Bach Dang River Memorial Site

In the history of Vietnam, one stretch of river became a natural fortress three times. Three times, a fleet of warships sent against the country was beaten there. That was no accident. The Vietnamese had learned the river by heart. They knew the rise and fall of its tides, and they turned nature into a weapon.

That river is the Bạch Đằng. The historic site named for it covers 20 hectares in the hamlet of Tràng Kênh. This is in Bạch Đằng ward, in the city of Hải Phòng. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism ranked the site a National Historic Site on November 4, 2020.

The story of the site is the story of three battles.

The earliest was in 938. The country had lived under Chinese rule for more than 1,000 years. Now a navy crossed the sea to attack. It came from the Southern Han, a Chinese kingdom of that time. Ngô Quyền, a young general with a gift for strategy, had thousands of wooden stakes driven into the bed of the river. Each one was sharpened and tipped with iron. He waited until the tide ran high and drew the Southern Han ships in over the hidden stakes. When the tide fell, the ships caught on the stakes. They were surrounded and destroyed. The Southern Han crown prince, Lưu Hoằng Tháo, was killed in the battle on the river. The victory of 938 ended more than 1,000 years of Chinese rule and opened an era in which Vietnam governed itself. Ngô Quyền then took the throne and founded the Ngô dynasty.

The second battle came in 981. The Song, the dynasty then ruling China, sent an army against Đại Cồ Việt, an early name for Vietnam. The country was still young, only a few decades out from under Chinese rule. Once again a field of stakes lay in the Bạch Đằng River, set by Emperor Lê Đại Hành. His real name was Lê Hoàn. The Song general Hầu Nhân Bảo died in this campaign. The Song army was badly beaten, and independence held.

The last was in 1288, and it was the biggest. In the 13th century the Mongol empire was the largest in the world. It had conquered much of Asia and part of Europe. The Mongol and Yuan armies had invaded Đại Việt three times in 30 years. The Yuan were the Mongol dynasty then ruling China. Đại Việt is an old name for Vietnam.

In 1288 the supreme commander was Trần Quốc Tuấn, who held the title Great Prince Hưng Đạo. He set three rows of sharpened wooden stakes, tipped with iron and standing up to 6 meters high, deep in the bed of the river. At high tide he drew in the ships of the Mongol generals Ô Mã Nhi and Phàn Tiếp. When the tide fell, the ships caught on the stakes. The army of Đại Việt then struck from the bank. Ô Mã Nhi was captured alive. Phàn Tiếp was killed in the fighting. The whole Mongol and Yuan navy was destroyed, and the victory ended 30 years of resistance against the Mongols.

There were three battles, spread over 350 years, against three different armies, and one tactic each time: sharpened wooden stakes tipped with iron, and the tide. The same method returned from 938 to 1288. It was a lesson passed from one generation to the next, about how the Vietnamese used the land and nature to defeat larger armies.

On the grounds, statues of three heroes stand on a large square that faces the river. One is Ngô Quyền, the victor of 938. One is Lê Đại Hành, the victor of 981. The third is Trần Quốc Tuấn, the commander of 1288. There is also a model of a field of stakes, which shows the tactic of 1288. It is a model and not the original field.

The original stakes of the 1288 battle were found by archaeologists at Yên Giang and Đồng Vạn Muối. These lie in the Quảng Yên area of Quảng Ninh province. That is a separate historic site, recognized as a Special National Monument in 2012. The site at Tràng Kênh is a place of remembrance, where people come to remember what happened on the river.

The grounds also hold Trúc Lâm Tràng Kênh Pagoda, a Buddhist pagoda of the Trúc Lâm school. The school was founded by Emperor Trần Nhân Tông. He was also called the Buddha Emperor, and he was the first patriarch of Trúc Lâm Yên Tử. He lived in the age of the wars led by Trần Quốc Tuấn. While one great figure of the Trần dynasty was fighting, another emperor became a monk and founded a Buddhist school of Vietnamese origin. Two paths, one people.

From the square today, the river shows only green water and wind. But beneath that water, and in the memory of the Vietnamese, the sound of three naval battles remains. They shaped the history of a people who would not submit.