Yuyuan that night and had this to say about the event as he witnessed the spar torpedo hit and a shell lobbed at the nearby Chengqing. “The scene that now occurred almost beggars description. Some tried to lower the boats, some rushed between decks to try and save their possessions, many jumped overboard into the sea. It was, in fact, everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. When I had time to realise what had really happened, a strange scene was unrolled before me. Just ahead of us lay the little Ching-ching slowly settling down beneath the waters; she had been attacked by the same torpedo boat that had sunk us. Our own ship was gradually sinking, her guns just level with the water's edge. Along the shore and in the water about us were seamen, soldiers, chickens, ducks, geese and baggage of every description. The fault rested entirely with the Chinese—even at the last moment, had they made any attempt to repel the torpedo boat they might have warded off the catastrophe, and possibly sunk the enemy instead. No such attempt was made, and the French escaped scot-free” The next morning the French scouted the bay finding the two Qing warships had sunk. Admiral Courbet continued to hunt for the wandering Nanyang fleet and on February 25th received orders to implement a “rice blockade”. This was to be a naval blockade against the sea transport of rice to Shanghai. By the 28th, Courbets squadron made it to Zhenhai bay enroute to Shanghai where he received reports  the Nanyang fleet was hiding in the bay. He hunted until march 1st until at long last he found some Qing warships and low and behold it was the 3 cruisers of Admiral Wu Ankang. Alongside the 3 cruisers were 4 other ships, the sloop Chaowu, wooden transport Yuankai and 2 gunboats. The entrance to the bay was likewise filled with sunken chinese junks blocking it. Courbet performed a reconnaissance with one of his ships, the Nielly which was met with Chinese shore battery fire and a few of the Chinese warships. The Nielly was nearly hit a few times, but managed to perform the survey and return to her squadron.  Courtbet met with his fellow officers and came to the conclusion attacking the Nanyang fleet within range of their harbor defenses was too large a risk to take. Instead he elected to perform a naval blockade of Zhenhai Bay. For over a month, a few ships of the Far East Squadron at any given time held the blockade, thus forcing over 7 Nanyang fleet warships to be stuck in the bay and useless to the war. The French claim this was a strategic victory, but the Qing saw it as a defensive victory for themselves, because of the thwarting of the Nielly from their point of view. Our American friend Arlington gives a colorful account of what occurred. According to Arlington, when Admiral Wu Ankang's 3 warships showed up to Zhenhai Bay, the authorities there begged him to leave so the French would not attack them all. Instead Wu threatened to take his ships up the Ningbo river to leave them high and dry to fight the French off by themselves. When the French appeared in front of Zhenhai bay the authorities demanded Wu sail out to attack the French using the 7 warships available, but he refused to do so. Arlington states that was a wise decision, because they would have been annihilated. While the blockade was going on, Britain officially closed off Hong Kong and other held concessions from the Far East Squadron to hinder them. The French in return upheld their rice blockade strategy against the Yangtze River, hoping to start out northern China. As far as the great battles of the sea were concerned that would actually be the end of it for the most part.  Now taking a look back to the land campaigns, after the naval battle of Fuzhou, Empress Dowager Cixi had given the greenlight for the undeclared war to kick off. This resulted in Qing forces from Guangxi and Yunnan provinces to advance into Tonkin to give battle with the French. General Millot's health took a turn for the worse and he submitted his resignation back in September of 1884, his last order of the day had describing himself as quote “a sick and disappointed man”. He was relieved by General Louis Briere de L'isle which greatly annoys me as I now will have to narrate that entire name each time haha. Little known fact I am married to a Quebecois woman who is throwing up hearing my anglo ass narrate so many french terms and names. Briere de L'isle's first task was to thwart the Qing forces invading the Red River Delta system. By late september a large Guangxi Army were advancing from LangSon into the Luc Nam Valley and managed to ambush two grinch gunboats, the Massue and Hache on October 2nd. They managed to kill one officer and injured 32 men, but the ambush did give up the element of surprise. French scouts reported 3 large groups of Qing forces: one around the village of Kep along the Mandarin road; one at Bao Loc; and one at Chu in the upper valley of the Luc Nam River. Briere de L'ilse deployed General Oscar de Negrier with 3000 troops to hit the Luc Nam Valley before the Qing could concentrate their forces. The