Vietnam is one of the countries in the East Asian Han cultural circle. It has been under the influence of Chinese culture since the 2nd century BC and has been in close contact for more than 2,000 years. China's culture, philosophy, literature, religion, and folklore often have opportunities to spread and influence to the Southern Vietnam. Especially in literature, before Vietnam was independent, Chinese literary achievements such as pre-Qin prose, Han fu, Tang poetry, Song ci and Yuan qu were by no means unfamiliar to Vietnamese literati. Until the Ming and Qing dynasties, Chinese classical novels reached their peak, a large number of Ming-Qing Zhanghui novels began to be transmitted to neighboring countries. The Lê Dynasty maintained the tributary relationship with the Ming and Qing dynasties, which may lead to the repeated transmission of Ming and Qing novels with the envoys. In addition, monks, priests, immigrants, and businessmen from two places occasionally communicate with each other, and they are also important media for the dissemination of novels in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, a large number of Ming dynasties general and soldiers fled Oversea, becoming one of the ancestor forces to develop Southern Vietnam. Ming and Qing novels may follow their footsteps across the sea to Southern Vietnam. For more than 300 years, as trade between South China and South Vietnam multiplied, novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties gradually became the trading goods of both parties, and even the books in the South were sent to Guangdong for engraving and brought back to Gia Định for sale.
Ming and Qing novels have been transmitted to the South through two routes, namely sea and land. As far as sea routes are concerned, most of the works, such as “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, “Water Margin”, “The Romance of the Gods”, “Journey to the West”, etc., were directly transmitted by Chinese businessmen across the sea, including the original Chinese version of the earlier period and later adapted as Nom version. As far as land is concerned, rare works such as “Tale of Jin Yun Qiao” were brought back to the South by Confucian scholars who came from the South. Ming and Qing novels are mainly transmitted to the whole country through six kinds of carriers. In addition to the Chinese and Nom version mentioned above, other carriers also include Quốc Ngữ versions, drama scripts, religious beliefs, and drawings. In 1858, France began to invade Vietnam. They advocated replacing the original Chinese characters with the Latin characters of the Quốc Ngữ, and opened some Quốc Ngữ newspapers. With the change of the characters, Vietnamese literature gradually yearned for modernization. At the beginning of the 20th century, the South inspired a wave of translating Quốc Ngữ characters in the Ming and Qing novels, and urged more readers to learn Quốc Ngữ characters through translations, and familiarize themselves with Ming and Qing novels through Quốc Ngữ versions. At this time, Ming-Qing novels spread deeply and widely, which affected the emergence and development of Southern Quốc Ngữ novels shortly after.
Ming and Qing novels are warmly welcomed and accepted by the top-down public readers because they are all-encompassing, colorful and meaningful, full of life value, use of multiple carriers, and meet the needs of the masses. In the Southern Vietnam, Ming and Qing novels such as “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and “Tale of Jin Yun Qiao” have been adapted into a variety of supplementary versions, operas, improved plays, folk songs, folk tunes and other forms. The Southern Vietnam civilians love for these two novels has produced many interesting things in the past, and it is still a talkative talk today. “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and “Tale of Jin Yun Qiao” also permeated various local religious beliefs and folk customs, especially the terms used in daily life, and people often mentioned them unknowingly. It can be said that Ming and Qing novels have affected all aspects of the social environment in the Southern Vietnam.
There are five chapters in this thesis. The first chapter is an introduction, which introduces research motivation and purpose, object and category, literature review and problem description, research theory and method, and chapter configuration. The second chapter discusses the overview of the spread and influence of Ming and Qing novels in Southern Vietnam, including a review of the spread and influence of Chinese and Vietnamese literature, the overview of the spread and influence of Ming and Qing novels in Vietnam, the social culture and the spread of Chinese novels in Southern Vietnam in the 17th to 20th centuries, the status of Ming and Qing novels under the trend of spread in Vietnamese literature, the two ways in which the Ming and Qing novels spread in Southern Vietnam, and the six carriers in which the Ming and Qing novels spread in Southern Vietnam. The third chapter focuses on the novel “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” to explore its spread and influence in the Southern Vietnam, and proves that it is the most important and influential novel in the Ming and Qing novels. The fourth chapter aims at “Tale of Jin Yun Qiao” to explore its multiplication process in the South and its influence on the social and cultural outlook of the South. The last chapter is the conclusion. The author summarizes the dissemination and influence of Ming and Qing novels in the south in order, and focuses on the two most important Ming and Qing novels, namely, “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and “Tale of Jin Yun Qiao”.