Southern lands - The reclamation period

Before nine generations of Nguyen Lords extended their power to the South, they had a difficult and miserable process of establishing the country in the harsh Central region. Scholar Li Tana, when researching Dang Trong, wrote: "The Nguyen government ruled over the land that once belonged to Champa, an Indianized kingdom with traditions completely different from those of the Vietnamese. However, the Nguyen government not only survived, defeated seven campaigns of the Trinh family, but also gradually pushed the border deeper into the south, controlling three-fifths of the territory that makes up today's Vietnam over a period of 200 years”. The formation of Dang Trong was a change of profound and fundamental significance in Vietnamese history. It not only ended the constant war between the Vietnamese and the Champa that lasted for millennia but also created a driving force for the process of expanding the nation's territory to the South. With an open foreign trade policy and the process of localization and integration of positive elements of indigenous ethnic groups, the Nguyen lords' Cochinchina region became rich and powerful in just a few decades. strong. From then on, the Central region became a fulcrum, a place to select talents and material resources for the historic reclamation in the South.

 In 1674, after the Binh Dinh of Mo Xoai-Ba Ria by General Nguyen Duong Lam, the Chan Lap army no longer dreamed of retaking the land that the king of that country had previously ceded to the Dang Trong government. From here, Lord Nguyen Phuc Tan established a palace for soldiers to guard the new land and at the same time participate in clearing land for agricultural production. Besides encouraging people to migrate to work and make a living, Lord Nguyen also organized the recruitment of people with material resources to move south to and expand land in the South. Summarized from the ancient land of Gia Dinh, the pioneering force to explore the Southern Land was mainly landowners, immigrants, and slaves, but the largest number were immigrants and slaves. Immigrants means displaced people who leave their hometowns, villages and communes to work abroad. Slaves are people who specialize in working for landowners. These poor people are the largest group going to Dong Nai-Gia Dinh. In terms of laws, Lord Nguyen still followed the Le Dynasty, only changing a little to suit the people of the Central region, and those who were exiled only appeared in large numbers in the South, from the reign of King Gia Long onwards.

When the Vietnamese people moved to the South, in China, an important historical change occurred that later had a significant impact on the formation of the Southern population community of Vietnam. In 1644, there was a civil war in China, the Ming Dynasty collapsed, and the Manchu took the opportunity to invade Beijing, eliminate the Ming Dynasty and establish the Qing Dynasty. In the following years, there were bloody purges of the ex-mandarin former Ming Dynasty officials of the new dynasty. In that context, many Ming Dynasty military generals who refused to submit to the Qing Dynasty left the country. In January, the year of the Goat, 1679, the Trinh family's superiors in Taiwan were the General of the Longmen General Ngo Ngan Dich, Deputy General Hoang Tien and General Cao Loi Liem, Tran Thuong Xuyen, and Deputy General Tran An Binh, bringing a total of soldiers more than 3,000 people, on more than 50 boats, headed to Cochinchina. They sent people to Kinh to ask to be servants of the gentle lord Nguyen Phuc Tan. God agreed, so he held a banquet and sent people to guide these two groups of Chinese immigrants to settle in two new lands in the South, Dong Nai and My Tho. After thanking the Lord, the immigrant boat group began to leave Da Nang, sailing south. General Cao Loi Liem's ​​boat dock of Tran Thuong Xuyen entered the Can Gio Sea, and up settled in Bang Lan, Dong Nai province. In the trial of the Dang Trong in the description, in that place, the group of immigrants cleared land, cleared forests, and built streets to set up markets, from which merchant ships from China, Japan, Indochina, and Do Ba traveled back and forth busily, and together with Since then, Chinese culture gradually seeped into this country. Sometime later, Cu Lao Pho became the first port of the Southern region until the war with the Tay Son dynasty broke out. In addition, migrants also settled more and more and expanded their land in the areas of Ba Ria, Dong Mon, Tan Khanh, Long Quyen, Thu Duc, Thu Thiem, Nha Be, etc. This area was later bordered land during Lord Nguyen Phuc Chu.

Adjacent to the border town, is the land of Saigon Gia Dinh, which today is known as Ho Chi Minh City. Initially, this was a wild, bushy, resting stop for Vietnamese traders when going to Chan Lap or Siam. But since taxes were collected from the people of Ba Ria and Dong Nai, the people of Dang Trong have continuously flocked here to gather, turning them into the center of the town on the wharf and under the boat. In March 1679, Lord Nguyen again established a military plantation, Tan My, to consolidate power on the new land, paving the way to establish sovereignty in the Southeast region, Gia Dinh city of Dang Trong in 1698. From then on, Saigon-Gia Dinh gradually became an important political, economic and cultural center in the South with the once famous and prosperous Ben Nghe trading port.

It can be said that the year 1698 was an important milestone and officially established the sovereignty of the Vietnamese people over the southern land that they had worked hard to exploit. That is also a harmonious meeting between two aspirations: the people's aspiration to make a living and the Nguyen government's aspiration to open up, develop and consolidate the land.