Guangxi force was led by Generals Wang Debang and Pan Dingxin, two officers who were part of the Bac le ambush. The forces at Kep were led by Fang Yusheng and Zhou Shouchang while the forces at Chu were led by Su Yuanchun and Chen Jia. General Oscar transported his forces using gunboats to quickly hit the separate forces before they could consolidate. Oscar would lead men to his Kep with the bulk of his troops while his subordinate Lt Colonel Donnier took a column to hit Chu. Once Oscar had won at Kep he would then either help at Chu or move on to hit Bao Loc. On October 8th, Oscar's men smashed the forces at Kep sending them fleeing, and quickly got back to his gunboats to join Donnier at Chu. The battle of Kep saw the French losing 32 killed and 61 wounded and claiming to have inflicted 1600 casualties upon the Qing. This meant Donnier could be patient and await the reinforcements before seriously engaging the enemy at Chu, but on October the 10th his men were drawn into a bloody two day battle at Chu. Donnier was victorious, though it was a costly one, he had 21 deaths and 92 wounded while claiming to have killed 100 Qing and wounded a few hundred.  After these two victories, the Qing fell back to Bac le and Dong Song while the French consolidated their positions at Kep and Chu by reinforcing them with a total of 7200 soldiers and 4500 coolies. While Briere de l'ilse was consolidated and supplying his forces at Chu and Kep he also began ordering resupply missions to the outposts of Tuyen Quang, Thai Nguyen and Hung Hoa. The outposts were being continuously harassed by Liu Yongu's Black Flags and the invading Yunnan forces. These more isolated outposts began seeing attacks from the Yunnan army beginning on october 12th and by the end of the month the garrison at Tuyen Quang saw 170 of its 550 men unfit for duty.  Throughout october the French gunboats were trying their best to resupply the outposts, but the Black Flag Army occupied Yu Oc, which was between Tuyen Quang and Hung Hoa, thus cutting it off. By early november the French knew the lack of supplies getting through was becoming dangerous. The gunboat crews were continuously sniped at causing many fatalities. This led Briere de L'isle to launch at attack to dislodge the Black Flags at Yu Oc, while simultaneously making a resupply run for Tuyen Quang. Lt Colonel Jacques Duchesne was sent with roughly 700 men to take a small flotilla of junks escorted by 4 gunboats to land 7 kms above Yu Oc. The troops landed on november 18th and spent the day marching to Yu Oc, never seeing the enemy. At dawn on the 19th, the vanguard of the French column began to come under fire, but they could not pinpoint the enemy's location as a result of the deep bush. Duchesne ordered the front units to fan out a bit and they quickly found a Qing forward line of defense. For two hours a firefight ensued as the Qing gradually prodded different parts of the French column. At 10am a forward French legionnaire companies found a Qing fort that was firing down upon the French vanguard force. The legionnaires fixed bayonets and charge the fort coming out of a ravine. The Qing defenders fled their defenses before the French could surround them disappearing into the bush. The fighting continued on with the French gradually pushing forward until they found a citadel. The French quickly neutralized the citadel and thus the way to Tuyen Quang was opened again for resupply. The fighting cost the French 10 dead with 37 wounded, for the Black Flags and Yunnan forces the losses were estimated to be much higher. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The French had basically won the war at sea, but the land forces had to fight bitterly against the Black Flag, Vietnamese and Qing forces in Tonkin. Would the French be able to push the Qing and Black Flags out of Tonkin to claim it for themselves?

In Vietnam, Christopher Goscha tells the full history of Vietnam, from antiquity to the present day. Generations of emperors, rebels, priests, and colonizers left complicated legacies in this remarkable country. Periods of Chinese, French, and Japanese rule reshaped and modernized Vietnam, but so too did the colonial enterprises of the Vietnamese themselves as they extended their influence southward from the Red River Delta. Over the centuries, numerous kingdoms, dynasties, and states have ruled over what is now Vietnam. Trinh and Nguyen military lords led competing states in the 17th century. French colonizers grouped Vietnam with Laos and Cambodia in an Indochinese Union, but governed Vietnam itself as three separate territorial units. The bloody Cold War-era and the American-backed Republic of Vietnam was only the most recent instance when war divided and transformed Vietnam. A major achievement, Vietnam offers the grand narrative of the country's complex past and the creation of the modern state of Vietnam. At a time when more and more visitors come to Vietnam and Southeast Asia is again at the center of intense global rivalries, this is the definitive single-volume history for anyone seeking to understand Vietnam today.

