the legitimate Tran dynasty and so restore harmony and well-being to
the country and the region. Despite assuring the Vietnamese that they
were all his children, the force that Yongle dispatched carried out a
massive slaughter. Vietnamese resistance was fierce and tens of thou-
sands were killed before the Vietnamese capital was taken and Ho Quy
Ly captured.^10
The Ming hardly had the intention of restoring independent
Tran rule, for Vietnam was immediately incorporated into the Chinese
empire as a province under the old name of Jiao-zhi, with all the para-
phernalia of Chinese administration soon in place. The justification
for this was that Vietnam had previously been a province of China.
During its four centuries of independence China had ‘been engaged
with many things’ and so had been prevented from reasserting
control.^11 An annual tribute was imposed of silk, lacquerwork, aromatic
woods and kingfisher feathers, and taxes levied. Private overseas trade
was banned, as elsewhere in the empire, and the Vietnamese economy
was subordinated to that of China.
The annexation of Vietnam constituted the second major south-
ern extension of Chinese power south, after Yunnan. Had it been
successful, the shape of relations between China and Southeast Asia
would today be very different. As it was, however, the ‘peaceful south’
(Annam) was never pacified. Vietnamese resistance continued,
waiting only for the right political circumstances to expel the invaders.
In the meantime, the Yongle Emperor turned from the land to the sea
as a means of projecting Chinese power.
The Ming voyages
Between 1405 and 1433, a remarkable series of seven great maritime
expeditions were mounted, all but the last on the orders of the Yongle
Emperor. Apart from materially contributing to the prestige and pros-
perity of the Middle Kingdom, the impact of these voyages was felt for
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia