Lý–Song War

The Lý–Song War was a significant war fought between the kingdom of Đại Việt under the house of Lý and the Song dynasty of China between 1075 and 1077. The war began in 1075 when the Vietnamese king ordered a preemptive invasion of the Song dynasty using more than 80,000 soldiers, where Đại Việt's forces defeated the Song army and razed the city of Yongzhou (modern day Nanning) to the ground after a forty-two day siege. In response, in 1076 the Song led an army of over 300,000 to invade Đại Việt and by 1077 nearly reached Thăng Long, the capital of Đại Việt, before being halted by general Lý Thường Kiệt at the Nhu Nguyệt River in modern Bắc Ninh Province. After a long battle at the river with high casualties on both sides, Lý Thường Kiệt offered peace to the Song, and the Song commander Guo Kui agreed to withdraw his troops, ending the war.

Lý–Song War
Date1075–1077
Location
Song Dynasty and Đại Việt
Result

Indecisive

  • Both sides agreed to withdraw
  • Captured territories held by both Song and Vietnamese were mutually exchanged in 1082, along with prisoners of war[1]
Belligerents
Song dynasty Đại Việt under the Lý dynasty
Commanders and leaders
Emperor Shenzong of Song
Wang Anshi
Guo Kui (郭逵)
Zhao Xie (趙禼)
Zhang Shoujie (張守節) †
Su Jian (蘇緘) †		 Lý Nhân Tông
Lý Thường Kiệt
Nùng Tôn Đản
Thân Cảnh Phúc
Lưu Ưng Ký (POW)
Strength

Vietnamese invasion of Guangnan West Circuit:
80,000 troops[2]
Battle of Yongzhou: More than 2800 regular troops[3]

Song Counteroffensive: 100,000–870,000[4][5] regular troops and people[6]

Vietnamese invasion of Guangnan West Circuit:
63,000[7] to 80,000–100,000 troops[8]

Song Counteroffensive: 60,000 (estimate)[9]
Casualties and losses

At least 250,000–400,000 troops and civilians (including massacre of Yongzhou): More than half of Song troops died from disease during the counteroffensive against Đại Việt[10][11]

[5]		 20,000 in battle of Guangnan West Circuit, casualties during Song Counteroffensive unknown

Background
Further information: History of the Song dynasty

Tension and border hostilities were already high in the years prior to the war; in the 1050s, Nùng Trí Cao, the head of the local Nùng people in Quảng Nguyên (now Cao Bằng Province) attempted to fight for independence and establish a frontier state for his people, but his rebellion was crushed by Song general Di Qing (1008–1061).[12] While the Vietnamese court did not intervene in the matter, the threat of Song expansion was always on the horizon due to increasing numbers of Han Chinese settlers, such as the soldiers from Di Qing's division and those north of the Yangzi River settled in areas that the Vietnamese relied upon for the extraction of natural resources.[13][14]

In 1075, Wang Anshi, the chancellor of the Song dynasty, told Emperor Shenzong (r. 1067–1085) that Đại Việt was being destroyed by Champa, with less than ten thousand soldiers surviving, so hence it would be a good occasion to annex Đại Việt. The Song emperor then mobilized his troops and passed a decree to forbid all the provinces of Song to trade with Đại Việt, block Đại Việt's goods to Western Xia; this prompted the Vietnamese court under Emperor Lý Nhân Tông (r. 1072–1127) to authorize a preemptive invasion of Guangnan West Circuit in the Song dynasty. Lý Nhân Tông then sent general Lý Thường Kiệt and Nùng Tông Đán, a kinsman of the Nùng rebel Nùng Trí Cao, to lead more than a hundred thousand soldiers to invade the Chinese province of Guangnan West Circuit.[15]

Conflict

Early stages
Vietnamese forces invaded into modern day Nanning (Yongzhou) in Guangxi, highlighted in dark blue

In October 1075, Nùng Tông Đản led 23,000 soldiers into Song territory in Guangnan West Circuit while a naval fleet commanded by Lý Thường Kiệt consisting of 40,000 soldiers captured Qinzhou and Lianzhou prefectures.[16][7] To calm the local populace, Lý Thường Kiệt claimed that he was simply apprehending a rebel who took refuge in China and that the local Song authorities had refused to cooperate in detaining him.[17]