“In the West there is a province called Kafje-Guh, in which there are forests and other places of difficult access. It adjoins Qara-Jang and parts of India and the coast. There are two towns there, Lochak and Hainam and it has its own ruler, who is in rebellion against [Kublai Khaan]. Toghan, the son of the [Khaan], who is stationed with an army in Lukin-fu in the [south of China], is defending [China] and also keeping an eye on those rebels. On one occasion, he penetrated with an army to those towns on the coast, captured them, and sat for a week upon the throne there. Then all at once their army sprang out from ambush in the sea[shore], the forest, and the mountains and attacked Toghan’s army while they were busy plundering. Toghan got away safely and is still in the Lukin-fu area.”       So the Ilkhanid historian and vizier Rashid al-Din, writing in the first years of the 1300s, describes events less than twenty years prior but very far away. Rashid al-Din transcribed a very brief, but recognizable sketch, of the Mongol invasions of Vietnam in the 1280s. Having covered for you the first half of Kublai’s reign up until the end of the 1270s and his conquest of China, we will now take you to the beginnings of his failures. Back in July we already presented the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281, so now we’ll turn our gaze southwards, to the efforts to extend Mongol suzerainty over the kingdoms of what is now Vietnam. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Before we discuss the military operations, it’s useful to set the scene and establish Vietnam’s 13th century status. As has been so often over this series, for context we must go back to the fall of China’s Tang Dynasty in 907. For roughly a thousand years, starting from the Han Dynasty in 111 BCE, the northern half of what is now Vietnam was under Chinese dominion, broken up by a few decades of revolts and brief independence here and there. Of course, the Chinese Dynasties were not dominating a ‘Vietnam’ in any modern sense. Rather, they were exerting control or tributary relationships with the Viet, or Kinh, peoples around the Red River, or Hong River, Delta. This delta is usually described as the cradle of Vietnamese civilization, the most densely populated and fertile part of the country even today. Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, sits in this region. The long period  of Chinese rule and influence left an undeniable mark upon Vietnamese conceptions of state, and every succeeding Viet dynasty has born obvious echoes of it.       With the collapse of the Tang in 907, the Chinese presence in the north of Vietnam weakened, and local groups began to exert independence. Some of the Tang’s successors in Southern China invaded and briefly brought the Red River Delta back under Chinese rule. But by the middle of the tenth century, the first fully independent Vietnamese Dynasty in centuries, the Ngô Dynasty, was established… and collapsed into feuding warlords by 965. It was not until the Lý Dynasty, founded in 1009, was stability reached. Under the Lý Emperors- though only Kings, if you asked the Chinese- the recognizable aspects of medieval northern Vietnam were built. The capital was moved to Thăng Long, modern day Hanoi. Buddhism was adopted as the state religion, and in 1054 a new emperor declared a new name for their state; Đại Việt,, meaning ‘great Viet,’ by which we most commonly know the medieval and early modern state. Administrative and military reforms made it the most stable and powerful Vietnamese kingdom yet, and the state expanded both north and south. Agricultural expansion and land reclamation fueled population growth and a steady Viet colonization southwards.       Good times for the Lý Kings did not last. By the start of the thirteenth century their rule had weakened, local warlords exerted their independence and the monarchs were generally inept with few heirs. In a series of political alliances and marriages, the Trần family gathered power and began to try to force the Lý Kings to be their puppets. Warfare broke out. The Lý Kings maintaned the throne, but with the Trầns the power behind it. The final ailing Lý King abdicated the throne in 1224 with only two daughters. His 7 year old daughter, Lý Chiêu Thánh, was enthroned as the only queen-regent in Vietnam’s history. Throught the machinations of the Trần “mayor of the palace,”  Trần Thủ Độ married the young queen to his nephew, Trần Cảnh. The queen soon abdicated the throne, making Trần Cảnh the reigning monarch- the first ruler of Vietnam’s prestigious Trần Dynasty, known by his temple name Thái Tông, the Vietnamese rendition of that classic Chinese temple name, Taizong. His father was posthumously made Taizu, and the scheming uncle Thủ Độ became the chancellor and the major powerbroker within Đại Việt until his death in 1264.       The powerful new Trần Dynasty of Đại Việt centralized power and continued the expansion begun the Lý  Dynasty. Further reclamation efforts and dykes to control the flooding of the Red River continued to increase the agricultrual production of the north. Adminsitration, territories, taxes, the army, the law code, all were reorganized under the Trần. Confucianism influenced the government but did not replace Buddhism, and Chinese was the official language of the court. Relations were stabilized with their most important neighbours; the Song Dynasty to the northeast, to which Đại Việt paid tribute and nominal allegiance in exchange for expensive gifts and lucrative trade; to the northwest, trade flowed with the Dali Kings in Yunnan; to the south, a cordial period began with the Chams.    The Chams are a part of the far flung Austronesian people, inhabiting central and southern Vietnam for millenia. For most of their history they were a collection of small, competing Hindu and Muslim kingdoms, but in the 12th century entered a new period of unity in the face of an invasion by the Khmer Empire of Cambodia, the builders of the famed Angkor Wat. United under a ‘king of kings,’ the Chams repulsed both the Khmer and Đại Việt when it attempted to take advantage of perceived Cham weakness. Though not unified or centralized in the manner of Đại Việt, from the mid-12th century onwards there was a King of Kings based out of Vijaya who wielded more influence over the other Cham kings and princes- the kingdom of Champa, as it’s sometimes called. And hence, by the 13th century we can say that Vietnam was divided into two states; Đại Việt in the north, ruled by the Trần Dynasy and known as Annam to the Chinese, and Champa in the south. You can get your references to twentieth century North and South Vietnam out of the way now.    