Viet Nam: Borderless Histories

3. Chinese Gunpowder Technology and Ɖại Việt, ca. 1390–1497

72 S U N L A I C H E N 3 Chinese Gunpowder Technology and /Әi ViӾt, ca. 1390–1497 S U N L A I C H E N Military technology tends to be the first to be borrowed, since the penalties for not doing so are immediate and fatal. —Anthony Reid, Europe and Southeast Asia. Any big change in weapons and military organization affects politics and society by helping some people attain ends more easily than before, while putting new, perhaps insuperable, obstacles in the way of others. The advent of guns was such a change. —William H. McNeill, The Age of Gunpowder Empires, 1450–1800. There is a large lacunae in Asian military history on the transfer of Chinese gunpowder technology to Southeast Asia before the sack of Melaka by the Portuguese in 1511. Elsewhere I have shown how the gunpowder technology of early Ming China (ca. 1368–1450) disseminated to all of northern mainland Southeast Asia (defined as including southern Yunnan, Northeast India, and northern parts of modern mainland Southeast Asia) and discussed its implications.1 This 72 Chinese Gunpowder Technology and /Әi ViӾt 73 research focuses on two issues in Sino-Vietnamese relations and Vietnamese history with respect to the spread of Chinese firearms. The first issue between China and ViӾt Nam is who borrowed gunpowder technology from whom. This involves the well-known but highly puzzling passage in the Ming shi (History of the Ming dynasty): “When it came to [the time] of Ming Chengzu [Yongle, 1403–24] Jiaozhi (/Әi ViӾt) was pacified, the techniques of magic gun and cannon (shenji qiangpao fa) were obtained; a firearms battalion (shenji ying) was especially established to drill [firearms].”2 This has led to the popular belief that the Chinese, through their invasion of /Әi ViӾt in 1406–7, acquired firearms technology from the Vietnamese .3 Though this view has been challenged in many ways, it is far from discredited.4 In particular no efforts have been made to demonstrate convincingly that ViӾt Nam acquired gunpowder technology from China rather than the other way around. More than one Chinese source express a similar view in the passage in the Ming shi quoted here, indicating that the subject merits closer attention. This study examines the issues in detail by making full use of Chinese and Vietnamese sources. On the one hand, it stresses the Chinese origins of gunpowder technology; on the other hand, it also acknowledges Vietnamese innovations in some aspects of gunpowder technology. The second issue involves the driving forces behind the external expansion of /Әi ViӾt during the fifteenth century, including both the well-known episode of the fall of the Cham capital, Vijaya, in 1471 and the little-known “long march” of /Әi ViӾt troops to the Irrawaddy River between 1479 and 1484. The main question here is why, after having confronted Champa for more than one thousand (or five hundred) years, /Әi ViӾt was able to defeat Champa decisively at this time.5 To date available views can be summarized as follows. First, the agricultural and demographic theory: This view holds that the population increase of /Әi ViӾt both drove and provided an edge for the southward march (nam tiӶn) of the Vietnamese.6 Earlier views tend to stress population growth as a result of the agricultural development in the Red River delta but without giving much thought to the latter.7 But in a more recent article explaining the ethnic succession of the Pyu, the Mon, the Khmer, and the Cham by the Burmese, the Thai, and the Vietnamese in mainland Southeast Asia, 74 S U N L A I C H E N Richard A. O’Connor attributes it to the replacement of “lowland agriculture” (“garden farmers”) by “wet rice specialists” who could produce more rice to foster “the trade, population growth, and resource concentration that promote state power and societal expansion .”8 Li Tana’s research on the demographic trend in northern and central ViӾt Nam lends more credence to this theory.9 Second, the Confucian transformation interpretation: This construal argues that the Ming invasion of /Әi ViӾt in 1406–7 finally led to the adoption of the Ming Chinese model by the Vietnamese, especially under the rule of Lê Thánh-tông (r. 1460–97). As a result, the Vietnamese state was transformed...