The Liu Song expedition takes and sacks the capital of Linyi

Linyi, in central Vietnam, had fought the Chinese governors over the commandery of Rinan for more than a century. Its king Fan Yangmai II, on the throne since 421, kept raiding the coast to the north; in 431 a Chinese counter-attack on his fortress of Qusu failed, and in 433 he asked in vain to be given Jiao province. According to the Book of Song, in 446 Emperor Wen ordered Tan Hezhi to punish him, with Zong Que as deputy to the vanguard commander Xiao Jingxian. The king offered to return the people he had carried off from Rinan and to send tribute, and the emperor agreed to accept his submission if it was sincere; the Book of Liang adds that he had been ready to pay 10,000 jin of gold and 100,000 of silver until a minister dissuaded him. But when the army reached the Zhuwu post in the second month, the king detained its envoys. The Chinese besieged Qusu, which George Coedès placed near Ba Đồn on the lower Gianh River; Zong Que, dividing his troops and advancing with banners furled, routed a relief army, and in the fifth month the fortress fell. When the king met the invaders at Xiangpu with the whole strength of his kingdom and armoured war elephants, Zong Que, who had heard that the lion awes all beasts, had figures of lions made, and the elephants stampeded. The capital was taken, and the king and his son fled; the annals of Emperor Wen record the conquest of Linyi in the sixth month of 446.

The spoils were enormous. The Book of Liang says that the Chinese melted down the kingdom’s golden statues and obtained several hundred thousand jin of gold; the Book of Southern Qi speaks of several tens of thousands, and Coedès gives 100,000 pounds of pure gold. Tan Hezhi was made a viscount, and later histories say that he died haunted by a foreign god. Linyi recovered, and by the 450s its king Fan Shencheng was sending embassies to the Liu Song court. Rolf Stein believed that after 446 the capital was moved south to Trà Kiệu, in the Thu Bồn valley.