Đại Việt was the first of the two to encounter Mongol armies in the 1250s. As we’ve discussed a few times before, in 1253, on the orders of his brother the Grand Khan Mongke, prince Kublai marched into Yunnan and conquered the Dali Kingdom. Though Kublai quickly returned north, his general Uriyangqadai stayed in the region and continued to subdue the local peoples. Uriyangqadai, the son of the illustrious Sube’edei, led a series of wide ranging campaigns across Yunnan, the edges of Tibet to the small kingdoms on the western edge of the Song Dynasty. In this process, Uriyangqadai came right to the northern border of Đại Việt. At this point Mongol imperial ideology was well entrenched: of course Đại Việt would become subject to the Grand Khan. The more immediate strategic concern though was to prevent the Trần kings offering any sort of support to the Song Dynasty, against which Mongke was planning a massive assault upon for 1258. With Đại Việt’s trade and tribute contacts with the Song, the Mongols were not willing to allow a possible enemy in their rear. With his envoys to the Trần court at Thăng Long illicting no response, in the winter of 1257 Uriyangqadai and his son, Aju, led the army over the border, some 10-30,000 men, Mongols supported by locally raised troops from Yunnan.   Splitting his forces into two, Uriyangqdai ordered the vanguard to cross the Thao River, north of Thăng Long, but not engage the Việt forces; Uriyangqadai knew of the river fleets used by Đại Việt, and desired to draw them into an ambush and thus neutralize their mobility. The vanguard commander did not listen and immediately engaged with the enemy, and a frustrated Uriyangqadai then advanced to support him. Despite the insubordination and the Vietnamese fielding war elephants, the Mongols had the better of the battle; Aju is said to have ordered archers to shoot into the eyes of the elephants. However, a defiant rear guard allowed the Trần leadership to escape the battle on the ships, and the always strict Uriyangqadai ensured the foolish vanguard commander paid for this with his life.   The Trần forces again attempted to stop the Mongol advance, occuping a bank of the Phù Lỗ river at the start of 1258 and cutting down the bridge. The Mongols cleverly found a ford; shooting arrows into the sky, when they fell and disappeared -meaning they had sunk into the mud- that indicated an area shallow enough to cross. They met and routed the Trần army, and now they rushed onto the capital, Thăng Long- only to find it abandoned. The Trần King, government and most of its population had evacuated before the Mongol arrival, taking most of the foodstuffs with them.   Vietnamese and the Chinese sources differ on the precise details of what followed, but generally it can be said that Uriyangqadai withdrew, and was harassed by local forces as went, and the Trần King offered tribute to keep the Mongols at bay. It may have been that the heat, humidity and tropical disease wreaked havoc on Mongolian men, bows and horses and he wanted out of there as quickly as possible, only escaping with heavy losses. It may have been that due to the timetable Mongke had set for the assault on the Song, Uriyangqadai simply did not have time to stay in Đại Việt any longer. Indeed, upon his return to Mongol occupied Yunnan, he was almost immediately leading forces into the Song Dynasty’s southwestern border.   The Trần Kings now sent tribute to the Mongols, expecting it would be a continuation of the relationship they had had with the Song: tribute once every three years, a nominal submission to keep the peace. For almost two decades, this was essentially what followed, as the Mongols were too preoccupied with the succession struggle after Mongke’s death and Kublai’s ensuing war with the Song Dynasty to press the matter further. Likewise, Champa began to send tribute to the Khan. With the Song still a buffer between them, the kingdoms of Vietnam felt some security from the Mongols.       However, Kublai began asking for both monarchs to submit to him in person and confirm their allegiance, which both put off in favour of continued tribute missions. Other demands had to be met as Mongol vassals, such as censuses, allowing daruqachi to be posted in their cities and demands for labour and materials- all were requirments neither kingdom had yet to meet.  The end of Song resistance at Yaishan by 1279 to Kublai’s Yuan Empire removed  the buffer between them, and now the excuses of the Trần and Cham kings was far less acceptable, as was their housing of fleeing Song officials. In 1280 Kublai demanded that if the Trần king could not come in person, then he must send a massive golden likeness of himself with pearls for eyes, as well as increased amounts of tributes, as well as demanding the kingdom’s most skilled doctors and artisans, most virtuous scholars and most beautiful women every three years. The Great Khan’s demands grew ever greater, the intention clear: the submission of Đại Việt and Champa must be total.   Kublai’s eyes were also going further afield. Dreaming of completing the conquest of the world, the fall of the Song, the greatest single independent power not subject to the Mongols, seemed to open up access to valuable maritime trade routes.  