So does your country's history texts talk about Vietnamese in the context of Laotian history, prior to the 20th century?

Fa Ngum, The Founder of Lan Xang(Laos), "In 1351 he conquered Mouang Phouane, Nge-Anh, and Vinh as well as the Red and Black River valleys in Vietnam."

"Vietnamese troops invaded Lan Xang in 1478 and captured the capital of Luang Prabang, but were later pushed back."

Vietnamese history annals indeed mentioned AiLao invasion of Vietnam during the Tran dynasty. Very interesting.

"... Myanma seized Vientiane and ravaged the country, which lapsed into anarchy until Souligna Vongsa ascended the throne in 1637 and restored order. He fixed the frontiers with Vietnam and Thailand by means of treaties. A defender of Buddhism and a patron of the arts, he embellished Vientiane and made it a vibrant intellectual centre. His reign is considered by Laotians to be a golden age."


"When Souligna Vongsa died in 1694, one of his nephews seized the throne with the help of a Vietnamese army, thus placing Lan Xang under Vietnamese rule and initiating a period of chaos that ended in the partition of the kingdom of Lan Xang. Other members of the royal family refused to accept Vietnamese vassalage. With the northern provinces under their control, they declared themselves independent in 1707 and established the separate kingdoms of Luang Prabang and Vientiane. The south seceded in turn and set itself up as the kingdom of Champassak in 1713. Split into three rival kingdoms, Lan Xang ceased to exist."

Sipsongpana, i was just curious are you laos or vietnamese? becasuse i know that your username is lao/tai. "sip song pan na" 12 thousand rice fields

I have a Laotian friend, and the phrase sounds kinda cool. But no, I'm 100% Vietnamese.

cool yea, "sip song pan na" in yunnan,china is where alot of tai-lue/dai live. they are famous for their peacock dance that is very popular throughout china.

in our history books. there isn't much about Laos invading Vietnam. but indeed during the fall of the Tran dynasty, the Chams invaded Vietnam, and the Laos attacked us at the same time.

after the Tran dynasty, the Le dynasty invaded Laos. after the Le dynasty, Vietnam plunged into a civil war, the later Le dynasty was set up in Laos to fight the Mac dynasty in Hanoi. after the Le dynasty united Vietnam. the Le dynasty continued to invade Laos along the border.

during the Nguyen dynasty, many of Laos land were incorporated into Vietnam territory for the protection against the Thais.

that's pretty much it.

"Lan Kham Deng (1375-1428) was the third king of the Lao state of Lan Xang (ruled 1416-1428). He was the oldest son of Samsenethai.

During his reign, the king of Vietnam requested that Lan Kham Deng send some troops to help the Vietnamese fight off the Chinese, who were attacking them. Lan Kham Deng sent thousands Laotian of troops to aid the Vietnamese, but for some reason, the armies of Lan Xang turned on the Vietnamese and fought on China's side.

Eventually, Vietnam defeated China. By that time, Lan Xang's relations with Vietnam were deteriorated and total war soon broke out. The war with Vietnam caused chaos in Lan Xang followed by many attempts by royals to seize the throne.

Lan Kham Deng died in 1428 at the age of 53. He only ruled 12 years."

that sucked! why did you guys do that? u stabbed us in the back Laos!
if we could defeat China that time, then Laos must had been a piece of cake for the Viet soldiers.

Dai_Viet, there's always two sides to the story. We will never know what really happend. China was also weak at the time. The problem with China is that they were never really united. Just like Laos. You know it was Lao people themselves that sold out each other. Laos had different kingdoms that didn't like each other. In a way, it's kind of like Hanoi vs Saigon, North Vietnam vs South Vietnam. They hated each other. That's how the old Kingdoms of Laos was pretty much like. After great Lao kings like Fa Ngum and Sam Sen Thai passed away, all the Lao kings were pretty much were incompetent. They fought with each other for power and all the other BS.

does Lan Xang mean "kingdom of 10,000 elephants?"

It means "Land of the Million Elephants". Lan=million, Xang=Elephant

Interesting thread. Do you have a source for that excerpt about Lao soldiers betraying the vietnamese forces during the war with China, MeMyselfandI?

Id like to read the whole article.

Much obliged.

From enemy to brother.

Lan Xang is Van Tuong in Vietnamese, Van = 10,000 and Tuong = Elephant. In this case, that would be "Land of 10,000 Elephants".

Han-Viet didn't have any singular numeric word that is higher than 10,000, and Van and Lan kinda rhymed.

