The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 255: Breaking the Gap Between Han and Vietnam

If we were to categorize Guangnan's Jinghan Gaomen into different levels, the Gaomen in Hue would be the highest level among all Guangnan's Jinghan Gaomen.

Even the high-ranking officials of Beijing and Han dynasties in Jiading area actually moved there from Hue area in the past one or two hundred years.

Annan is a small China. If you want to go to Qui Nhon and Gia Dinh to "educate" the Champa and Khmer people, you naturally have to go through the route of the landlords and powerful families in order to better let them learn the etiquette and be influenced by the king.

Even if some of the noble families from Beijing who had developed themselves in Jiading and other places, after they became powerful, they would often return to Shunhua to seek connections with distant relatives.

So Ruan Shanquan was not being modest. A person of his status was indeed nothing in the Hue scholar community.

The Chen family's manor is in Xiangcha County, Hue, which is 16 kilometers north of Hue. Therefore, it is impossible for Mo Zibu to go to the Chen family manor in Xiangcha County.

What he meant by "visiting the family to invite them" was simply to go out of the city more than ten miles away to the Chen family's manor in the north of Hui'an to invite them.

Even though Chinese civilization had fallen into the hands of the Qing Dynasty at this time, its already decayed core had not yet been exposed.

Therefore, even though in later generations, especially before 2010, even Vietnamese people were reluctant to say that their ancestors came from China, as if it would be a loss of face to be associated with this.

But in this era, just like after 2020, many Vietnamese people began to say that their ancestors actually came from China.

The noble families of Beijing and Han in Annan were actually very willing to boast that their ancestors were Chinese citizens from the mainland.

Naturally, few people are willing to return to China. It's just like a child who has grown up and has financial freedom and definitely doesn't want to go home and continue to be under the control of his parents.

But people are still happy to show off their background and use it to increase their own value.

Of course, it would be best if the family background could be traced back directly to the time of Wu Quan and the Twelve Lords in the late Tang Dynasty.

Therefore, the Chen family was not only the leader of the literati, but also had close ties with the Minh Xiang people in Hoi An. They had a clan connection with the Chen family of Chadong in Xiangshan County among the Minh Xiang people in Hoi An.

Just like Mr. Cai wants to continue the family tree with Old Cai, the Chen family of Xiangcha also needs to use relatives from the mainland to strengthen its status as a noble family in Beijing and Han.

Before Mo Zibu arrived at the Chen family manor, two companies of the Yulin Guards had already completed security checks and simple deployments.

When he arrived, he was also escorted by a company of the Longchamp Guards Cavalry Battalion.

Mo Zibu made such a grand display because he didn't want these high-ranking officials in Beijing and Han to misunderstand him.

If these high-ranking officials in Beijing and Han really thought of themselves as Zhuge Liang sleeping in his thatched cottage, and thought of Mo Zibu as Emperor Zhaolie who only had Xinye, it would make everyone embarrassed.

So Mo Zibu made a big show of it as a reminder.

Remind these people that they need Mo Zibu now, much more urgently than Mo Zibu needs them.

Sure enough, after Mo Zibu's reminder, the Chen family of Xiangcha finally did not place the tea in the wrong place. Everyone in the Chen family came to the outside of the manor to welcome them.

Mo Zibu's guards also successfully took control of all security in the manor.

Since others were sensible, Mo Zibu would not deliberately put on airs. Seeing Chen Taili, a white-haired man, greeting him outside, Mo Zibu quickly dismounted and walked over.

"It's so hot, brother, why bother coming out to greet me in person? Just let me greet you in the main hall."

Chen Taili glanced at Mo Zibu and tacitly accepted him calling him brother.

The Xiangcha Chen family is related to the Chadong Chen family in Hoi An.

The Chen family of Chadong and the Chen family of Longmen of Chen Shangchuan naturally have a basic generation match, so although the generation names are different, the seniority can be distinguished.

So in this way, although Chen Taili is almost seventy years old, he is indeed of the same generation as Mo Zibu.

Well, if your grandfather, father and maternal grandfather are all super centenarians, and you are from a small family, then this is a really good advantage. You will be a generation older than others wherever you go.

Chen Taili's sons were all in their early fifties, but they still had to call Mo Zibu, who was in his twenties, "uncle". Even some of Chen Taili's grandsons were more than ten years older than Mo Zibu.

"The general is personally leading the royal army. He is very busy with official duties. How dare I neglect him? Please come in and talk."

Although Chen Taili was thin and had white hair, he had a loud voice and walked with a strong gait.

Mo Zibu walked into the house with him arm in arm, but not in the main hall. Instead, they went directly through the hall and the yard to the backyard.

Mo Zibu picked up the incense and lit a stick of incense for Chen Taili's father and grandfather.

