Ten Great Campaigns

The Ten Great Campaigns were a series of wars fought during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, much celebrated in the official Qing Dynasty annals. They included three to enlarge the area of Qing control in Central Asia: two against the Dzungars (1755-1757) and the pacification of Chinese Turkestan (1758-1759). The other seven campaigns were more in the nature of police actions on frontiers already established - two wars to suppress the Jinchuan rebels in Sichuan, another to suppress rebels in Taiwan (1787-1788), and four expeditions abroad to chastise the Burmese (1766-1788), the Vietnamese (1788-1789), and the warlike Gurkhas in Nepal on the border between Tibet and India (1790-1772), the last counting as two.

The Campaign in Vietnam

For most of her history, the Vietnamese rulers recognized the Chinese Emperor as their feudal lord, while ruling independently in their own land. This had been the case throughout the reign of the Posterior Le Dynasty. This changed however when the brothers of Tay Son, leading a national uprising, defeated the feuding Trinh and Nguyen lords and overthrew the last Le ruler, Emperor Le Chieu Thong.

Related Topics:
Posterior Le Dynasty - Tay Son - Trinh - Nguyen - Le Chieu Thong

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Emperor Le Chieu Thong fled to China and appealed to Emperor Qianlong for help. In 1788 a large Qing army was sent south to restore Le Chieu Thong to the throne. They succeeded in taking Thang Long (Hanoi) and putting Emperor Chieu Thong back in his place, but even many of his supporters were angered by their subservient position. Chieu Thong was treated as a vassal king by Qianlong and all edicts had to be authorized by the Qing before becoming official. In any event, the situation did not last long as the Tay Son leader, Nguyen Hue, launched a surprise attack against the Qing forces during the Têt festival of 1789.The Chinese were unprepared but fought for five days before being defeated. Chieu Thong fled back to China as Nguyen Hue was proclaimed Emperor Quang Trung. The Chinese forces were allowed to return home honorably and the new Vietnamese ruler agreed to also recognize Emperor Qianlong as his nominal superior.

Related Topics:
Qianlong - 1788 - Hanoi - Nguyen Hue - Têt - 1789.

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