The 1789 battle in original accounts of the Qing Dynasty.

Abstract

Although the fighting between the Tây Sơn army and the Qing Dynasty in the year of the Rooster (1789) only occurred more than 200 years ago, the firsthand accounts from the people who witnessed the battle, especially those who were from Vietnam, were almost lost – this is a great loss for Vietnamese historians who want to study thoroughly on that historic fight.
Previously, when exploiting Chinese documents related to the Qing invasion of our country in 1788-1789, Vietnamese historians only had secondary documents. Fortunately, the writer (NDC) has just found a report of Tôn Sĩ Nghị to Emperor Qianlong (Càn Long) on the 6th of the first Lunar month of the year of the Rooster (1789) when he fled Thăng Long Citadel.
Some details in the report are different from what described in our history books because Tôn Sĩ Nghị intentionally justified his defeat. Looking up historical documents in the Qing archives will provide us with a more multi-dimensional and objective view of Sino-Vietnamese relations from the second half of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century.