This is a very close expression, showing that you are considered one of the family members, for both parties. This custom is not common in China in later generations, but the Vietnamese have preserved it.

Among the later generations of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the younger generation would often burn incense for the older generation and the generation before that around the Spring Festival.

After sitting down, Chen Taili introduced everyone standing in the room to Mo Zibu. They were all representatives of prominent families, but they were mostly young people, and there were few who were of real seniority.

After the introduction, Chen Taili invited Mo Zibu to take a seat, and then explained:
"As soon as the eunuch Huang Wufu entered Fuchun, he took Wang Sunyang hostage, and most of the officials in the government were also detained.

I relied on my old age, frailty, and illness as an excuse to get the northern troops to relax their surveillance, giving me the opportunity to come south and see the general."

As expected of a noble family in Hue, their choice of words is much more rigorous than those in the south.

Strictly speaking, during the Gia Dinh period, everyone referred to Hue as the imperial court and regarded the provincial examinations held by the Nguyen family as a ceremony to select talents. This was all incorrect.

Because although Annan had been in opposition between the north and the south for two hundred years, the Later Le Dynasty established by Le Loi was not declared extinct.

At this time, Hien Tong Le Vieu Diao of the Later Le Dynasty was still in power, and the reign was called Cangxing. Therefore, the Nguyen Dynasty in the South and the Trọng Dynasty in the North were not monarchs, but tyrants.

Zheng Sen of Beizheng was the "Imperial Envoy in Charge of All Water and Infantry Battalions and in Charge of Government Affairs, Grand Marshal Jingguo, and the Founder of Liangguo Mansion."

It was not until 1771, the year before last, that Zheng Sen was promoted to king, with the title "Grand Marshal, Chief State Advisor, Shangfu, Ruiduan, Wengong, Wude, Jingwang"

The previous Nguyen Lord of the Southern Nguyen Dynasty held the title of "Duke of Xiao, the Grand Tutor in Charge of All Naval and Infantry Camps and General Manager of Internal and External Military Affairs". He only proclaimed himself king in 1744.

Both of these were shogunate regimes, and the ruling body of Northern Zheng was called the Fu Liao.

The Southern Nguyen Dynasty was called the National Palace or the Palace. It was not until Nguyen Phuc Khoa privately proclaimed himself king that the title of the imperial court was used.

However, the nobles in Beijing and Han rarely recognized Nguyen Phuc Kho's throne, and still called the Nguyen Lord of Phu Xuan the national government.

Therefore, after the decline of the Nguyen family, Mo Zi Bu founded the Tang shogunate and proclaimed himself the Great General for Protecting the Country and the People. No one thought there was anything wrong with it, because this had been the basic practice of Annan for the past two hundred years.

Traditionally, the imperial examination held by Southern Nguyen in Phu Xuan could only be called the Hue Provincial Examination.

After passing this provincial examination, one needs to go to Tokyo (Hanoi) to take part in the real metropolitan examination, and only then can one obtain the title of Jinshi.

After hearing what Chen Taili said, Mo Zibu understood why the other prominent people who appeared at the Chen family manor were relatively young.

Because all the leaders of the older generation were detained by Huang Wufu in the Hue Palace.

In addition to the civil and military officials of Guangnan, Prince Ruan Fuyang, Mo Zibu's archenemy, and the state tutor Zhang Fuluan were also detained by the Zheng army.

The two exchanged a few more pleasantries, mainly because these young people came to pay their respects to Mo Zibu one by one, and after getting familiar with each other, they left.

Only Chen Taili, his two sons, and three or four elders from wealthy families who had luckily not been detained by Huang Wufu were left in the room.

Chen Taili coughed lightly and said, "The general has come to visit us today and is willing to call me brother. Please forgive me for taking advantage of my age. Today, I will treat the general as my younger brother."

This was about to get serious. Mo Zibu nodded, "That's exactly how it should be. Today we are just brothers, not rulers or subjects. Please speak freely, brother."

Upon hearing this, Chen Taili took a tactical sip of tea, pondered for a long while, and then slowly said, "We all know that the general was loyal to the country when he was in Hue and refused to submit to the treacherous Zhang Fuluan.

Now, you have raised an army of justice, to comfort the people and punish the criminals. You first destroyed the cunning bandits in the Western Mountains, and now you want to drive out the beastly soldiers in the Northern Rivers and rectify the government. You are setting an example for the world, but..."

After saying a lot of nice things, the crucial point came. Chen Taili looked at Mo Zibu with a strange expression.

"The general is a Ming survivor, and it is natural for him to miss his homeland, but why is he called 'Revitalizing Tang'?

Our Great Southern State has been separated from the Great Dynasty since the First Lord (Wu Quan), and it has been nearly a thousand years since then. We have long since become an independent faction.