It has been speculated that Kublai saw Champa as key to controlling the south-east Asian trade, essentially a landing strip jutting out into the trade routes darting from India, Indonesia and China. After years of perceived insubordination, once the Chams imprisoned Yuan envoys in 1282, Kublai had his pretext for war and a chance to seize the sea trade. Striking at Champa first had the added benefit of putting Đại Việt in a vice grip between Yuan China and an occupied Champa, and hopefully bring it to heel as well. Having overcome the formidable Song Dynasty, the often politically fragmented Champa would have seemed an easy target in comparison. Officials in Guangxi province had sent encouraging messages to the court, saying less than 3,000 men would be needed to overrun the Chams. After the failure of the second invasion of Japan in 1281, Kublai was also hungry for a quick and easy victory. Though the 1270s had been successful, they had worn Kublai out; by the 1280s, he was no longer the patient man he had been in the 1250s, planning out every detail of the Dali campaign with his experienced generals and advisers. His most loyal and critical advisers had died over the 1270s, and Kublai had outlived the most veteran commanders. Having come to expect total victory regardless, Kublai now demanded it immediately.       In December 1282, Sogetu, a hero of the final war against the Song Dynasty and governor of Fujian, departed with 5,000 men drawn from former Song territory aboard a hundred transport ships, arriving near the Cham capital of Vijaya in February 1283. After brief resistance, Vijaya fell to Sogetu, who found that the Cham leadership, its King Indravarman V and Prince Harijit, had fled into the mountains. After wasting a month in fruitless negotiation with Cham envoys, once Indravarman executed his envoys, in March 1283 Sogetu set out on the attack.  In the jungle his men were ambushed and driven back, and Sogetu retreated to the coast where he cleared land to plant rice to feed his men. There, he sent envoys to the Khmer Empire (who were detained) and sent messages to the Yuan court for aid.        Initially, the court’s response was slow, still planning for a third invasion of Japan. Ariq Khaya, the Uighur commander who had helped crush the last of Song resistance, was ordered to raise thousands of Jurchen, Northern Chinese and former Song troops to aid Sogetu, but failed to do so. It was not until March 1284, after plans for the third Japanese invasion were finally abandoned, when an army of 20,000 was dispatched to aid Sogetu. Setting out by sea and delayed by a brief mutiny, they arrived the next month to link up with a campaigning Sogetu, who had begun sacking Cham cities along the coast. The Cham King Indravarman sent word he was willing to submit, but would be unable to offer tribute due to the plundering. Such concerns did not really bother the Mongols.       By August 1284 the Yuan court had received maps showing the land routes through Đại Việt to Champa, and it was declared that Kublai’s eleventh son Toghon would lead a force overland to assist Sogetu. Đại Việt was ordered to help supply this army, but they refused: it was immediately apparent in the Trần court that this was almost certainly a pretext for a Yuan conquest of Đại Việt. At that time, the reigning Trần King was Trần Khâm, temple name Trần Nhân Tông. His father, the previous king Trần Thánh Tông, was still alive: the Vietnamese had a similar institution to the Japanese, wherein the previous monarch would ‘retire,’ abdicating the throne for their heir and as ‘emperor-emeritus,’ tutor their successor while stepping out of all that strict court protocol. So it was in 1284 that the 15th century chronicle the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt, records a famous episode. The ‘emperor-emeritus’ Trần Thánh Tông, once it was apparent that the Mongol attack was forthcoming, summoned elders and advisers from across Đại Việt to discuss the best course of action and strategy. Supposedly, they all shouted in unison, “Fight!”   So the Trầns began to prepare for the assault, readying officers and men. Of these, one man is the most famous for his preparations, Trần Quốc Tuấn, though you may know him better by his later title, Prince Hưng Đạo. Part of Hưng Đạo’s long standing popularity in Vietnamese history was his character, worth a small digression. Hưng Đạo’s rise to prominence was an unexpected thing. He was the nephew of the first Trần King, the son of his rebellious older brother. While his father died disgraced and as a traitor, Hưng Đạo made himself a shining beacon of loyalty and filial piety- two very good traits to have if you want to have Confucian inspired historians write nice things about you. Hưng Đạo actively made himself appear the most loyal of all the Trần King’s servants, perhaps to overcompensate for his father’s actions. His charisma, natural talent and skill made his life an exemplary subject for chroniclers to fawn over,  with one notable exception: when he was around 20 years old, Hưng Đạo had an affair with an imperial princess already engaged to another man. It was a scandal resolved by marrying the two, but was nonetheless an embarrassment. When it became apparent that war was coming, Hưng Đạo marked himself out by preparing and training men and officers, before taking a leading role in the strategy himself.    In January 1285, Prince Toghon and Ariq Khaya led some eight tumens over the border from Yunnan into Đại Việt. He had with him an ousted member of the Trần royal family, Trần Ích Tầc, who the Yuan had declared the new King of Đại Việt and were going to place onto the throne. In addition, another column came further west, led by Nasir ad-Din, the Khwarezmian appointed by the Mongols to govern Yunnan; he was the son of the first Mongol appointed governor of the province, a skilled figure named Sayyid Ajall. The forces sent against Toghon, Ariq Khaya and Nasir ad-Din were quickly overcome, and captured ships allowed them to cross the Phu-luong River in February.  Meanwhile, Sogetu was marching north, a great pincer movement on Đại Việt. Prince Hưng Đạo divided his forces to try and prevent Sogetu from linking up with Toghon, but Sogetu overwhelmed them, capturing 400 renegade Song officials. By the time Sogetu linked up with Toghon, the Prince had constructed a full river fleet and placed them under the command of Omar, one of the Yuan’s top naval commanders and Nasir ad-Din’s son. Together, they undertook a full offensive against Đại Việt, Omar driving the King out to sea while Toghon and Sogetu captured the capital of Thăng Long. Armies sent against them were annhilated and many Trần generals defected to the Yuan forces.       