page_title: Trần dynasty
section_title: Mongol invasions
hierarchical_section_title: Trần dynasty / History / Mongol invasions
caption_attribution_description: Statue of Tran Hung Dao, Vung Tau City, Vietnam.
context_page_description: The Trần dynasty of Vietnam ruled over the Kingdom of Đại Việt from 1225 to 1400. The dynasty was founded when emperor Trần Thái Tông ascended to the throne after his uncle Trần Thủ Độ orchestrated the overthrow of the Lý dynasty. The final emperor of the dynasty was Thiếu Đế, who at the age of five years was forced to abdicate the throne in favor of his maternal grandfather, Hồ Quý Ly. The Trần dynasty defeated three Mongol invasions, most notably in the decisive Battle of Bạch Đằng River in 1288.
  The Tran improved Chinese gunpowder enabling them to expand southward to defeat and vassalize the Champa. They also started using paper money for the first time in Vietnam.
  The Tran dynasty was considered a golden age in Vietnamese language, arts, and culture; with the first pieces of Chữ Nôm literature written during this period, and first-time introduction of the vernacular Vietnamese language into the court, alongside Chinese. This laid the foundation for the further development and solidifying of Vietnamese language and identity.
context_section_description: In 1257, the first Mongol invasion of Đại Việt was launched with the purpose of opening a southern front against the Song dynasty, whom they were fighting for more than two decades. The Mongols had already conquered parts of modern-day Sichuan and the Dali kingdom in modern-day Yunnan in order to besiege the Southern Song from the west. Trần Dụ Tông opposed the encroachment of a foreign army across his territory to attack their ally, and so dispatched soldiers on elephants to deter the Mongol troops. The elephant-mounted troops were routed from sharpshooters targeting the elephants. At the beginning of the war, the Đại Việt army suffered several defeats by an overwhelming force that had already conquered a vast area in Asia. Several high-ranking officials of the Trần dynasty were so fearful that Prince Trần Nhật Hiệu, the younger brother of Thái Tông, even suggested to the Emperor that they might escape from Đại Việt to the Song dynasty. Trần Dụ Tông submitted to the Mongols after the loss of a prince and the capital. In 1258, the Trần commenced regular diplomatic relations and a tributary relationship with the Mongol court, treating them as equals to the embattled Southern Song dynasty without renouncing their ties to the Song.
  Kublai Khan was dissatisfied with the arrangement at the end of the first invasion and requested greater tributary payments, including taxes to the Mongols in both money and labor, "incense, gold, silver, cinnabar, agarwood, sandalwood, ivory, tortoiseshell, pearls, rhinoceros horn, silk floss, and porcelain cups", and direct oversight from a Mongol-appointed darughachi. In 1283, Khubilai Khan sent word to the Trần that he intended to send Yuan armies through Trần territory to attack the kingdom of Champa, with demands for provisions and other support to the Yuan army. In the twelfth lunar month of 1284, the second Yuan invasion of Đại Việt was launched under the command of Kublai Khan's prince Toghon. Đại Việt was attacked from two directions, with Toghan himself conducting an infantry invasion from the northern border while the Yuan navy under general Sogetu advanced from the southern border through the territory of Champa. Initially, Trần Thánh Tông and Trần Nhân Tông had to order the army to retreat to avoid the pressure from the Yuan force when Prince Chiêu Minh Trần Quang Khải commanded his troops to try to stop Sogetu's fleet in the province of Nghệ An. Meanwhile, several high-ranking officials and members of the royal family of the Trần dynasty defected to the Yuan side, including Thánh Tông's own brother, Prince Chiêu Quốc (Trần Ích Tắc) and Trần Kiện, who was the son of Prince Tĩnh Quốc (Trần Quốc Khang). To ensure the safety of Thánh Tông and Nhân Tông during their retreat, Princess An Tư was offered as a present and diversion for prince Toghan, while Marquis Bảo Nghĩa (Trần Bình Trọng) was captured and later killed in the Battle of Đà Mạc defending the two emperors. The mass defections were the result of the significant effect that recent Mongol conquest of the Southern Song had on contemporary observers, with a Mongol conquest of Vietnam appearing inevitable to many.
  At the southern border, Trần Quang Khải also had to retreat under the pressure of Sogetu's navy and the defection of the governor of Nghe An. This critical situation for the Trần dynasty began to change after the Toghan made the decision to retreat with the forward troops their victory in the fourth lunar month of 1285 at the Battle of Hàm Tử, where the troops commanded by Trần Nhật Duật, Prince Chiêu Thành, Trần Quốc Toản, and Nguyễn Khoái were finally able to defeat the fleet of general Sogetu. On the tenth day of the fifth lunar month of 1285, Trần Quang Khải fought the decisive battle in the Chương Dương, where the Yuan navy was almost destroyed and the balance in the battlefield tilted definitively in favor of the Trần dynasty. Ten days later Sogetu was killed and the Trần Emperor Nhân Tông and Emperor Emeritus Thánh Tông returned to the capital, Thăng Long, on the sixth day of the sixth lunar month, 1285.
  In the th
caption: Statue of noble admiral Trần Quốc Tuấn.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SD450", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:12:19 12:32:47", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "186", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2368", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4728", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:12:19 12:32:47", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:12:19 12:32:47", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "2561/8192", "EXIF ApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "88", "EXIF FocalLength": "4231/500", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1944", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1944", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2592", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2220", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "11520", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "81000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}