Research Article
Vietnamese Trade of the Fifteenth Century Le Government: Recovering through Ancient Records
1 서강대학교 동아연구소
Published: January 2016 · Vol. 71, No. 0 · pp. 281-317
Full Text
Abstract
In comparison to the trend of researches on resistance against foreign invasions, dynastic political life or “rural, agriculture and peasant”, the amount of researches on economic issues ironically accounts for only a modest proportion in Vietnamese official historiography. In the Vietnamese medieval history, Dai Viet`s society and economy between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries witnessed the shifts from aristocratic monarchy regime to a centralized bureaucratic one or from dynamic, tolerant and open Buddhist ideas to Confucian ideology. Especially, the Early Le Dynasty (Le So, 初黎朝, 1428-1527) was considered as the dynasty attaching to the greatest importance for agriculture, and marking a highly Confucianism-oriented regime. And, the reign of King Le Thanh Tong, despite the fact that it created a period of time of flourished and prosperous development of Dai Viet [Hong Duc Thinh The - 洪德晟世], was for the time being considered the agricultural society and physiocrat economy. Is the Le dynasty an agricultural polity of disdaining trade sectors? Is the King Le Thanh Tong with his extremely serious mind on rural and peasants? What is the relationship between agricultural policy and reality of trade activities? There are so far conflicting views on the above issues by both international and Vietnamese scholarship. The purpose of the article is to reappraise the Vietnamese trade of the Le dynasty. The economic and social nature seek to light and view with the general development path of the medieval history of Vietnam.
