# Vietnam under Chinese rule

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Prehistoric Paleolithic Sơn Vi culture 20,000 BC–12,000 BC Mesolithic Hoabinhian 12,000 BC–10,000 BC Neolithic Bắc Sơn culture 10,000 BC–8,000 BC Quỳnh Văn culture 8,000 BC–6,000 BC Đa Bút culture 4,000 BC–3,000 BC Bronze and Iron Ages Phùng Nguyên culture 2,000 BC–1,500 BC Đồng Đậu culture 1,500 BC–1,000 BC Gò Mun culture 1,000–800 BC Dong Son culture (1,000 BC–100 AD) Sa Huỳnh culture (1,000 BC–200 AD) Óc Eo culture (1–630 AD) :
Ancient Hồng Bàng dynasty 2879 BC–258 BC Thục dynasty 257 BC–179 BC Triệu dynasty 204 BC–111 BC :
Dominated 1st Chinese domination 111 BC–40 AD Trung sisters' rebellion 40–43 2nd Chinese domination 43–544 Early Lý dynasty544–602 3rd Chinese domination602–938 :
Dynastic Ngô dynasty 939–965 Anarchy of the 12 Warlords 965–968 Đinh dynasty 968–980 Early Lê dynasty 980–1009 Later Lý dynasty 1009–1225 Trần dynasty 1225–1400 Hồ dynasty 1400–1407 4th Chinese domination 1407–1428 Later Lê dynasty 1428–1527 Mạc dynasty 1527–1592 Later Lê Restoration 1533–1789 Tây Sơn dynasty 1778–1802 Nguyễn dynasty 1802–1945 :
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Vietnam under Chinese rule or Bắc thuộc (北屬, lit. "belonging to the north") (111 BCE–939 CE, 1407–1428 CE) refers to four historical periods when several portions of modern-day Northern Vietnam was under the rule of various Chinese dynasties. Bắc thuộc in Vietnamese historiography is traditionally considered to have started in 111 BC, when the Han dynasty conquered Nanyue (Vietnamese "Nam Việt") and lasted until 939, when the Ngô dynasty was founded. A fourth, relatively brief, 20-year rule by the Ming dynasty during the 15th century is usually excluded by historians in their discussion of the main, almost continuous, period of Chinese rule from 111 BC to 939 AD. Historians such as Keith W. Taylor, Catherine Churchman, and Jaymin Kim assert that these periods and stereotypes enveloped the narrative as modern constructs, however, and critique them as tools for various nationalist and irredentist causes in China, Vietnam, and other countries.

## Geographical extent and impact

The four periods of Chinese rule did not correspond to the modern borders of Vietnam, but were mainly limited to the area around the Red River Delta and adjacent areas. During the first three periods of Chinese rule, the pre-Sinitic indigenous culture was centered in the northern part of modern Vietnam, in the alluvial deltas of the Hong, Cả and Mã Rivers. Ten centuries of Chinese rule left a substantial genetic footprint, with settlement by large numbers of ethnic Han, while opening up Vietnam for trade and cultural exchange.
Elements of Chinese culture such as language, religion, art, and way of life constituted an important component of traditional Vietnamese culture until modernity. This cultural affiliation with China remained true even when Vietnam was militarily defending itself against attempted invasions, such as against the Yuan dynasty. Chinese characters remained the official script of Vietnam until French colonization in the 20th century, despite the rise in vernacular chữ Nôm literature in the aftermath of the expulsion of the Ming.

## Historiography
### French historiography

History of Vietnam being invaded and ruled by China rule has had substantial influence from French colonial scholarship and Vietnamese postcolonial national history writing. During the 19th century, the French promoted the view that Vietnam had little of its own culture and borrowed it almost entirely from China. They did this to justify European colonial rule in Vietnam. By portraying the Vietnamese as merely borrowers of civilization, the French situated themselves in a historical paradigm of bringing civilization to a backwards region of the world. French scholar Leonard Aurousseau argued that not only did Vietnam borrow culturally and politically from China, the population of Vietnam was also directly the result of migration from the state of Yue in China. This line of thought was followed by Joseph Buttinger, who authored the first English language history book on Vietnamese history. He believed that to fight off the Chinese, the Vietnamese had to become like the Chinese.

