Kruska
Diamond Member
I wanted to touch on this a bit more, for those that do not actually know.
"Vietnam" as it is known today really is a recent entity. For hundreds of years it was not a "nation", it was multiple entities that is not unlike "Germany" before it was unified, or "England" or "China". It was multiple warlords over hundreds of years that controlled various chunks of the modern nation, and all of them allowed to exist because it served the purposes of China who effectively commanded lordship over all of them.
Most specifically by the 16th Century these were the Nguyen Warlords, forerunner of the Nguyen Dynasty who controlled what was essentially Central Vietnam. The far north of the country was controlled by the Trinh Warlords, and the extreme south was controlled by the Champa Warlords.
The 16th Century was when things started to change. The Ming Dynasty was in decline, and their hold on the outer reaches of their empire was falling. The area we now know as Vietnam (then known as Dang Trong and Dang Ngoai) in the 16th century essentially broke away from China, and set up competing feudal kingdoms.
Above is an 18th century French map which clearly shows the divided and separate kingdoms.
In the 17th century, the Nguyen who had been subjugated by the Trinh decided to break away, and that started a war that lasted until the 18th century when the Nguyen were finally victorious and conquered the Trinh and absorbed them into their kingdom. But the Champa in the south remained independent and were still fighting the Nguyen Dynasty when in 1885 the French stepped in and unified the waring kingdoms into a single colony.
So indeed, the separation of North and South was very real. It existed long before the French took over, and even long predates the Nguyen Dynasty. Like most dynasties in that region from the Ming to the entirety of the Japanese Dynasty, they were simply warlords who were able to conquer most of their neighbors and absorb them. In Viet Nam, the Nguyen were actually not in charge for very long, and they did not control all of Vietnam.
- Chinese Rule: Over a millennium of Chinese domination ended by Ngo Quyen in 938 AD.
- Chinese Rule was partially reinstated during the Yuan Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty being their overlord.
- Dynasties: The Ly (1009-1225) and Le (1428-1788) dynasties saw cultural flourishing and expansion, while the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945) unified the country but faced colonial pressure.
French Colonialism & Independence Struggle (1858-1945)
- 1858-1887: France began conquering Vietnam, eventually forming French Indochina (including Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia).
- 1930: Ho Chi Minh formed the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP).
- 1941: The Viet Minh guerrilla force was created to fight Japanese invaders during WWII.
- 1945: Japan defeated; Ho Chi Minh declared independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam; France reasserted control, sparking the First Indochina War.
The Vietnam War (1954-1975)
- 1954: French defeated at Dien Bien Phu; Geneva Accords divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel into North (communist) and South (US-backed).
- 1955: Second Indochina War (Vietnam War) began. (a coalition of South Vietnamese resistance groups - with the VC being backed by Communist allies.
- 1965: First U.S. combat troops landed in Da Nang.
As for Champa
Champa was better considered to be a federation of independent states. A number of modern scholars have suggested that Champa did form a unified kingdom in some periods but was disunited in others.
factually they are a total mix of Cambodian (Khmer Hindu, Mon, Malay, Javanese, Sasak, and Laotian and Vietnamese tribal groups.
First they got suppressed and conquered by the Dai-Viet and in 1832, the Vietnamese emperor Minh Mang annexed the remaining Cham territories. So Vietnam was united into a single country 40 years before the French started to take the place appart. Hence the initial Vietnamese anti-Japan liberators called themselves Viet-Minh.
The name „Hồ Chà Minh“ was a covername he used, to inspire a Single Vietnam Nation - his real name was Nguyễn Sinh Cung
FYI - Germany (Holy Roman Empire of German Nations aka HRE) or 1st German Reich, had already existed with it's own Emperor from (962–1806)
It was Napoleon who dissolved the HRE in 1806, and Prussia upon defeating France in 1871 - called out the 2nd German Reich, This being the reason why the nutty Austrian called his reign the 3rd Reich.
FYI - The traditional Vietnamese Dress for Females is the áo Nháºt Bình.,
The áo dà i you present was invented&designed during the French Colonial epoche in the 1920's/30's.
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