The Age of the Sea Falconsto the reduction of the number of local gong.^12 By contrast, this chapter
contends that indigenous warships used on rivers and shallow coastal
waters dominated Vietnamese naval warfare until the early nineteenth
century, supporting earlier findings on naval warfare elsewhere on the
mainland.^13 Despite burgeoning interaction with the West in this do-
main, western shipbuilding techniques were secondary to local technol-
ogy because of the latter’s flexibility and ease in adjusting to the complex
coastal and river system. There was, however, a great deal of technical
adaptation that allowed the Tayson and Nguyen fleets to become more
effective by solidifying the ship deck, introducing more effective can-
non, and for transporting ships, constructing multiple-story vessels to
increase loading capacity. This technical evolution and the dramatic ex-
pansion of naval warfare might suggest that the navy became the major
source of military dynamism of the warfare in Vietnam (1771–1802)
and a decisive factor in successful political projection.
Navy and the Power of Geography in Early Modern VietnamVietnam has a long tradition of constructing vessels for use in river and
shallow coastal waters. For centuries, naval warfare was an essential
element of the Vietnamese military structure used for both civil wars
and resistance against invasions from Champa and China. The strategy
was to take advantages of the complex natural terrain: islands, estuaries,
gulfs and lagoons, and to utilize flexible small craft to defeat enemies
with insufficient topographical knowledge. The small shallow-draft
boats could move flexibly and burn down fleets of the Chinese large
warships in uneven and shallow riverbeds, narrow channels and tight
battle situations. The tactics were frequently employed against the Sung
and Yuan fleets as they approached the Bach Dang River in 938, 981,
1075–77, and 1288. When it came to coastal battles, however, Vietnam
was a victim of Champa’s naval raids. In the fourteenth century, the
capital at Thang Long (Hanoi) was burned down by the Cham king
- Pierre-Yves Manguin, “The Vanishing Jong: Insular Southeast Asian Fleets in War
and Trade (15th–17th centuries)”, in Reid (ed.), Southeast Asia in the Early Modern
Era, 197–213. - Charney, “Shallow-draft Boats, Guns, and the Aye-ra-wa-ti”, 16–63.