With Thăng Long’s seizure, the Yuan experienced their final success of this campaign. Again, Thăng Long had been skilfully evacuated to deny the Mongols access to supplies or the royal family, thus preventing the city’s occupation from being a true strategic gain. In Thăng Long, Yuan forces and supply lines were overextended, running low on food while heat and disease took their toll. In June one of the Yuan commanders, Li Heng, was killed by poisoned arrows and his force decimated by ambushes. A former Song Dynasty officer and his entourage, fighting alongside the Vietnamese, donned their old Song style uniforms and armours, which panicked  the Yuan detachments thinking they were now facing long-lost Song reinforcment! The fallen Vietnamese were found to have tattooed “kill the Tatars!” on their own bodies, angering, frustrating and frightening the Yuan forces- many of whom, it should be noted, were not Tatars but conscripted Chinese and others who would be forced to share their fate. All bodies with such tatoos were ordered to be decapitated. Toghon, seeing their position was untenable as morale crumbled, decided to call a full retreat back to Yuan territory. So swiftly was this done that Toghon failed to inform Sogetu of the retreat, who suddenly realized he was left isolated deep in enemy territory.  Hurriedly he forced his way north, but the Vietnamese harried him. Sogetu was captured and killed in battle, and the remainder of his force was largely surrounded and destroyed at Ssu-ming on the Yuan border.       This was a disastrous end to the campaign. The Mongols had suffered reversals, loss of commanders and had to turn back from campaigns before. Battles had been lost of course, but major defeats like the Japan invasions could be explained away as the interventions of nature and the heavens. But the Vietnam campaign was a direct military fiasco, one of Kublai’s own sons failing to deliver victory.  Kublai was so furious he refused to allow Toghon back to the capital. Frustrated by failures and his mind increasingly clouded by drink and depression, Kublai ordered a third invasion of Đại Việt. Special care was taken for this invasion. The Trần pretender Trần Ích Tầc was once again to be promoted, to hopefully encourage dissension, and great effort was taken to prevent the logistical issues of the previous campaign. Supply ships were ordered from all along the southern Chinese coast to ferry troops and provide the food necessary for the great army being assembled: 70,000 Mongol, Jurchen and Northern Chinese, 6,000 troops from Yunnan, 1,000 former Song soldiers, 6,000 local troops from Guangxi and 17,000 Loi people from the island of Hainan, for a total of 100,000 men not including the crews of the 500 warships and transports. Toghon was placed in overall command again, his final chance to redeem himself before his aging father.        While it is easy to focus on the Yuan losses, it must not be thought it was an easy experience in Vietnam. As per custom, the Mongols had metted out savage reprisal on cities; we know from elsewhere that when frustrated, as when denied a chance to meet the foe directly in battle, it only resulted in increased devastation on those they fell across. Crops and rice patties were destroyed by the tred of armies and horses, and we cannot imagine what starvation and horrors greeted the population caught in the middle of this conflict. Many thousands fled into the wilderness to escape the Yuan armies, and few could have been prepared for the experience. Their suffering from disease, lack of water and resources goes unmentioned in the sources. The capital of Thăng Long had been looted and occupied for the second time in thirty years. In Champa the evidence is less clear, but it seems Sogetu burned his way through many of the most prominent city’s along the coast in his march north. In the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt, in the entry for the year 1286 Prince Hưng Đạo provides this assessment to the King:   “Our kingdom has been at peace for a long time. The people do not know about military matters. Previously when the Yuan came and raided, there were those who surrendered or fled. By relying on the potent awe of the imperial ancestors, Your Highness’s divine [perspicacity] and martial [awe] wiped clean the dust of the nomadic barbarians. If they come again, our troops are trained at fighting, while their army fears a distant campaign. They are also dejected by the defeats of Heng and Guan. They do not have the heart to fight. As I see it, they are sure to be defeated.”   Hưng Đạo, as fitting his character, comes across optimistic and eager to fight. Yet, he recognized that many had quickly defected or routed before the Mongols. The Vietnamese needed to prepare to meet the Mongols again ahead on, rather than simply rely on the ‘awe’ of the King.       In October 1287, the third invasion began. The army  into three major forces: Toghon took the main army overland, 6,000 traveled west of the main army to act as a diversionary force and 18,000 were taken by Omar and Fan Yi aboard war ships sailing along the coast to find and neutralize the Việt navy. The large transport fleet followed some days behind Omar’s armada, anticipating that Omar would have cleared the way of enemy ships for them. In December the main army crossed the border in two columns and defeated several Đại Việt forces, marching to Vạn Kiếp on the Bạch Đằng River to await the arrival of Omar’s fleet, who arrived after fighting off a Vietnamese navy. Despite early success, neither force had brought much for food supplies, expecting to be supplied by the transport fleet.       