Naval Battlefield Archeology of the Lost Kublai Khan Fleet

Authors: Jun Kimura, Mark Staniforth, Lê Thị Liên, Randall Sasaki
Published: Sept 10, 2013

Source:  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...270.12033/full

Introduction

In AD 1271 Kublai Khan, 5th emperor of the Mongol Empire (1260–1294), became the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China. On several occasions from AD 1274 onwards, Kublai Khan dispatched armies aboard fleets of ships to invade other Asian nations in attempts to expand the empire's hegemony and extend his rule into East Asia (Japan) and Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Champa and Java). As Tansen Sen has suggested this may have formed part of Kublai Khan's desire to expand his military and political influence beyond coastal China. Two highly significant locations associated with these attempted Mongol invasions have been identified—off the coast of Takashima Island, Japan and near the Bạch Ðằng River, Vietnam. These are places where historically important naval battles are known to have taken place, in each case resulting in the defeat of the Yuan Dynasty's fleets. Archaeological remains associated with the fleets and battles have been found at both locations. At Takashima Island, Mongol fleets were sunk by large typhoons during the invasion of AD 1281. On the Bạch Ðằng River in northern Vietnam, a river/estuary naval battle took place in AD 1288. These two sites originate from similar historical backgrounds and part of the significance of these sites can be seen in terms of their symbolic role related to national identity in the two countries. The similarities and differences between them in terms of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts will be compared in the first part of this paper. The latter part of this paper will outline recent archaeological research into the physical remains from the loss of Kublai Khan's fleet at the Bạch Ðằng River in northern Vietnam.

Naval battlefield archaeology

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Identified sites

The environments of the two sites associated with the Mongol Empire invasions in Japan and Vietnam are distinctly different, but both demonstrate high potential for finding archaeological remains. What follows are brief historical backgrounds, explanations of archaeological remains, and descriptions of physical features of the sites.

Japan

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Vietnam

Vietnamese historical records, including Ðại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư and An Nam Chí Lược, as well as Chinese dynasty chronicles such as Yuan Shi, mention the AD 1288 naval battle at Bạch Ðằng River and later accounts of the battle include histories, poems and other sources. It represented the culmination of the third, and ultimately final, attempt by the Mongols to invade the Dai Viet. The Yuan invading forces initially defeated the Dai Viet armies on both land and at sea beginning in late 1287. The Mongol invaders under the command of Prince Toghan (son of Kublai Khan) successfully took the capital Thang Long (near today's Hanoi), but by early 1288 found that they were trapped in an empty city without supplies. Shipping was critical in terms of logistics and the carriage of food for the Yuan forces in the campaign of 1288, and supply ships attempted to reach the trapped Mongol army by way of Ha Long Bay. According to Ðại Việt Sử Ký, the Mongol supply fleet of 70 vessels (commanded by Truong Quang Ho) was attacked and burned by Dai Viet naval forces (commanded by Tran Khanh Du) based in the nearby port of Van Don (Yamamoto, 1950).

Subsequently the Mongols, comprising of 18,000 men and 400 vessels commanded by the Mongol general Omar Batur, abandoned the capital and retreated, but the Dai Viet had decided to fight a decisive naval battle with the invaders. The Vietnamese forces, under the command of Tran Hung Dao (AD 1228–1300), lay in wait for the now-retreating invasion fleet, knowing that they would have to return to China through the estuary at the mouth of the Bạch Ðằng River (Fig. 4). The majority of historical sources agree that the principal tactic used by the Dai Viet forces was to prevent the fleet from reaching the open sea, trapping them by using hundreds of secretly planted large wooden stakes sharpened to a point and driven into the river-bed at low tide (now referred to as ‘stake yards’). These stakes were probably covered by water at high tide and uncovered at low tide. This particular technique was reported to have also been used in the same general area on at least two previous occasions in AD 938, when Ngo Quyen defeated a Southern Han Dynasty fleet, and possibly in AD 981, when Le Hoan ordered stakes to be placed to block a Song Dynasty fleet.

Tran Hung Dao and the Dai Viet were victorious, and many Mongol ships (perhaps numbering in the hundreds) were burned, lost or captured. The defeat at Bạch Ðằng had serious consequences for the Yuan Dynasty with the loss of many warships and transport vessels and tens of thousands of soldiers, as well as several Mongol generals, including Omar Batur, captured or killed. Although many accounts mention the battle, the real story is shrouded in myth and legend. One of the more persistent myths is that the wooden stakes were tipped with iron or steel, although this has yet to be archaeologically verified. In order to gain a better understanding of the battle, Vietnamese researchers, in the late 1950s, initiated an inter-disciplinary study, combining geology, geomorphology, epigraphy, oral history and archaeology. The general area of the battlefield has been identified by the discovery of many wooden stakes in the lower reaches of the Bạch Ðằng River and the Chanh River in the Yen Hung district of Quang Ninh province.

