Emperor Le Dai Hanh

In the spring of 987, at the foot of Mount Đọi, a furrow was turned that the country had never seen before. The man holding the plow was not a farmer. He was the emperor himself. It was the first time in the country's history that a ruler went down into a field himself, followed the buffalo, and turned the first furrow of the season in earth that still smelled of fresh mud. His name was Lê Hoàn, and people usually call him Emperor Lê Đại Hành.

To see why an emperor would value a strip of earth so much, it helps to go back to the countryside that raised him. Lê Hoàn was born in 941 in Trung Lập village. It lies in Xuân Lập commune, in Thanh Hóa province. He was a son of the land of Ái Châu. He was orphaned young, and a Lê family in the region took him in and brought him up. His childhood passed among the fields, among people with muddy feet and calloused hands. So in his heart, a grain of the farmer's rice was always precious.

He grew into a gifted general. Under the Đinh dynasty, from 971, he was trusted with the post of Thập đạo tướng quân, which means commander of the army of the whole country. An orphan boy from a village in Thanh Hóa had risen, through talent and courage, to stand at the head of the army.

In 980, Lê Hoàn became emperor and founded the Former Lê dynasty. The state kept its name, Đại Cồ Việt, and its capital was Hoa Lư. Then the country faced a great test. The next year, 981, he led the army and people of Đại Cồ Việt in defeating the army of the Song, the dynasty then ruling China, and held the country's borders. A small nation, united from top to bottom, had kept its land. Later, he also held the southern border firmly, so that people could live in peace.

Here was a man who had just led an army to keep the land safe. He could have sat quietly on the throne. Yet the first thing on the emperor's mind was that his people should have enough to eat and be warm. That is what people remember him for most.

It was out of love for his people that, in 987, the emperor did what no one had done before, at Mount Đọi. He went down into the ritual field himself, took the plow handle, and turned the first furrow of the season. This was the first ritual plowing in the country's history. People lined both banks of the field, startled at first, then moved to tears of joy. From that day they understood that, in the eyes of the emperor, the work of farmers was as noble as defending the country.

The old chronicles also tell a happy story about that day of plowing. Tradition says that while plowing at Mount Đọi, the emperor turned up a small jar of gold, and while plowing at Mount Bàn Hải, a small jar of silver. So he named the field Kim Ngân, meaning the gold and silver field. It is only a tale handed down, yet it carries something lovely. For a farmer, the fields are a treasury of gold and silver, and the emperor saw that.

From that first plowing, the ritual became a custom people cherished and kept. Each year in early spring, people went down into the fields and plowed the first furrow of the season, praying for gentle rain and wind and a good harvest. It was a simple act, yet a warm one, joining those above with those below through the soil of their homeland.

Emperor Lê Đại Hành reigned for 24 years and died in 1005. He left later generations the image of a man like no other. He began as an orphan boy in a village in Thanh Hóa. He became a general who led armies to protect the land. And he became the first emperor to bow down to the furrow and honor every drop of the farmer's sweat.

That first furrow was turned more than a thousand years ago, at the foot of Mount Đọi. Yet whenever one thinks of a man in the highest seat in the land who honored the grain of the poor, the heart still feels warm. It is as if the scent of the spring earth of that long-ago year still lingered somewhere nearby.