Throughout history, heroes who came from the south to make achievements here would first learn about the customs of the south and then realize their ambitions.

The general's name is Xing Tang, which seems to indicate that he doesn't want to be a southerner. Please forgive me for not being able to see how this will benefit the general. "Chen Taili really didn't understand. In his opinion, Mo Zibu didn't need to be called Xing Tang at all!
Just change the name, as long as it is not Tang or Ming, as long as it can appeal to people's hearts, it is enough.

Now calling for the revival of the Tang Dynasty is almost a hundred harms and no benefits.

Could it be? Chen Taili trembled his lips. Could this great general of our family be planning to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty in Annan?
He actually guessed it right, but Mo Zibu couldn't say it or admit it.

Moreover, can the people of Annam just participate in the anti-Qing and restoration of Ming Dynasty if they want to?

Stop dreaming. Without repeated training, they will never be able to get on the train of wealth and glory like General Mo.

So, Mo Zibu took out another thing, a thick dictionary, and handed it to Chen Taili and others to read.

"Brother, everyone, this is a dictionary, which was published 1651 years ago, in the fifth year of the Yongli reign of the Ming Dynasty ().

Alessandro, a foreign monk from the Paris Foreign Mission in Europe (France), spent two years painstakingly compiling and writing this dictionary.

This dictionary solves a huge problem: the Chinese language is not fully usable by southerners, and it is extremely difficult for people in the south to learn Chinese. "

As he spoke, Mo Zibu took out a book called Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin Dictionary published by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples of the Holy See.

Pointing to the Latin characters above, he briefly explained the pronunciation rules of Latin characters, and then wrote down Chinese characters and Han-Nom characters below.

At this time, Chinese characters and Sino-Nom characters each accounted for half of the common documents in Vietnam.

Official imperial edicts, ancient books, cultural relics, clan temples, etc. are all written in Chinese characters. All other general texts are already in Han Nom characters.

Han-Nôm is a very complex derivative of Chinese characters, which has six major and eleven minor usages.

The purpose is to coordinate the problem that some Vietnamese pronunciations are not found in Chinese and the characters cannot be matched one by one.

Simply put, one of the uses is called borrowing sound.

Just like the word "gu", its pronunciation in southern dialect is similar to "CO", and the sound "CO" means "existence" or "non-existence" in Vietnamese.

So in Chinese Nom characters, it is written as "gu" and pronounced as "CO" in the dialect, but it means "have".

There is another usage, called pictophonetic.

For example, in the Chinese Nom characters for one or two years, “nian” is written as “nan nian”, where the “nan” on the left is used to indicate the pronunciation, and the “nian” on the right is used to indicate the actual meaning.

It's complicated, right? We have to take dialect pronunciation into consideration, ignore the original meaning of Chinese characters, create our own characters, and finally pay attention to the differences in usage of the six major and eleven minor characters.

If Chinese characters can still be promoted in Vietnam under such circumstances, then it would be a miracle.

On the contrary, the Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary is much simpler. After a brief explanation, Mo Zi Bu took the previous generation of Nguyen Lords as an example and wrote down its and Chinese-Nom characters using this alienated Latin script.

"Please see, the two characters of King Wu's honorific title, 武王, can be written as V Vng in Latin."

"The title is Tzu Chi Taoist, written as T To Nhn"

"His posthumous title is King Qian, who is strong, powerful, resolute, wise, benevolent, wise, and filial. It is written as Kin Cng Uyoán thn Ngh Thánh Du Nhn T Du Trí Hiu V Vng."

“Although these are native Chinese characters and therefore easier to borrow, if we apply this to other everyday words, they are not difficult to read and write.

I even believe that if the learned people here first learn the pronunciation rules of Latin, they can translate this dictionary within two or three days."

As for pinyin, as long as you know the pronunciation completely and study it seriously without considering factors such as accuracy, it will definitely be easier than learning Chinese characters.

Because there are not many things to remember, it’s just a matter of combining them according to rules.

Chen Taili looked at it intently for a long time. After a full quarter of an hour, he suddenly raised his head and looked at Mo Zibu.

"General, what do these Taixi Fulangsha people want to do? These foreign monks are so scheming, they deserve to be killed!"

"What are they planning to do?" Mo Zibu snorted coldly. "They completed this dictionary a hundred and twenty years ago. Their intentions are obvious."

"They want to sever the Southern Kingdom's orthodoxy and overthrow the Southern Kingdom's culture and noble families. They want to repeat in this land of the South what they did in India!"

Mo Zibu was right. Although France might not know much about Vietnam, as the vanguard of French aggression, the French Catholic Church must be very familiar with Vietnam.

The idea of placing Vietnam under the protection of God has been around for a long time.