Stick with Lan Xang as original. I really hated when the Vietnamese is always trying to give name from different country in their language. Like Pnom Penh they are calling it Nam Vang-disgusting.

Sam San Tai is the son of Chao Fa Ngum and Lan Kham Daeng is the son of Sam San Tai.


"The Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang: Rise and Decline" Martin Stuart-Fox white lotus

pg.59 Only early in his reign did Sam San Tai find it necessary to enforce his rule over outlying muangs. When the prince of Muang San refused to recognize the hegemony of Xiang Dong Xiang Tong, a short military expedition was sufficient to bring the recalcitrant ruler to his senses. In 1402 Lan Xang entered into relations with the new Ming dynasty in China, perhaps reflecting concern over the rising power of Dai Viet, but more likely simply in continuation of the tributary relationship previously established with the Mongol Yuan dynasty.

The Ming Shi-lu (Ming dynasti chronicles) recordsthat in 1404 Dao Xian-dai(Sam San Tai) was officially appointed "Superintendent" of the newly established "Laos Military and Civilian Pacification Superintendency", in effect a tributary "barbarian" ruler responsible for maintaining peace and security on China's southern frontier. The Lao king was sent a specially cast seal, along with brocades and other fine silks "as appropiate". Subsequently instructions were issued detailing what information was required by the imperial court and how it was to be provided. The more ore less tribute from Laos included elephants and "local products" in exchange for which the Chinese conferred "paper money" and bolts of silk.

The Ming chronicles provide a fascinating glimpse into regional relations in mainland Southeast Asia.Chinese relations with both Vietnam and Lan Na were strained, and the Chinese were concerned that the Lao might assist one or the other. New Chinese standing forces were raised in caseintervention should prove necessary. In the meantime the Lao were warned not to harbour any fleeing rebels.

Judging by the Lao chronicles, peaceful relations were established between Lan Xang and major adjacent mandalas not as a result of Chinese admonitions, but through the time-hallowed means of marriage alliances and the exchange of gifts. The king of Ayutthaya, Lan Na and Xiang Hung (Sip Song Pan Na) all sent princesses to be royal wives of Sam San Tai. Four of his sons were given high administrative post when they came of age, the eldestas uparat, or viceroy, others as regional governors.

In 1376, three years after his accession we are told the king ordered a cencus taken of all free, able-blodied male inhabitants of the mandala of Lan Xang whocould be called upon for military service. The round figure arrived at was 300,000Tai, a number considerably less than the one million Lao and Tai combined recorded in the two censuses conducted earlier by Fa ngum. The discrepancy is not easily accounted for unless we accept that, as the French scholarMichael Lorrillard has argues, the semantic difference between "Lao" and "Tai" at this time was "extremely blurred". If "Tai" was a generic term then obviously this included Lao; or perhaps Fa Ngum's census included all potential conscripts, while Sam San Ta's counted only the army he could actually raise from muang under his own direct control.


Sam San Tai died at the age of sixty in 1416 to be succeeded by his son Lan Kham Dang. The new king's short reign of little more than a decade coincided with the uprising of the future Vietnamese emperor Le Loi against the occupation of the Dai Viet by the Chinese armies of the Ming dynasty. Although Lao sources make no reference to the incident, the Vietnamese chronicles recount that Lan kham Cang offered Le Loi an army of 30,000 men and 100 war elephants to help drive out the Chinese, an offer which Le Loi gladly accepted. No sooner had they arrived in 1421 on Vietnamese soil, however, the Lao army joines forces with the Chinese in what may well have been a prior agreement. Le Loi forced the Lao to withdraw, but fighting continues and bitterness over what the Vietnamese saw as betrayal of their national struggle soured Lao-Vietnamese relations long after Le Loi's final victory against the Chinese seven years later in 1428.
wweeeewwwwwwwwww.......sorry so long

Very interesting account of Lao history. 1400 onward indeed is fascinating.


@IamCambodian, without giving foreign names in a Vietnamese context they wouldn't have any meaning for a Vietnamese. Did you Khmers not call us Vietnamese "youns" instead of Viet or Kinh?

before you talk, learn why the term yuon was given to you viets.. it is believed to have come from the old term "yue" which was a term given to "southern barbarians" by the chinese.. the term "viet" itself derived from "yue"..

heh "yue" doesnt mean southern barbarian, if anything "nan man" is the one that means southern barbarian

seems to me you have some comprehension problem.. i never said yue=southern barbarians.. i said it was a term given to the "southern barbarians" and yes, you are correct, "nan man" does mean southern barbarian.. nan man is more of a derogatory term while yue is more of an ethnic/racial term..

ok mr high intelligent cambodian

If you want us to call your place names the way you call it, then you should call us the way we call ourselves.

