Successful Mongol conquest of Vietnam

How much cultural integration is really necessary? Take Guangxi, for example. One could argue that independent Vietnam was as much or more a part of the Chinese cultural continuum. I suppose it's probably not too late for the place to become a province indefinitely, depending on how those overthrowing the Yuan choose to handle things.
Well you can look at the occupation of Vietnam between 1407 and 1416 (after that it was in war time so it counts less). There was a heavy sinisation campaign with ban of tattoos, more confucianism, re-introduction of chinese, Chinese clothes...

To me that means that there was quite a cultural gap, otherwise they wouldn't have needed it
 
doesn't the Mekong also delineate the Laos-Vietnamese border in the north? I may be revealing the limits of my SEAsian geographic knowledge.
Oh I see, and apologies if I came off as aggressive. You're almost right, it's just the wrong side of Laos; the Mekong is the border between Laos and Thailand, while the Annamite Range is the border between Laos and Vietnam.

My expectation was that the Yuan would seek to extract an expression of nominal fealty and perhaps tribute if they had a stronger presence in Vietnam. Perhaps you could speak to why this might or might not be realistic, since you clearly understand the region more.
You're probably right about the Yuan not doing much, even if they conquer Vietnam. Although the Mongols did have practical reasons for invading virtually all of China's non-subjugated neighbors in the 1280s and 1290s (Japan, 1281; Burma, 1283-1285 and 1287; Vietnam, 1285 and 1287-1288; Java, 1292-1293) - for example, they wanted to monopolize the pepper trade in the case of Java - they were still the products of Khubilai Khan's personality. The khan had grown increasingly unhappy and obese after the deaths of his wife and favorite son in 1281 and 1285, respectively, and these wars were probably diversions that could have been avoided, perhaps to bring back to his mind the old days when he conquered China. So far this thread assumes that the Mongols conquer Vietnam in 1288. That gives us only six years before Khubilai dies, and that time is probably better spent invading Java as OTL which would be a more profitable acquisition (thanks to the pepper and other spices and a larger population) than the Khmer empire. So there's no real window of opportunity for the Yuan to properly intervene in Khmer country.

As for tribute, Sukhothai, Angkor, and other rulers in the Mekong and Chao Phraya basins already were tributaries of the Mongols.
 
Well you can look at the occupation of Vietnam between 1407 and 1416 (after that it was in war time so it counts less). There was a heavy sinisation campaign with ban of tattoos, more confucianism, re-introduction of chinese, Chinese clothes...

To me that means that there was quite a cultural gap, otherwise they wouldn't have needed it

Interesting, I hadn't known about that in the first place. Your points seem true enough, but I would likewise suppose that the exigencies of wartime were behind a lot of the tendency for things to rub the wrong way. I wonder what re-introduction of Chinese meant - I thought the written language was still in use at that point, and as for the spoken language - that was hardly uniform across the whole of China to begin with.
 
Interesting, I hadn't known about that in the first place. Your points seem true enough, but I would likewise suppose that the exigencies of wartime were behind a lot of the tendency for things to rub the wrong way. I wonder what re-introduction of Chinese meant - I thought the written language was still in use at that point, and as for the spoken language - that was hardly uniform across the whole of China to begin with.
I would have to re-check.

It's also worth noting that the source we have for the period is the Dai Viet Su Khi which was compiled and updated by the Later Lé dynasty, so by the descendants of Lé Loi who was the liberator of Vietnam after 1416.

So to say they might be murky is an understatement.

I quote the Cours d'histoire annamite à l'usage des écoles de Basse-Cochinchine:
The Annamites were forced to wear their hair long, tattoos were forbidden, women and girls were forced to wear short clothes with large sleeves.
In a word, they introduced as much as possible the Chinese ways, applying themselves to make the people lose their old customs, its ways, even its tongue, its science, its religion.

In 1414, schools were opened everywhere to teach chinese cwriting, medicine, divination, buddhism, etc... and the students were sent to China to pass the mandarins exams and get their certificates.
 
Okay I have to ask....

Let's say the Mongols actually manage to hold on to Vietnam and spread out from there to what is now Bangladesh, the Malay Peninsula and possibly even western Indonesia (Sumatra and Java)....let's even say they manage to defeat the Red Turbans in south China and reclaim that region. What makes you think (not trying to sound harsh) that the Chinese in the south wouldn't start another uprising? What of those Mongols that fled back to Mongolia Proper, would they be willing to assist their kinsmen in reconquering the rest of China, or would they no longer identify the southern Mongols as Mongols but more like warlike Vietnamese?

The idea of the Mongols making Vietnam their seat of power is plausible, but there are factors that would also need to be considered.
 
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