News about the battlefield reached the Song Chinese court in early 1075. In the early spring of 1076, Lý Thường Kiệt and Nùng Tông Đản defeated a local militia force under Zhang Shoujie, Governor-General of Guangnan West Circuit, Zhang Shoujie (d. 1076). They then laid siege to Yongzhou. Trebuchets and fire arrows were deployed against the city, inflicting heavy casualties for Song defenders and caused fires and water shortages for its inhabitants.[18][19] Yongzhou was breached on March 1, 1076. After a 42 day siege, the Vietnamese had defeated the 3,000 strong garrison of Yongzhou, and its commander Su Jian killed his own family and himself by refusing to leave the burning building. The 58,000 populace of the city was massacred.[20][21] The governor Su Jian and 36 members of his family in the city died, with Su Jian stating "I won't die at the hands of those thieves."[22] Several sources estimate that the total number of people killed by the Vietnamese troops during this campaign totaled 100,000.[10][23] When a large Song army arrived, Lý Thường Kiệt's forces retreated with their spoils of war and thousands of prisoners.[17]

Later stages
Song forces reached Nhu Nguyệt River in Bắc Ninh Province (highlighted in red) near the capital of Thăng Long

Prior to the invasion of Song, Lý Thường Kiệt had fought a successful war against the Chams in 1069, so in 1076, the Song called upon the Khmer Empire and Champa to go to war against Đại Việt. The Song commander Guo Kui (1022–1088) led the combined Song force of approximately 100,000 men against Đại Việt. The Song quickly regained Quảng Nguyên (Shunzhou 順州) and in the process captured the resistance leader Lưu Ký, the chieftain of Quảng Nguyên that had attacked Yongzhou in 1075. Lưu Ký deployed elephants against the Song forces, who used scythes to cut their trunks, causing them to trample their own troops.[5] By 1077, the Song had defeated forces from Cơ Lang and Quyết Lý and marched towards the Đại Việt capital at Thăng Long (modern Hanoi). Song forces arrived at the Nhu Nguyệt River (in modern Bắc Ninh Province) and its front line crossed the river, with cavalry forces riding within several kilometers of the capital. As the Song forces took the offensive, the Vietnamese strained to hold the front line. Lý Thường Kiệt tried to boost the morale of his soldiers by citing a poem before his army named "Nam quốc sơn hà".[23] The poem so invigorated his forces that the Vietnamese made a successful counterattack, pushing Song forces back across the river. Song forces tried to cross again but Lý Thường Kiệt had previously built a defense system of spikes under the Như Nguyệt riverbed, and were again pushed back, sustaining 1,000 casualties. Meanwhile the Song naval attack was held back by the Vietnamese coastal defense and failed to provide any assistance to Guo Kui.[17] Guo Kui led the Song army in another direction towards the nearby region of Phú Lương, where they bombarded Lý Thường Kiệt's positions. Lý Thường Kiệt attempted to take the offensive but suffered a major defeat with two princes killed in the fighting at Kháo Túc River.[4]

According to Chinese sources, "tropical climate and rampant disease" severely weakened Song's military forces while the Vietnamese court feared the result of a prolonged war so close to the capital.[4][21] Chinese forces lost about 50%–60% before retreating, half of them dying to diseases.[24]

Peace agreement

As a result of mounting casualties on both sides, Thường Kiệt made peace overtures to the Song in 1077; the Song commander Guo Kui agreed to withdraw his troops since they had lost 400,000 men,[10] but kept five disputed regions of Quảng Nguyên (renamed Shun'anzhou or Thuận Châu), Tư Lang Châu, Môn Châu, Tô Mậu Châu, and Quảng Lăng. These areas now comprise most of modern Vietnam's Cao Bằng Province and Lạng Sơn Province. Đại Việt held control of the Yong, Qin and Lian prefectures.[4] In 1082, after a long period of mutual isolation, King Lý Nhân Tông of Đại Việt returned Yong, Qin, and Lian prefectures back to Song authorities, along with their prisoners of war, and in return Song relinquished its control of four prefectures and the county of Đại Việt, including the Nùng clan's home of Quảng Nguyên.[4] Further negotiations took place from July 6 to August 8, 1084 and were held at Song's Yongping garrison in southern Guangnan, where Đại Việt's Director of Military Personnel Lê Văn Thịnh (fl. 1038–1096) convinced Song to fix the two countries' borders between Quảng Nguyên and Guihua prefectures.[25]

Legacy

The war resulted in an agreement between both sides that fixed the two country's borders; the modern border is largely unmodified from the resulting line of demarcation.[26]

The view of the war remained very controversial in both countries. Song China considered the expedition a success. The expedition caused loss of land for the Vietnamese, as well as the death of their crown Prince in the hands of Guo Kui. Guo Kui was honored for his achievements in punishing Vietnam. In Vietnam, the view was different, as Guo Kui was banished for life over his failure, the war highlighted Vietnamese independence and considered as the marking point of Vietnam's militaristic successes, having stampeded to deep of modern days Guangxi and Guangdong in China. It remains the only time Vietnam managed to invade China in its history.[27]