This paper will focus on the first four sessions of fieldwork (2008–2010) that were conducted by researchers from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A & M University, the Maritime Archaeology Program at Flinders University and the Institute of Archaeology at the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences in Hanoi (IA), as well as research associates from Australia, Canada, Japan and the USA. Over this period the researchers conducted preliminary investigations of available historical sources, maps, charts and aerial photographs, as well as archaeological survey complemented by limited test excavations and stratigraphic coring in the Bạch Ðằng River region. The details of the archaeological findings will be presented in subsequent sections.

Takashima and Bạch Ðằng battlefields

The physical environment of the naval battlefield at Takashima is located within the waters of an enclosed bay, rather than in the ocean, and is considered to be an example of Broadwater's proposed category One above. The Yuan Dynasty fleet intended to moor in a secure place within Imari Bay, to protect the ships from northern gales, although this proved not to be the case when the typhoon hit the bay from the south. When considering the misfortune of the fleet caused by the unexpected typhoon, it seems appropriate to assign it to category Three: the influence of natural elements on the naval battle. The main cause of the loss of the Mongol Empire's ships in the second invasion of Japan is regarded to have been this natural disaster; however, the historical accounts indicate that there were also attacks by the Japanese after the Mongol ships were heavily damaged by the typhoon. Hence the archaeological remains may have been influenced by the combined factors of the natural disaster and the use of offensive tactics by the Japanese troops.

The naval battle at the Bạch Ðằng River, on the other hand, is primarily an example of Broadwater's second category, although the actual battle probably took place not only in the river but also in the tidal estuary at the river mouth. The historical sources indicate that Dai Viet forces had the advantage of their knowledge of local topography and environmental conditions. Tran Hung Dao strategically selected the estuarine environment, partially consisting of shallow water and restricted space caused by the narrowness of the Bạch Ðằng River, for the decisive naval battle. This battle demonstrates a tactic that the Dai Viet employed to defeat the Yuan invaders, which was the use of wooden stakes driven into the river-bed to create stake yards to form traps. In addition, the Dai Viet appear to have used fire vessels as part of the tactic, and cleverly timed their use with the falling tide, which enabled the Dai Viet to drive many of the Yuan vessels against and on to the stake field. Many vessels were reported to have been burned and sunk as a result (Yamamoto, 1950). Thus it is also an example of the third category, considering the effects of the environmental conditions. We propose that Broadwater's third category could usefully be extended to include ‘a naval battle influenced by both natural and cultural elements’.

The environmental and hydrological conditions of the two sites are quite distinct and the taphonomic processes affecting site formation are clearly not identical. It can be seen, however, that natural elements had substantial impacts on the progress of both of these naval battles. The two cases demonstrate the deliberate use of the environmental conditions by the local forces in their fight against the invaders. They are examples of how human interactions with nature functioned as part of naval-battle tactics. This concept is significant in naval-battlefield archaeology, in particular in any reconstruction of a battlefield that considers site formation processes and site conditions, which are likely to involve both human and natural influences.

Field Research

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Discussion

The identification of the stake yard at Dong Ma Ngua enables us to offer better interpretations about the use of stakes at the time of the battle and provides a clue for the reconstruction of the battlefield by comparison with the other stake yards at Yen Giang and Dong Van Muoi. The location of the Dong Ma Ngua stake yard suggests that the stake yards are more widespread than previously thought; the stakes at Dong Ma Ngua comprise a southern-most stake yard, approximately 2 km away from the northern-most stake yard at Yen Giang. Thus, the area of the battlefield extends much further south, based on the position of the newly identified stake yard. It is considered that the stakes were most unlikely to be present across the majority of such a vast battlefield and therefore it is presumed that several, geographically distinct stake yards, each with a complex arrangement of stakes, were used to form effective blockages. We have presumed that the positions of the stake yards were sandwiched between natural hazards, such as sandbanks, rocks or swampy lands (Sasaki and Kimura, 2010; Lê et al., 2011). By these means, hypothetically the Vietnamese could probably have prevented the Yuan ships from travelling through the channels and into the open sea.

In addition, the site of Dong Ma Ngua is significant because this is the only stake yard where artefacts including wood fragments, ceramics and tiles have been found. No artefacts have been reported from the other two stake yards.

Conclusions

Maritime archaeological research on the Mongol Empire invasions has the potential to shed new light on naval battlefield archaeology. The attempted expansion of one of the world's largest empires in history is evidenced at the naval battlefield sites in Japan and Vietnam. [...]