It stands to reason that the temples used by a country to worship and worship the ancients will always have their own people in the middle. However, Vietnam enshrines Chinese military generals in its own martial arts temples.
Moreover, some people have made statistics that there are a total of 18 tablets of famous generals in the Vietnamese martial arts temple, of which 12 are Chinese.
So, why is Vietnam doing this?
交趾入秦,融入中原
Vietnam and China are old friends with a long history. Around ancient times, Vietnam and China already intersected.
At this time, Vietnam was not called Vietnam, but called "Jiaozhi", and there is a story about Shennong who tasted a hundred herbs in ancient Chinese books to Jiaozhi.
But here it should be said that Cochin refers to the northern region of present-day Vietnam, not to the whole of Vietnam.
Then, during the reign of the Great Qin Empire, Jiaozhi became a county under the dynasty.
Since Cochin had been incorporated into the Central Plains regime at this time, this also meant that Vietnam would be influenced by Han culture.
Therefore, the founding ancestors of Vietnam recorded in the history books originated from the Chinese nation.
In addition, it can also be found from the ancient books of Vietnam that before the Han culture was introduced into Vietnam, the non-ethnic group here was still in a relatively primitive and backward state.
Moreover, in the early period, Cochin still belonged to a matrilineal clan society.
This is why there is a saying here that "children are not filial, mothers are wrong". It can be seen that Cochin only knows his mother, but does not know his father.
It was only after Cochin became part of the Qin Dynasty that the local tribes were civilized. However, because Jiaozhi was located in the remote Lingnan area of the Qin territory, it was not valued by the rulers.
At that time, Qin Shi Huang only sent Qin generals to conquer Lingnan and "conquer the land with raze" to manage the foreign races here. However, in order to prevent the recurrence of dissenting hearts, the Qin Dynasty also relocated some people from the Central Plains here.
With the intermarriage between the immigrants of the Central Plains and the local people of Jiaozhi, Jiaozhi was influenced by Han culture in terms of thought, culture, customs, and writing.
Therefore, in the later period, there were also common sayings such as "men are inferior to women" and "they can't raise their godfathers".
It can also be seen from here that Cochin has been immersed in Confucian culture for a long time and has been assimilated by it. Of course, this also reflects the absolute acceptance of Han culture by the Jiaozhi people.
In order to protect the society, bow down and be a minister
By the time of the Ming Dynasty, Vietnam had become independent from the Central Plains Dynasty at this time.
However, attracted by Ming Taizu's policy of appeasing Zhuyi and rebuilding orthodoxy, the Vietnamese rulers also expressed their willingness to bow down to the Ming in exchange for protection.
Therefore, Ming Taizu clearly stipulated in the ancestral training that no matter which descendant inherits his throne in the future, he is not allowed to send troops to Vietnam.
Although the Ming rulers said they would protect Vietnam, they only paid lip service to it.
However, during this period, the Vietnamese dynasty was unable to suppress the powerful landlords in the country, so it entered a chaotic era of royal decline and social unrest.
In the decades that followed, Vietnam experienced several regime changes, such as the Hu dynasty, the Tran dynasty, and so on.
In 1802, the warlord Nguyen Phuc Anh unified Quang Viet and established the Nguyen Dynasty. As we can tell from the history books, this was the last regime in Vietnam.
After Nguyen Phuc Anh became emperor, he hurriedly went to the Qing Dynasty to claim his vassal, trying to protect the stability of the Ruan Dynasty by becoming a vassal relationship with the Qing Dynasty.
Moreover, the Vietnamese king also imitated the Central Plains Dynasty to build a martial arts temple to commemorate the military generals who had meritorious service to Sheji.
Defend the construction of the martial arts temple and enshrine the Han generals
The temple can be traced back to the 19th year of Kaiyuan under the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, and although the Tang Dynasty was strong at this time, the emperor still felt that the temple should be built to encourage the generals to serve the country more wholeheartedly.
In order to show the Tang Dynasty to the subjects of the world, the ruler also invited the generals who had made immortal military achievements in the previous dynasty into the martial temple, such as Jiang Ziya of the Zhou Dynasty and Zhang Liang of the Han Dynasty.
In addition, the imperial court also stipulated that only military generals who met the standards of "loyalty, filial piety, martial arts, benevolence, and wisdom" were eligible to enter the martial temple and accept the admiration and worship of all the people.
Of course, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty would set up such a military idol to make the Tang Dynasty's combat effectiveness stronger.
Vietnam's Nguyen Phuc Anh was also based on this concept to build the Wu Temple.
However, for the purpose of currying favor with the Qing emperor, he put the tablets of 12 famous Chinese generals in the Wu Temple.
These generals were Guan Zhong, Tian Sui Tho, Zhang Liang, Han Xin, Zhuge Kongming, Li Jing, Guo Ziyi, Li Sheng, Yue Fei and Xu Da.
Seeing these names, everyone who is familiar with Chinese history must have their respective military achievements in their minds.
But maybe the names of Tian Sui Tho and Li Sheng will be a little unfamiliar, so let's focus on them here.
Tian Sui Tho was a great military strategist in the Spring and Autumn Period, and the history books said that he was "a man who can possess the people and a powerful enemy", who once defeated Jin and Yan for the king of Qi and recovered the cities occupied by these two countries.
Li Sheng was a famous general in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, he resisted the invasion of Tibet and received the nickname of "Ten Thousand Enemies".
Moreover, in the western region under his guard, no alien race will dare to invade. Therefore, in the Song and Ming dynasties, he would enter the martial temple and be worshiped by incense.
Deeply influenced and highly recognized
If you look at this, you can see that Vietnam has been assimilated since the Qin Dynasty due to the influence of the strong Han culture.
Therefore, there will only be 6 famous Vietnamese generals in the martial arts temple set up by Nguyen Phuc Anh, and the others are all famous Chinese generals.
In addition, it is also written in the history books that Nguyen Phuc Anh constantly collected the stories of these Central Plains generals in order to let the Vietnamese subjects know about their past achievements. Under his vigorous advocacy, the Vietnamese also revered and worshiped the famous generals of the Central Plains from the bottom of their hearts.
Although Vietnam has always wanted to build its own culture, it is not difficult to see from the history of Vietnam's development that because Vietnam has a high sense of identity with Han culture, this means that it is difficult to completely separate from Han culture and exist independently.
In addition to the Wu Temple, Vietnam also borrowed from China's imperial examination system during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
It is written in the history books that in 1807 AD, the Ruan Dynasty also began to select talents in the country by means of scientific examinations, and relevant test questions based on Cheng Zhu Lixue of the Song Dynasty also appeared in the content of the examination.
In addition, the genre of the imperial examination and the literary examination of the Ruan Dynasty were also consistent with those of the Qing Dynasty.
Therefore, in the ancient books of Vietnam, there is a record of "its eight-strand system has always been used". And everyone also knows that Baguwen is the style of scientific research in the Qing Dynasty.
It can be seen that whether it is in the cultural field, the military field, or the concept of governance, Vietnam is actually imitating China.
Therefore, Vietnam will set 12 of the 18 famous generals in the Wu Temple as famous Chinese generals.