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Chapter 6 Vân Ðô n, the “Ma%c Gap,” and the End of the Jiaozhi Ocean System: Trade and State in Ða %i Viê %t, Circa 1450–1550 John K. Whitmore Vân Đôn, a network of island harbors stretching northeast of the Red River Delta into the Gulf of Tongking, was the major location of international trade for the kingdom of Đai Viêt for about three and a half centuries. It first appeared in the chronicle of Đai Viêt (Đai Viêt sử ký) in 1149, and the last explicit reference to it was in 1467,1 although other evidence suggests it was still in operation for almost half a century after that. There is no precise indication of when or how the port ceased to function. Sometime after references to Vân Đôn vanished, the strong flow of Vietnamese ceramics overseas in the late fifteenth century stopped.2 Was there a relationship between these two circumstances? Though arguing from negatives is difficult, it would appear that the two circumstances were strongly related and that the crucial time for both of them was the disastrous reign of Lê Uy Muc Ðê (1505–9). Using contextual evidence, both economic and political, I shall attempt to draw a broad picture of trade and state patterns that may help explain the disappearance of Vân Đôn within the wider context of the Tongking Gulf, since this event appears to mark a critical point in the transition from an earlier trade system to a later one there. As we examine the trading pattern of the eastern coast of mainland Southeast Asia over the past millennium, we see two significant periods, the first from the twelfth century to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth, recently described by Li Tana,3 the second from the late sixteenth century into the late eighteenth, presented by Li and Charles Wheeler.4 Along this coastline there formed two polities, Đai Viêt (Tongking, or modern northern Vietnam) and Champa (in modern central Vietnam). These shifting mandala states, each encompassing a variety of localities sheltered by the protection of its paramount ruler, competed with one another for the coastline and trade lying between them.5 The first period was characterized by the Đai Viêt principal port of Vân Đôn to the north and of Thi Nai in Champa to the south; the second was the time of Phô Hiên to the north and Hôi An to the south. I wish to look at the transition between these two eras, particularly in the late fifteenth century. Emerging late in the first period was an increasing flow of Vietnamese ceramics. I shall look at this first trading system as it had come to exist in the mid-fifteenth century, then at economic and trade policy in the time of great change under Lê Thánh Tông (r. 1460–97); finally, within this context I attempt to understand the disappearance of this first trading pattern (and the port of Vân Đôn with its ceramic trade) before the rise of the second during the late sixteenth century. In the 1550s, the Portuguese priest Gaspar da Cruz visited Đai Viêt, controlled at the time by the Mac royal family. In his brief but most interesting description, he portrayed the region as being very like China in writing, dress, administration, and policies. With good government the land was populous and prosperous, its people dressing, eating, and living well. Yet he noted “they do not deal with other peoples outside their own kingdom.” In regard to Champa, da Cruz had little to say.6 Some four decades earlier, Tomé Pires, the famed Portuguese apothecary of Malacca, reported that “Cochin China” (in context, Đai Viêt) was “larger and richer” than Champa. He described the Vietnamese as being “a very weak people on the sea; all their achievement is on land.” Their goods were gold and silver and “porcelain and pottery—some of great value,” which went to China. Their fabrics were “fine and perfect.” In exchange for these goods, the Vietnamese mainly gained sulfur from China and especially from the island world via Malacca. Yet “they rarely come to Malacca in their junks.” Guangzhou was the major port of trade for the Vietnamese, whence they went to Malacca on Chinese junks. According to Pires, in Champa “there are no ports . . . for large junks.” Its major products...

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