Toghon waited for the supply fleet until the end of January 1288, but unbeknownst to him much of the supply fleet was blown off course by a storm, and the rest were attacked by the Việt  navy. The commander Trần Khánh Dư held his fleet in secret up a river near the coast at Vân Đồn, and allowed the Yuan warships under Omar to pass by. Once Omar and the warships were beyond reach, Trần Khánh Dư  fell upon the unguarded, slower moving Yuan supply ships. By seizing and scattering these, he ensured the breakdown of the massive Yuan army. With food supplies running low, Toghon marched onto Thăng Long, hoping to resupply there. The city fell without opposition in February 1288, but to their horror they found there wasn’t a grain of rice left within: the defenders had once again stripped it in their flight. The increasingly desperate Yuan forces went to great effort to gather food until learning of the disaster which befell the supply fleets at Vân Đồn. Toghon ordered the army back to stockades they had constructed at Vạn Kiếp, and by the end of March, once his men were on the verge of starvation, he ordered a general retreat back to China. It was now the Việt forces sprung their trap. The Yuan army’s route north was harried by continual ambushes and the destruction of roads and bridges to hamper their movements. Arrows flew out from the trees to strike men down. Tropical diseases the Mongols were unused to spread among them, humidity warped their bows and the trees howled with the sounds of alien creatures ensuring sleepless nights. Toghon, great-grandson of Chinggis Khan, showed his pedigree by hiding in a copper tube on the march, then abandoning the troops to board a warship and sail back to the Yuan realm.       On April 9th, 1288, Omar’s fleet was sailing past the mouth of the Bạch Đằng river when a group of Vietnamese ships, commanded by Prince Hưng Đạo, sailed out to meet him at high tide. Eager for some sort of victory, Omar took a portion of the fleet and attacked. The Vietnamese routed before the Yuan warships, fleeing back up the river whence they had come. When the Yuan fleet pursued up the river, the trap was sprung: while the smaller and lighter Vietnamese craft had cruised by in safety, wooden stakes placed along the river bottom impaled the larger Yuan vessels, holding them in place as the tide receded. With the Yuan ships immobilized, the Vietnamese turned about and attacked: helpless, many Yuan soldiers jumped into the river, drowning or picked off by the arrows of Đại Việt, and Omar was captured. The other fleet commander, Fan Yi, attempted to rescue Omar, but his vessels were surrounded and boarded, Fan Yi himself killed in the fighting. Some 400 ships were captured, capping off a campaign which saw most of its land forces destroyed in the wilderness.       1288 proved to be a total fiasco for the Yuan. Only a few years after the destruction of the great armada off the shores of Kyushu, another fleet and army were destroyed with little to show for it. Toghon was sent into political exile after both disastrous campaigns, his son another disgrace to add to Kublai’s troubles of the 1280s. Unlike earlier, thoroughly planned and prepared campaigns, the Mongol leadership was unable to gather the information they needed to properly orchestrate their attacks. The destruction of the cities did not sway or put adequate fear into the Vietnamese monarchs, the sufferings of the population could not move them and unable to capture the enemy leadership, the Mongol were denied many of the strategic tools they had commonly employed to disable the enemy defense. In the dense and rugged jungles and mountains, the Mongols’ greatest tactical advantage, the mobility and range of their horse archers, was neutralized, while the heat, humidity and diseases wrought havoc upon troops and horses unused to such a climate. While victorious in the primary field engagements, the Yuan were unable to transform these battles into strategic successes. And crucially, the Mongols struggled to supply themselves. Small foraging parties could be picked off by the locals, supply lines could more be secured and larger armies were dependent on those supply fleets. When the supply fleets of the third invasion were destroyed by Trần Khánh Dư  at Vân Đồn, the massive army commanded by Toghon became a huge, unreadable, liability. All of these were compounded by the fact the Yuan leadership totally underestimated Vietnamese resilience and the Yuan commander, Toghon, was an inept and inexperienced general: in contrast, the military leaders of  Đại Việt were able to maximize their strengths and strike at the Yuan when they were their most vulnerable.    While Bạch Đằng was a masterfully executed victory by Prince Hưng Đạo, Đại Việt and Champa had suffered terribly over both campaigns, and both kingdoms, to avoid another invasion began sending tribute and recognized Kublai’s authority. Still, their resilience and refusal of either monarch to come before him left Kublai wanting another invasion, the Trần pretender Trần Ích Tầc again readied to be put onto the Trần throne, but as with much else, such thoughts were abandoned on Kublai’s death in 1294. After Kublai’s death, relations were eased between Yuan, Đại Việt and Champa. The kingdoms in Vietnam paid their tribute, and they were spared another Mongol assault. Relations between Đại Việt and Champa improved, and a marriage alliance was organized. The former Cham Prince Harijit, now King Simhavarman III, married the daughter of the Trần King, only to die suddenly in 1307. The death of the Cham king brought a new round of tension between the two states, eventually turning into a continuous conflict between them that ultimately culminated in the Viet seizure of Vijaya in 1471.   Today, Bạch Đằng is a highly celebrated episode in Vietnam’s history, the tactics and strategy of Hưng Đạo studied by the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. The introduction of the idea of the nation-state to Vietnam has seen Hưng Đạo turned into a symbol of the nation, a single person embodying the ideals of resistance to powerful, foreign foes.  But for Kublai, the disasters in Vietnam were only the start to a rough decade, which we will explore over our next episodes, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast to follow. To help us keep bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This script was written and researched by Jack Wilson, with the kind assistance of Phú Võ for accessing Vietnamese and Chinese materials. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

