1471 Vietnamese invasion of Champa

1471 Vietnamese invasion of Champa under Emperor Lê Thánh Tông was a military expedition that is widely regarded as marking the downfall of Champa. The Vietnamese forces attacked and sacked the capital Vijaya, and decimated the Cham army. As a result of the conflict, Champa was forced to cede territory to Vietnam and from thereafter ceased to pose a threat to Vietnamese territory.

Invasion

By 1470, the Chams had converted from Hinduism to Islam. This and their earlier attack on Angkor led the Cambodians to ignore the Cham's request for assistance when Vietnam invaded.^[1]

The Cham feared an imminent Vietnamese attack, and requested that the Ming dynasty of China bring the Vietnamese back in line by force and clearly demarcate the border between Champa and Vietnam. China only verbally rebuked the Vietnamese for their invasions, which the Vietnamese ignored, proceeding to attack and destroy the Cham.^[2] The Vietnamese army was reorganized to copy the Chinese army, with gunpowder weapons. Le Thanh-tong raised a massive 300,000 army which outnumbered the 100,000 Cham army, although at a massive financial cost which drained the Vietnamese treasury 1,000 gold liang each day.^[3]

Genocide

The Vietnamese conducted a Genocide campaign against the Cham slaughtereing 60,000 when taking the capital. The Vietnamese committed arson and theft and burned massive parts of Champa, seizing the entire country. The Cham told the Chinese that "Annam destroyed our country". The Chinese Ming Dynasty records record the Vietnamese destruction of Champa. The Vietnamese enslaved several thousand Cham and enacted forced assimilation of Vietnamese culture onto Chams. The Chams informed the Chinese that they continued to fight against the Vietnamese occupation of their land, which had been turned into the 13th province of Vietnam.^[4]

The Chinese government sent a censor Ch'en Chun to Champa in 1474 to install the Champa King, but he discovered Vietnamese soldiers had taken over Champa and were blocking his entry. He proceeded to Malacca instead and its ruler sent back tribute to China.^[5] Malacca sent envoys to China again in 1481 to inform the Chinese that while going back to Malacca in 1469 from a trip to China, the Vietnamese attacked them, castrating the young and enslaving them. The Malaccans reported that Vietnam was in control of Champa and also that the Vietnamese sought to conquer Malacca, but the Malaccans did not fight back due to lack of permission from the Chinese to engage in war. The Chinese Emperor scolded them, ordering the Malaccans to strike back with violent force if the Vietnamese attacked.^[6][7]

The Champa kingdom was completely destroyed by the invasion, only 60,000 Cham remain in Vietnam today.^[8]

References

•  This article incorporates text from Miscellaneous papers relating to Indo-China: reprinted for the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society from Dalrymple's "Oriental Repertory," and the "Asiatic Researches" and "Journal" of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Volume 1, by Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Straits Branch, Reinhold Rost, a publication from 1887 now in the public domain in the United States.
•  This article incorporates text from Miscellaneous papers relating to Indo-China: reprinted for the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society from Dalrymple's "Oriental Repertory," and the "Asiatic Researches" and "Journal" of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Volume 1, by Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Straits Branch, Reinhold Rost, a publication from 1887 now in the public domain in the United States.

This Vietnam-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e