These people mobilized a lot of manpower and resources to compile dictionaries more than a hundred years ago, and they looked for opportunities to preach like rats digging holes. Who would believe that they have no ambition?
Chen Taili paced back and forth a few times, unable to hold back his anger. "Although our Great South is not the Celestial Empire like the Northern Kingdom, it is still the Southern China, with tens of millions of people and a hundred thousand soldiers.

"Fulangsha is greedy and insatiable. Does it really have the ability to provoke our Great South? Will the Qing Dynasty allow it?"

"Brother." Mo Zibu stood up. "Do you think I, your brother, am idle and have nothing to do? If Fulangsha hadn't annexed Da Nan and challenged the Qing Dynasty's capabilities, would I be so nervous?
Years ago, I sent an envoy to Paris, the capital of Fulangsha, and met King Louis of Fulangsha. Only then did I realize that the Western world was no longer the barbaric land it used to be, and they had become powerful.

China’s national strength has long surpassed that of the Great Southern. Although it does not dare to challenge the Qing Dynasty now, what about ten or twenty years from now?
The Qing dynasty had been established for 150 years, and the Party Persecution had already begun during the 150th year of the Later Han dynasty. The An-Shi Rebellion had been quelled during the 150th year of the Tang dynasty.

During the 150th year of the Ming Dynasty, the Battle of Tumu Fortress lasted for 70 to 80 years, and Emperor Wuzong drowned in Jiangnan.

Just imagine how corrupt the Qing Dynasty will be in another fifty years. Will it still be able to hold on to its position as the master of the East and protect Confucian countries like us?
If we don’t save ourselves now, what will our descendants do tomorrow?”

Mo Zibu shouted these words loudly, which frightened Chen Taili and others so much that they broke into sweat.

Because what Mo Zibu said may not pose much threat to the Vietnamese people, but it is too big a threat to them.

What is the greatest ability of these high-ranking families in Beijing and Han Dynasty?
That is to monopolize the power to spread Han culture, master the right to interpret etiquette and civilization, and form a small circle to ensure the inheritance of family wealth.

The foundation of all this is the abnormal difficulty of learning Chinese characters, or rather, the Han-Nom characters.

Only by isolating and monopolizing the dissemination of knowledge can they maintain their own small circle and ecological niche.

However, Mo Zibu suddenly realized that what he was going to do in the future seemed to be similar to what the French were going to do, both of which were to break the monopoly of the Vietnamese high families on culture in order to inform Vietnam.

It’s just that the French simply smashed it to pieces and imposed French culture on Vietnam.

Mo Zibu, on the other hand, hopes to use the pinyin system to transform Vietnamese into dialects such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, and Jiazhuang.

However, seeing that these people still seemed a little skeptical, Mo Zibu came up with a plan and he took Chen Taili's hand.

"Brother, I have something that can show you how far the Western Fan countries have developed. Please follow me."

What Mo Zibu wanted to show these guys was his country's most important weapon, the former French Crown Prince, now the Jingning, a three-class sailing battleship.

It just so happened that the Jingning was conducting routine training recently and sailed to Hoi An.

. . . .

At the mouth of the Thu Bon River, a group of Annanese barbarians stared at the huge ship in the distance that was as tall as a city wall, with a deck as thick as a city wall and carrying 74 guns. They were so shocked that they couldn't close their mouths.

Chen Taili stared at Mo Zibu in amazement, and asked tremblingly, "Such a huge ship, I guess the Fulangsha Kingdom only has two or three, right?"

Mo Zibu said with a straight face, "Brother, this isn't that big, it's just a third-class battleship. Fulangsha's first-class battleship, the Royal Louis, is twice as big as this one and carries 112 guns.

Furthermore, the largest gun on this ship weighs only 36 pounds, or about 8,000 kilograms, while the largest gun on the Royal Louis weighs 48 pounds, or a full 12,000 kilograms!"

In fact, the naval guns at that time could not be measured in kilograms, because they could not fully demonstrate the performance of the guns, but for convenience, Mo Zibu made a simple exchange.

When Chen Taili heard that ships could be equipped with 12,000-jin cannons, he felt that his worldview was beginning to collapse.

At this time, Mo Zibu whispered in his ear: "Fulangsha Country has 20 first-class warships and 100 second- and third-class warships. One of their ships is more powerful than all the firepower of the entire Southern Country.

Brother, now you know why I named myself Xing Tang, right?

This is not just about the Tang Dynasty that is thriving the Mingxiang people, but also about the Taoist tradition of the southern country!
If we don't revive it, our descendants will probably become slaves of the Fulangsa people."

Chen Taili shuddered involuntarily, "General, within three days, all the high-ranking Han Chinese families in Hue will send people to Hoi An to pay their respects to you."

(End of this chapter)