### Vietnamese national historiography

Another narrative, the national school of Vietnamese history, portrays the period in "a militant, nationalistic, and very contemporary vision through which emerged a hypothetical substratum of an original Vietnam that was miraculously preserved throughout a millennium of the Chinese presence." The national Vietnamese narrative depicts the Chinese as a corrupt and profit-driven people and merely the first of the foreign colonizing empires that were eventually driven from Vietnam. According to Catherine Churchman, this is not an entirely new historical tradition, but a rewriting or updating of it, and has roots in Dai Viet, which portrayed itself as the Southern Empire equal to the Northern Empire (China). Dai Viet literati of the Trần and Lê dynasties sought an ancient origin for their autonomy prior to Chinese rule and traced their genealogy to Triệu Đà or the semi-legendary Hồng Bàng dynasty. They recorded that the Northern Empire suffered defeat for not respecting these views. However, scholars such as Nhi Hoang Thuc Nguyen argue that "the trope of a small country consistently repelling the China’s cultural force is a recent, postcolonial, mid-20th-century construction".
Works by Japanese scholars in the 1970s as well as in the English language in the 1980s have taken on elements of the national school. Katakura Minoru's Chūgoku shihaika no betonamu emphasizes the innate characteristics of the Vietnamese people. Keith Taylor's The Birth of Vietnam (1983) asserts a strong continuity from the semi-legendary kingdoms of the Red River Plain to the founding of Dai Viet, which was the result of a thousand-year struggle against the Chinese that culminated in the restoration of Vietnamese sovereignty. Jennifer Holmgren's The Chinese Colonisation of Northern Vietnam uses Sinicization and Vietnamization as terms to refer to political and cultural change in different directions. Works following the national school of Vietnamese history retroactively assign Vietnamese group consciousness to past periods (Han-Tang era) based on evidence in later eras. The national school of Vietnamese history has remained practically unchanged since the 1980s and has become the national orthodoxy.

### Anachronisms

The argument for an intrinsic, intractable, and distinctly Southeast Asian Vietnamese identity in the Red River Plain throughout history has been categorized by Catherine Churchman as context, cultural continuity, and resistance. Context refers to the downplaying of similarities between Vietnam and China while emphasizing Vietnam's Southeast Asian identity in the postcolonial period. Cultural continuity refers to an intrinsic Vietnamese "cultural core" that has always existed in the Red River Plain since time immemorial. Resistance refers to the national struggle of the Vietnamese people against foreign aggressors. Proponents of this historical narrative, such as Nguyen Khac Vien, characterize the history of Vietnam under Chinese rule as a "steadfast popular resistance marked by armed insurrections against foreign domination", while opponents such as Churchman note the lack of evidence, anachronisms, linguistic problems, adherence to Chinese political and cultural norms, and similarities as well as differences with other peoples under Chinese rule.
The Vietnamese national narrative has introduced anachronisms in order to prove a unified Vietnamese national consciousness. The word Viet/Yue is often used to refer to an ethnic group when it had various meanings throughout history. There was no terminology to describe a Chinese-Vietnamese dichotomy during the Han-Tang period nor was there a term to describe a cohesive group inhabiting the area between the Pearl River and the Red River. During the Tang period, the indigenous people of Annan or Jinghai Circuit were referred to as the Wild Man (Wild Barbarians), the Li, or the Annamese (Annan people). In addition, the national history tends to have a narrow view limited to modern national boundaries, leading to conclusions of exceptionalism. Although it is true that the political situation in the Red River Plain was less stable than in Guangzhou to the north, such circumstances were not restricted to the area. The Vietnamese national narrative retroactively assigns any local rebellions, the rise of local dynasties, and their local autonomy with the motive of seeking national independence. These early moves toward autonomy in the 10th century were fairly tame compared to the activities of people who cushioned them from more direct contact with Southern dynasties empires.
Previously orthodox views in Vietnamese history were changed to fit a modern nationalist ideology. The rulers of Nam Việt (Nanyue), referred to as the Triệu dynasty (Zhao dynasty), were reclassified as foreigners in modern Vietnamese historiography. While traditional Vietnamese historiography considered the Triệu dynasty to be an orthodox regime, modern Vietnamese scholars generally regard it as a foreign dynasty that ruled Vietnam. The oldest text compiled by a Vietnamese court, the 13th century Đại Việt sử ký, considered Nanyue to be the official starting point of their history. According to the Đại Việt sử ký, Zhao Tuo established the foundation of Đại Việt. However, later historians in the 18th century started questioning this view. Ngô Thì Sĩ argued that Zhao Tuo was a foreign invader and Nanyue a foreign dynasty that should not be included in Vietnamese history. This view became the mainstream among Vietnamese historians in North Vietnam and later became the state orthodoxy after reunification. Nanyue was removed from the national history while Zhao Tuo was recast as a foreign invader.
Language has also been used as evidence for a distinct Vietnamese identity in the Han-Tang period. However, some research points to the formation of a Vietnamese language only afterward as the result of a creolization and language shift involving Middle Chinese.