Across the Red River Delta came the pounding of drums. The clans of Ancient Vietnam were being called to war - and the clamour came from two sisters, the eldest of which would fight a great empire in the cause of Vietnamese freedom.Support the show on PatreonDownload the Lyceum app and join the conversation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hãy tải ứng dụng Waves để cập nhật những tập podcast mới nhất và có những trải nghiệm miễn phí tuyệt vời nhất: iOS: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/waves-podcast-player/id1492378044 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.waves8.app In the seventh to sixth centuries BC, the tribes living in the Red River Delta, the Ma River, northern Vietnam today unified to establish Van Lang, the first state of the Vietnamese. . The capital is located in Phu Tho today. King Van Lang, all 18 generations, called himself Hung Vuong. By the second century BC, after the resistance against the Qin Shi Huang army (218-208), the Chinese feudal state in the North, Thuc Phan became King of Van Lang claiming to be An Duong Vuong and changed his name. Au Lac country, building snails in Co Loa (Dong Anh - Hanoi) as capital ... Podcast Back to the Past with History Vietnamese brings true Vietnamese history stories. Uncle Ho taught "Every day a story of knowing History, adding patriotism." Back to the Past channel with Vietnamese History helps Vietnamese people understand more and know the stories from ancient times and the journeys that our ancestors went through to bring peace to the country today. Podcast Back to the past with Su Vietnamese brought by Waves. Waves is an online audio platform that provides audiobooks, podcasts and online education exclusively for Vietnamese. You can access all the world-famous podcasts and podcasts produced by Vietnamese. Waves is a platform for Vietnamese podcasts and on-demand radio. Check out waves8.com for a list of our shows, and to reach out if you want to create a show with us! #Vietnameseancienttime #vietnamesehistory #waves #waves8 #Anduongvuong #hungvuong

Doi Son pagoda, which literally translates to ‘pagoda on the Doi mountain,’ is a cultural symbol of Ha Nam province and a sacred place in the Red River Delta. It is one of the biggest Buddhist centers in northern Vietnam. Link full: http://vovworld.vn/en-US/discovery-vietnam/doi-son-pagodaa-buddhist-center-in-northern-vietnam-771418.vov --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/v5vietnam/support

* Welcome to #100!* And we are still talking about 1944!* When we finished last time, Ho Chi Minh was making his way to the Red River Delta.* The Japanese have chased the French out of Vietnam and didn’t bother to protect the northern regions.* So Ho and the ICP are getting ready to make […]

Nancy Kacungira presents a special programme on climate change, profiling the people whose trailblazing ideas and innovations are hoping to mitigate against global warming. Deep in the Ecuadorian jungle, one isolated community of Achuar have come up with an ingenious solution to protect their territory from the ever encroaching threat of deforestation. From BBC Mundo, Laura Plitt takes to the waterways aboard the Amazon jungle's first solar powered canoe. The loss of the Aral Sea in Central Asia is an ecological disaster. Toxic chemicals in the exposed sea bed have caused widespread health problems. From BBC Uzbek, Rustam Qobilov investigates whether an ambitious project to plant millions of trees can save the Karakalpak people of Uzbekistan. With the fastest growing population on the planet, India’s energy needs are staggering. From Delhi, women's affairs correspondent Divya Arya travels to the sunny state of Rajasthan to meet one social entrepreneur who’s attempting to provide solar technology to those living without power. And finally in the Red River Delta region of Vietnam, Ly Truong meets the scientist hoping to feed the world in a more sustainable way. This BBC Production was supported by funding from the Skoll Foundation. (Picture: Dr. Pham Thi Thu Huong, from the Field Crops Research Institute in Vietnam. Credit: BBC) Presented by Nancy Kacungira Produced by Claire Press

Holy Star Wars! Episode 59. This week, we're back in The Clone Wars with S1E15 Trespass. We're also taking a look at the story of one of the Red River Delta in Vietnam's Four Immortals, Thanh Giong. The theme this week is Standing Up! Learn about Thanh Giong here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rzdOX3VuuI Learn about my SNAP Challenge here: https://sites.google.com/view/jasonssnapchallenge/home Holy Star Wars is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, YouTube and Sound Cloud just by searching "Holy Star Wars!" or clicking a link below. Email us at holystarwars@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @holy_star_wars iTtunes: http://apple.co/2jxz4Ws Stitcher: http://bit.ly/2im58Py Google Play: http://bit.ly/2iirduZ Sound Cloud: http://bit.ly/2iLiouT Theme Music: "A Jedi Leader" by Kevin Kliner All Star Wars subject matter is the property of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or Disney and usage is not endorsed by either company.

At the Geneva Peace conference in 1954, an agreement is reached to end the war in Indochina.  Vietnam would be divided, the Communist gaining control of the north.  The French Army leave Hanoi and the Red River Delta.  Diem becomes the leader of South Vietnam from 1954 until is overthrow and death in 1963, a biography of him. 

General Giap decides to defeat the French Army in a open battle within the Red River Delta.  The appointment of the French Army commander in Indochina General De Lattre, a biography of him.  He orders a fortified line around Hanoi and the Red River Delta to be built.  The French Army defeat the Viet Minh in three battle in January, March and May 1951.

There is a lack of proper coordination between the French Army in Indochina and the American Military Mission in Saigon.  An account a  guerrilla camp in outside of Saigon.  The French Army is better by the Viet Minh along Highway Four near to the border with China.  The French Army retreat to Hanoi and the Red River Delta.  A biography of the commander of the French Army in Indochina General Carpentier.