Reconceptualizing Southern Vietnamese History from the 15th to the 18th Centuries: Competition along the Coasts from Guangdong to Cambodia.

Abstract

This study is a preliminary step toward a more systematic analysis of the standard dynastic histories and other sources, with a focus on the region called Cochinchina and its connections with nearby territories. I note that Champa remained a viable political entity after 1471 and the Mạc Dynasty controlled extensive parts of the southern territories, even after their defeat in Đông Kinh c. 1596. Thus, control of the south by Nguyễn rulers was a gradual and complex affair, not to be reduced to family rivalries and not decisively inaugurated in 1558. Political and economic concern with the coast was no more important than control over production centers in the highland interior. These findings help refute the “Southern Push” model of Vietnamese expansion, indicating that it was not a thousand-year long process, did not involve the steady displacement of indigenous peoples, and did not focus exclusively on agrarian resources. There was not a purely north-south trajectory for political integration, and control of east-west rivers connecting the coast and the middle Mekong was no less important than control of the coast itself. Although historians have long focused on key dates and events in the dynastic chronicles, many of these are less obvious watersheds than they recognize.