Géographie et politique dans le Viêt-Nam ancien

Abstract

Philippe Papin Geography and politics in Ancient Vietnam This article is concerned with the arrangement of the broad lines of power across Vietnam and with the manner in which the world of the plains and that of the mountains are articulated. Topography has played a huge role in the history of a country the epic of whose foundation is one of a separation between the mountain peoples, recipients of an ancient power, and those who, thanks to the use of metal, headed East to benefit from the delta of the Red River, rice-growing country then still being sealed up. Upon contact with China, in particular with the governor Gao Pian, the society of the plain defined new ways of governing, based in Ancient Hanoi but contested and endangered several times during the course of the country's history by the forces still active in the surrounding mountains. The incursion of the armies of the Nanzhao in the 9th century, the seizure of power by the Dinh a hundred years later, or even the fall of the Ly dynasty in the 13th century are possible illustrations; but many other events, less well-known because less decisive, befell them in the course of this long-lasting opposition. From the 14th century, however, the Vietnamese monarchy made efforts to integrate this outlying rebel society, holding places for its members in the mandarins' examinations and forming firm matrimonial alliances with the potentates of the foothills. In many respects, the birth of the bureaucratic state was a response to the necessity, for the crown, of controlling its own territory by trying to resolve the original partition of a country divided by geography.

Typo-technological, elemental and lead isotopic characterization and interpretation of Đông Sơn miniature drums

“…Ultimately this trend culminated with the annexing of Nam Việt by Emperor Wu's armies in 111 BC, marking the beginning of the Bắc thuộc ('Northern Domination') period that was to last, with some unsuccessful disruptions, until AD 938. However, who were the Lạc Việt peoples conquered in Nam Việt, and what was the nature of their societies, before and after the imposition of direct Han control via the Han Governance of Jiaozhi ('Giao Chỉ Bộ') (Papin, 2000). There is little doubt that some northern Vietnamese gradually adopted some Han practices in the first centuries of the Christian era, but to what extent, with what degree of fidelity, and hybridisation?…”