Contents

Royal Vietnamese army

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The Royal Vietnamese army was the primary military body of the Vietnamese states of Jinghai and Đại Việt and the armed forces of the Vietnamese monarchy from 938 to 1789. It was disbanded and succeeded by the Imperial Vietnamese army of the Nguyễn dynasty in early 19th century.

Organisation[edit]

Military branches[edit]

• Infantry
  • Conscripted-soldiers
• War elephants
• Light cavalry
• Navy

Strength[edit]

Conscription was firstly introduced and used in Vietnam by king Lý Thái Tông in 1042. For a detachment of 50 men, 30 were sent back to their native villages for rice cultivation.^[1] The soldiers did receive some largesse at the same time as they were expected to do some farming of their own.^[2] The Royal Vietnamese army at wars grew from 30,000 in 967^[3] to about 80,000 in 1075;^[4] 100,000 in 1285;^[5] 120,000 in 1377^[6] and 250,000 in 1471.^[7]

Military equipment[edit]

939–1407[edit]

Siege techniques[edit]

• Catapult^[8]
• Primitive tanks^[9]
• Traction trebuchet^[9] (Mongol trebuchet)

Navy[edit]

• Mong Dong
• Junk

Firearm[edit]

• Fire lance^[10][11] (at least 14th century)
• Hand cannon (at least since 1390)^[12][13]

Gallery[edit]

• 
  13th century Viet military officers holding gươm (saber)
• 
  Vietnamese war elephant
• 
  Stone projectile for catapult
• 
  Illustration for Hu dun pao from Chinese book Wujing Zongyao

1427–1789[edit]

Navy[edit]

• Mong Dong
• Junk

Firearm[edit]

• Hand cannon
• Cannons^[14]
• Musket (at least since 1516)^[15]
• Flamethrower^[16]

Gallery[edit]

• 
  War elephant and soldiers
• 
  War elephants and soldiers carrying muskets
• 
  15-18th centuries sabers
• 
  Armored soldier statue in Van Mieu
• 
  Vietnamese matchlocks circa 1650-1679
• 
  Vietnamese handguns circa 15-17th centuries
• 
  18th century cannon

See also[edit]

• Military history of Vietnam

References[edit]

Citation[edit]

Sources[edit]

• Kohn, George Childs (2013). Dictionary of Wars. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-13-595494-9.
• Taylor, K.W. (2013), A History of the Vietnamese, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-520-07417-0
• Chapuis, Oscar (1995). A history of Vietnam: from Hong Bang to Tu Duc. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-29622-7.
• Needham, Joseph (1987), Science & Civilisation in China, vol. V:5 pt. 7: The Gunpowder Epic, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-30358-3
• Whitmore, John K. (1986), ""Elephants Can Actually Swim": Contemporary Chinese Views of Late Ly Dai Viet", in Milner, Anthony Crothers; Marr, David G. (eds.), Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th Centuries, Cambridge: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 117–137
• Baldanza, Kathlene (2016). Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316531310.
• Taylor, K. W. (1983), The Birth of the Vietnam, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-07417-0
• Lo, Jung-pang (2012). Elleman, Bruce A. (ed.). China as a Sea Power, 1127-1368: A Preliminary Survey of the Maritime Expansion and Naval Exploits of the Chinese People During the Southern Song and Yuan Periods. Singapore: NUS Press.
• Anderson, James A. (2008), Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period, Palgrave macMillan
• Sun, Laichen (2006), "Chinese Gunpowder Technology and Đại Việt, ca. 1390–1497", in Reid, Anthony; Tran, Nhung Tuyet (eds.), Viet Nam: Borderless Histories, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 72–120, ISBN 978-1-316-44504-4
• Tarling, Nicholas (1999). The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: Volume 1, From Early Times to c.1800. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66372-4.
• Turnbull, Stephen (2001), Siege Weapons of the Far East (1) AD 612-1300, Osprey Publishing
• Miksic, John Norman; Yian, Go Geok (2016). Ancient Southeast Asia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-27903-7.
• Kiernan, Ben (2019). Việt Nam: a history from earliest time to the present. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190053796.