Background
"The country of Vietnam is one; the people of Vietnam are one."
-Common propaganda slogan on Saigon's streets. talkvietnam.com.
-Common propaganda slogan on Saigon's streets. talkvietnam.com.
With great influence came great resistance to abolish Chinese domination.
"Chinese political institutions, literature, art and music, religion and philosophy, and even the Chinese language sank deep roots into Vietnamese soil. The result was a "Confucianized" Vietnam…a miniature China, a "smaller dragon" imitating its powerful and brilliant northern neighbor". Chinese invasions always failed against the determined Vietnamese people.
"I want to ride the stormy sea, subdue its treacherous waves, kill the sharks of the ocean, drive out the aggressors and repossess our land, undo the ties of tyranny and never bend my back to be the concubine of any man." |
Ho Chi Minh was born into a nation frequently under foreign attacks and constantly forming independence movements.
"I have concluded that if our country has survived these past thousand years when its territory was not large, its wealth not great, it was because the relations between king and subjects, father and children…If even China, which shares a common border with our territory, and is a thousand times more powerful than Vietnam, could not rely upon her strength to swallow us, it was surely because the destiny of our country had been willed by Heaven itself." |
When the French arrived, Vietnam surrendered to their superior weapons.
"Imperial troops in the area attempted to counterattack, but their outdated weapons were no match for the invaders, and after two weeks, Vietnamese resistance collapsed…In Annam, the French allowed the puppet emperor and his bureaucracy to retain the tattered remains of their once against authority…For all intents and purposes, Vietnam had become a French possession." This foreign rule remained until Ho Chi Minh revived the nationalism in his people to fight.
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