[18] However, all endonyms and exonyms referring to the Vietnamese, such as Viet, Kinh, or Kra-Dai Keeu, are related to political structures or have common origins in ancient Chinese geographical imagination.

The Book of Sui notes that Li noblemen who possess a bronze drum in each dong were called dulao (都老), which Churchman argues bears some resemblance and cultural connection to the previous local ruling class of the Red River Delta.

[28] The Li tribes were described as ferocious raiding bandits who refused to accept imperial authority,[29] leading to Jiaozhou, the heartland of the Red River Delta, being deemed by the Chinese to be an isolated borderland with difficult and limited administration.

"[42] Churchman states that "the absence of records of large-scale population shifts indicates that there was a fairly stable group of people in Jiaozhi throughout the Han–Tang period who spoke Austroasiatic languages ancestral to modern Vietnamese".

Hearing the news, Ngô Nhật Khánh—a prince of the old royal family in exile—and king Paramesvaravarman I of Champa launched a naval attack on Hoa Lư, but much of the fleet was capsized by a late-season typhoon.

[73] Emperor Lý Thái Tổ (r. 1009–1028) moved his court to the abandoned city of Đại La, which had previously been a seat of power under the Tang dynasty, and renamed it to Thăng Long in 1010.

[97] During his reign, the young Trần Thái Tông centralized the monarchy, organized the civil examination on the Chinese model, built the Royal Academy and Confucian Temple, and ordered the construction and repair of delta dikes.

In early 1285, he commissioned prince Toghon to lead the second invasion of Đại Việt to punish the Vietnamese emperor Trần Nhân Tông for not helping the Yuan campaign in Champa and refusing to send tribute.

[107] Weather phenomena such as drought, violent flooding, and storms frequently occurred, which weakened irrigation systems, damaged agricultural production, generated famines, and impoverished the peasantry, which together with widespread non-bubonic plagues unleashed robbery and chaos.

[111] War with Champa ended in 1390 after Po Binasuor was killed during his northward offensive by Vietnamese forces led by prince Trần Khát Chân, who used firearms in battle.

The ill-prepared Vietnamese resistance of Hồ Quý Ly, who failed to get support from his people, especially from the Thăng Long literati,[117] was defeated by a Chinese army of 215,000, armed with the newest technology at the time.

[121] Lê Lợi, the son of a peasant from the Thanh Hoá region, led an uprising against the Chinese occupation starting in February 1418, waging a war of independence against Ming colonial rule that lasted nine years.

[122] Assisted by Nguyễn Trãi, a prominent anti-Ming scholar, and other Thanh Hoá families—the Trịnh and the Nguyễn—his rebel forces managed to capture and defeat several major Ming strongholds and counterattacks, and they eventually drove the Chinese back to the north in 1427.

Lê Lợi shifted his main focus to the Tai people and the Laotian Lan Xang kingdom in the west, due to their betrayal and subsequent alliance with the Ming during his rebellion in the 1420s.

[130] In the 1460s, Lê Thánh Tông carried out a series of reforms, including centralizing the government, building the first extensive bureaucracy and strong fiscal system, and institutionalizing education, trade, and laws.

Lê Thánh Tông's reforms helped heightened the power of the king and the bureaucratic system, allowing him to mobilize a more massive army and resources that overawed the local nobility and capable to expand the Việt territories.

[131] To expand the kingdom, Lê Thánh Tông launched an invasion of Champa in early 1471 that brought destruction to the Cham civilization and made the rump state of Kauthara a vassal of Đại Việt.

During the reign of Lê Uy Mục—known as the "devil king" (r. 1505–1509)— fighting erupted between the two rival Thanh Hoá families in the cadet branch, the Trịnh, and the Nguyễn on behalf of the ruling dynasty.

[136] The Trịnh and Nguyễn clans briefly ceased hostilities, suppressed Trần Cảo, and installed the young prince Lê Chiêu Tông (r. 1516–1522), after which they turned against each other and forced the king to flee.

[146] The Viet king "man of prowess" was the center of the mandala structure that had influences beyond the Red River Delta via Buddhist alliance with local lords, while a bureaucracy was still practically nonexistent.

[148] During the 13th and 14th centuries, as the Trần dynasty ruled the kingdom, their first move was to prevent matrilineal clans taking over the royal family, by adopting the king–retired king relation, in which the emperor usually abdicated in favor of his eldest son while retaining power behind the scenes, and practicing consanguine marriage.

[155] Social upheavals, ecological crisis, corruption, an irreparably failing system, political rivalry, and rebellions pushed the kingdom to a climactic burst of civil war between rival clans.

After the Lê-Mạc war ended in 1592, with the Mạc ousted from the Red River Delta, the two clans of Trịnh and Nguyễn, who revived the Lê dynasty, emerged as the strongest powers and resumed their own infighting, from 1627 to 1672.

Fan Chengda (1126–1193), a Chinese statesman and geographer, wrote an account in 1176 that described the medieval Vietnamese economy: ...Local [Annamite] products include such things as gold and silver, bronze, cinnabar, pearls, cowry [shells], rhinoceros [horn], elephant, kingfisher feathers, giant clams, and various aromatics, as well as salt, lacquer, and kapok...[161]...Travelers to the Southern Counties [Southern China] entice people there to serve [in Annam] as female slaves and male bearers.

For those with skills, the price in gold doubles...[162]Unlike its southern neighbor Champa, medieval (900–1500 AD) Đại Việt was mostly an agricultural kingdom, centered around the Red River Delta.

[163] Lê Thánh Tông, the greatest king of the 15th century, who had conquered Champa, once said, "Do not cast aside the roots (agriculture) and pursue insignificant trade/(commerce)", showcasing his unfavorable views toward trade and merchandising.

Marco Polo, who did not visit but gathered information from the Mongols, offered a description of Đại Việt: "They find in this country a good deal of gold, and they also have a great abundance of spices.

Medieval sources such as Ibn al-Nadim's The Book Catalogue (c. 988 AD) mention that the king of Luqin, or Lukin (Đại Việt), invaded the state of Sanf (Champa) in 982.

[176] A temple inscription dated from 1226 in Hanoi describes a Vietnamese Buddhist altar: "the Buddha statue was flanked by an Apsara, one of the Hindu water and cloud nymphs, and a Bodhisattva with a clenched fist.

Before the altar stood statues of a Guardian of the Dharma flanked by Mỹ Âm, king of the Gandharvas, mythical musician husbands of the Apsaras, and Kauṇḍinya, the Buddha's leading early disciple.