In Vietnam

During the Vietnamese defense against the Song counteroffensive in which Song forces nearly breached into the Đại Việt capital of Thăng Long, general Lý Thường Kiệt wrote a famous poem named Nam quốc sơn hà which he then recited in front of his army in order to boost the morale of his men before the battle of Nhu Nguyệt River. The poem, dubbed retroactively as Vietnam's first Declaration of Independence asserted the sovereignty of Đại Việt rulers over its lands. The poem reads:[28][29]

Original ChineseSino-VietnameseEnglish translation
南國山河南帝居

截然定分在天書
如何逆虜來侵犯
汝等行看取敗虛

 Nam quốc sơn hà nam đế cư
Tiệt nhiên định phận tại thiên thư
Như hà nghịch lỗ lai xâm phạm
Nhữ đẳng hành khan thủ bại hư.		 Over Mountains and Rivers of the South, reigns the Emperor of the South

As it stands written forever in the Book of Heaven
How dare those barbarians invade our land?
Your armies, without pity, will be annihilated.

In China

In China, the Siege of Yongzhou during the Vietnamese invasion was depicted in a Lianhuanhua book, which is a type of small palm-sized picture books containing sequential drawings developed in China during the early 20th century. The illustration on page 142, painted by Xiong Kong Cheng (熊孔成), describes the bravery of Su Jian, who, with only three thousand men was able to put up a fierce, forty-two day, resistance against Vietnamese forces before finally succumbing to vastly superior numbers.[20]

References

Citations
  1. Anderson 2008, pp. 208–209.
  2. 《宋史紀事本末》卷十五 交州之变
  3. 脫脫等《宋史》，卷四百四十六，列傳第二百五，13157頁。
  4. Anderson 2008, p. 209.
  5. Kiernan 2019, p. 158.
  6. 李燾《續資治通鑑長編》卷二百七十四，6700頁。
  7. 2 June 2020 LÝ THƯỜNG KIỆT ANH HÙNG VIỆT TỘC
  8. 《越史略》（《欽定四庫全書·史部》第466冊），588頁。
  9. 潘輝黎等. 第一章 如月大捷. 《越南民族歷史上的幾次戰略決戰》. 戴可來譯. 北京: 世界知識出版社. 1980年: 26頁.
  10. Chapuis 1995, p. 77
  11. Xu Zizhi Tongjian Changbian《長編》卷三百上載出師兵員“死者二十萬”，“上曰：「朝廷以交址犯順，故興師討罪，郭逵不能剪滅，垂成而還。今廣源瘴癘之地，我得之未為利，彼失之未為害，一夫不獲，朕尚閔之，况十死五六邪？」又安南之師，死者二十萬，朝廷當任其咎。《續資治通鑑長編·卷三百》”。 《越史略》載廣西被殺者“無慮十萬”。 《玉海》卷一九三上稱“兵夫三十萬人冒暑涉瘴地，死者過半”。
  12. Anderson 2008, p. 191.
  13. Anderson 2008, p. 198.
  14. Anderson 2008, p. 195-198.
  15. Anderson 2008, p. 206-207.
  16. Anderson (2008), 207–208.
  17. Anderson 2008, p. 208.
  18. New Tang Dynasty (12 June 2020). "The first and only General dared to march north of Vietnamese history".
  19. VGuides (11 October 2019). "The General who beats powerful China".
  20. "卡通之窗─血戰邕州" (in Chinese).
  21. Cœdès, George (1966). The Making of South East Asia. University of California Press. p. 84. ISBN 9780520050617.
  22. History of Song, vol. 446
  23. Trần Trọng Kim 1971, p. 43
  24. Kiernan 2019, p. 158-9.
  25. Anderson (2008), 210.
  26. Anderson 2008, p. 191-192.
  27. http://baotanglichsu.vn/vi/Articles/3096/8270/ly-thuong-kiet-noi-kinh-hoang-cua-quan-tong.html
  28. James Anderson The Rebel Den of Nùng Trí Cao: Loyalty and Identity 2007 p. 214 note 88
  29. Vuving, Alexander L. (June 2000). "The References of Vietnamese States and the Mechanisms of World Formation" (PDF). Asienkunde.de. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-18.

Sources
  • Anderson, James A. (2008), Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period, Palgrave macMillan
  • Chapuis, Oscar (1995), A history of Vietnam: from Hong Bang to Tu Duc, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-313-29622-7
  • Trần, Trọng Kim (1971), Việt Nam sử lược (in Vietnamese), Saigon: Center for School Materials
  • Kiernan, Ben (2019). Việt Nam: a history from earliest time to the present. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190053796.
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