## Linguistic influence

The periods of Chinese rule over Vietnam also saw the linguistic transformations of several lects in Northern Vietnam, including Thai, Vietnamese, Lao, Muong and many other languages. These languages are often referred to as a regional sprachbund known as Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area. Vietnamese and Muong, under heavy linguistic influence from Chinese and Tai-Kadai languages, have completed tonogenesis, monosyllabicization, and grammaticalization of Chinese loan words to become classifiers and aspect markers; while at another extreme, the Southern Vietic languages have robustly polysyllabic morphemes and derivational or inflectional morphology much like conservative Austroasiatic languages.

## Periods of Chinese rule

The four periods of Chinese rule in Vietnam:
| Period of Chinese rule | Chinese dynasty | Year | Description |
| First Era of Northern Domination 北屬𠞺次一 Bắc thuộc lần thứ nhất | Western Han dynastyXin dynastyEastern Han dynasty | 111 BC–AD 40 | The first period of Bắc thuộc is traditionally considered to have started following the Western Han's victory in the Han–Nanyue War. It ended with the brief revolt of the Trưng sisters. |
| Second Era of Northern Domination 北屬𠞺次𠄩 Bắc thuộc lần thứ hai | Eastern Han dynastyEastern Wu dynastyWestern Jin dynastyEastern Jin dynastyLiu Song dynastySouthern Qi dynastyLiang dynasty | AD 43–544 | Chinese rule was restored after the Trung sisters' rebellion. The second period of Chinese rule was ended by the revolt of Lý Bôn, who took advantage of the internal disorder of the waning Liang dynasty. Lý Bôn subsequently founded the Early Lý dynasty, with the official dynastic name "Vạn Xuân" (萬春). |
| Third Era of Northern Domination 北屬𠞺次𠀧 Bắc thuộc lần thứ ba | Sui dynastyTang dynastyWu Zhou dynastySouthern Han dynasty (sometimes counted) | AD 602–905 or AD 602–939 | The Sui dynasty reincorporated Vietnam into China following the Sui–Early Lý War. This period saw the entrenchment of mandarin administration in Vietnam. The third period of Chinese rule concluded following the collapse of the Tang dynasty and the subsequent defeat of the Southern Han armada by Ngô Quyền at the Battle of Bạch Đằng. Ngô Quyền later proclaimed the Ngô dynasty. |
| Fourth Era of Northern Domination 北屬𠞺次四 Bắc thuộc lần thứ tư | Ming dynasty | AD 1407–1428 | Vietnam was brought under the control of China following the Ming dynasty's defeat of the short-lived Hồ dynasty. The fourth period of Chinese rule ended when the Lam Sơn uprising led by Lê Lợi emerged successful. Lê Lợi then reestablished the Đại Việt kingdom (大越) under the new Lê dynasty. |

## Census data

| Year | Chinese dynasty | Period | Households | Population |
| 2 | Han dynasty | First Era of Northern Domination | 143,643 | 981,755 |
| 140 | Han dynasty | Second Era of Northern Domination | 64,776 | 310,570 |
| | Jin dynasty | Second Era of Northern Domination | 25,600 | - |
| | Liu Song dynasty | Second Era of Northern Domination | 10,453 | - |
| 609 | Sui dynasty | Third Era of Northern Domination | 56,566 | - |
| ca. 700 | Wu Zhou dynasty | Third Era of Northern Domination (Protectorate General to Pacify the South) | 38,626 | 148,431 |
| 740 | Tang dynasty | Third Era of Northern Domination (Protectorate General to Pacify the South) | 75,839 | 299,377 |
| 807 | Tang dynasty | Third Era of Northern Domination (Protectorate General to Pacify the South) | 40,486 | - |
| 1408 | Ming dynasty | Fourth Era of Northern Domination | - | 5,200,000 |
| 1417 | Ming dynasty | Fourth Era of Northern Domination | 450,288 | 1,900,000 |