CHAPTER 4

The Age of the Sea Falcons

Naval Warfare in Vietnam, 1771–1802

Vu Duc Liem

“Lay troi cho chong gio nom,

Cho thuyen chua Nguyen thuan buom tray ra”^1

“Praying to Heaven that the summer monsoon comes soon

So the Nguyen Lord’s fleets can sail north favorably”

(Vietnamese proverb)

Introduction

I

n June 1786, over 1,000 warships and galleys sailed north to Thang
Long (Hanoi), the capital city of the Le-Trinh government. The
talented Nguyen Huu Chinh, known as “the sea falcon” (hai dieu) in
his own time, initiated the campaign.^2 After several naval battles in rapid
succession, the 300 year-old Le-Trinh court and its military collapsed
within a month.^3 The event signifies the advent of naval warfare as the
decisive factor in shaping political establishment in the late eighteenth-
century Vietnam. The navy assisted the Tayson brothers in establishing
their supremacy from the Red River to the Lower Mekong during the
following decade until their final defeat in 1802. The navy also helped
Nguyen Phuc Anh, the sole survivor of Nguyen Cochinchina to gradu-
ally regain control over the Lower Mekong, and to launch a series of

1. Ngo Gia Van Phai, Hoang le nhat thong chi (The Unification Records of the Imperial
   Le), hereafter HLNTC (Sai Gon: PhongTrao Van Hoa Tai Ban, 1969): 336.


2. HLNTC, 83.


3. Kham dinh Viet su thong giam cuong muc [The Imperially Ordered Mirror and
   Commentary on the History of the Viet], quyen 46. Vietnam National Library,
   shelf no. R. 525.17–18.