Also, an ignorant Khmer trying to explain to me the meaning of "Yue" 2 Are you retarded, prahok? Or is it that you just have a "prahok mouth"? 2

Oh by the way, if you haven't realized, you Khmers were also considered "southern barbarians", only that you guys were "dark southern barbarians"

he is just being his normal cambodian self

actually the cambodians were quite advance **lol**, they didnt even know how to make cannons nor know how to use paper as currency until very late in the 1880 when it was first introduced

I don't care about this guy so much. I how he's trying to relieve his frustration as a Khmer, a country that has lost so much at its own hands and at the hands of the foreign powers (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China, France etc)


But they target us primarily because we could easily be blamed for everything.

laos is not consider an enemy or a threat to us.. it's their govt. who is a vietnamese puppet and they're the real perpetrators behind the mask that seek aggression towards cambodia..not the majority of laos i dont think..

once again. the bull$hit with the government being a puppet, proof?

do your own research you idiot.. your stupid govt. signed a treaty with vietnam in 1977.. a friendship treaty.. your govt. will always be hanoi's b!tch..your country and people are being robbed while the vietnamese are sucking up all your resources like leeches and the lao people will one day go, "wtf happen"?

lao people are too damn passive..sorry but its the truth..

hey d!ckhead, i said show me the proof

Too much rhetoric and cannot prove a single thing. Trying to drive a wedge between Laotians and Vietnamese?

The only absolute proof is this 75 years later: "Oh, where the fu-k is Laos now? Du mah may!"

idiot.. the proof is right in front of you.. where did all those vietnamese people come from all of a sudden in laos? why is your govt. so close to the viet govt. militarily,socially and economically.. it doesnt take a friggin genius to see that your govt. is a viet puppet.. they are loyal to hanoi.. the same with the current khmer regime.. but at least khmer people arent as oblivious as lao and are not as passive..

what r u talking about? the viets that are in laos are residing on the lao-viet boarderline.
why are they so close? maybe because they are our friends look son, take your bull$hit elsewhere.

So what are you saying? That because Lao ppl are the most passive Asian race, we get taking advantage over the Viets easily?

thats exactly what im saying.. dont take it as an insult.. more like constructive criticism..

you've got no proof, pal.

lao people are too trusting i think.. they hardly suspect others are doing them wrong..

Worry about your own Khmer race and stop nosing into other people business.

actually, i myself believe laotians can be very trust worthy a reason why many laotians are very friendly

but we are not stupid. we know if we're being fu-ked around and if you take advantage of trust....

How is Laos being taken advantaged of by Vietnamese? Does Vietnam steal Laos' natural resources or rip it off in any way? I don't think so.

To the contrary, Vietnam is investing alot of money in Laos at the moment and it is rising year on year.

bottom line is, the LPDR is a hanoi satellite govt. that works for the interest of vietnam and the vietnamese people first and foremost.. its the same as in cambodia..

How is it working for the interest of Vietnam? Please clarify.

im not lao so i cant give you any evidence. one things for sure though, laos isnt actually controlled by the lao govt. some of these lao people are amazing.. i cant believe some people can be so blind..

What you say is true. Most Lao people are too passive and always critical of one another. We can't even unite as one people. I listen to the old heads speak and they always divide themselves by this or that Tai. Even though we are in the U.S. we still try distinguish ourselves from one another like it matters and $hit...

I may be generalizing but I also think Lao ppl like to live in the past. Perhaps that's why many are so passive and such. Certain things that occured to us years ago, we still talk and talk about it, like it's affecting us now. Our past may be great or not, that's fine but there's a lack of being the present about real issues that affect Lao people. It should be about embracing and being the present. People who progess do not dwell so much of past problems but move on.

but the present has a lot to do with the past..

http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/khmeryears/fall.html

Well, yeah, I was talking issues and stuff that goes on and on without being resolved, that would be better if left behind. However, the stuff about Vietnam is an issue that is affecting Laos now.

the only way to resolve this issue is to rid vietnamese influence in laos.. then you'd have an independent country running by your own people on their own terms.. cambodia is in the exact same situation as laos currently..

prahok, you're really obsessed.