Emperor Thai Duc

One evening, the forest of Tây Sơn Thượng Đạo turned purple. In the high green country, a fire had just been lit, and it crackled in the mountain wind. Villagers gathered around it, old and young. A broad-shouldered man with a warm, carrying voice began to tell a story. The man was Nguyễn Nhạc, the eldest brother of the Tây Sơn land.

A small child sat close beside him and looked up at his sunburned face. Nhạc smiled gently and drew the child nearer. There were three brothers in his family, he said. He was the eldest, and below him came two younger brothers, Nguyễn Huệ and Nguyễn Lữ. People held the three in such affection that they named them together Tây Sơn tam kiệt, the three gifted men of Tây Sơn.

The child asked whether the brothers were close. The man nodded, and his eyes softened. Very close, he said. The three grew up together in the Tây Sơn country, part of the land of Bình Định. They shared one tray of rice and walked through the same rain and sun. They grew up in the care of their parents and their neighbors.

Then he went on, proudly. As boys, the three studied under one teacher, named Trương Văn Hiến. The teacher taught both martial arts and letters. He trained them in the strokes and stances of fighting, and he taught them writing and what is right in life. Mornings were for letters and afternoons for martial practice. So the three grew up shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart. The child asked whether martial arts were hard. The man laughed. Of course they were hard, he said. But with a brother beside you, the hard things always pass.

The child listened, enthralled, while the fire crackled. Nhạc looked into the flames and spoke softly. In those days, he said, life was very hard for the villagers. Heavy taxes and labor duties weighed on the shoulders of the poor. In some houses the harvest failed, and the pot of rice was stretched with cassava and sweet potato. A family ate today's meal already worried about tomorrow's. Seeing this, his heart was never at rest.

It was out of love for the people, he said, that he stood up and called on everyone to share the load. In 1771, he raised his flag and rose up, right here in the high country of Tây Sơn Thượng Đạo. That was the beginning of the Tây Sơn movement. His two brothers stood beside him, one in heart, never leaving his side by even half a step.

The child asked who had followed him. Nhạc smiled and pointed at the faces around the fire. Only ordinary people, he said. Farmers of the fields, people who worked in the forest, men who carried salt on shoulder poles. Poor people came from everywhere when they heard the news. They trusted him and held him dear, because he and his brothers always stood on the side of the villagers and cared whether everyone had enough to eat and wear.

The fire flared for a moment. From this high green country, he said, the brothers and the villagers grew in number and in strength. Some gave their effort and some gave their hearts. Everyone gave what they had, and together they built a great undertaking from the hands of country people.

The child asked, mouth open, what happened next. Nhạc answered in a low, warm voice, with firelight shining in his eyes. In 1778, he said, he took the throne as emperor and chose Thái Đức as his reign name. The old citadel was called Đồ Bàn, or Chà Bàn. From that day it carried a new name, Hoàng Đế Citadel. And from then on, people called him Emperor Thái Đức.

But sitting by the fire that evening, Nhạc did not say much about the throne. He only took the child's hand and repeated one thing. Whatever a person does, brothers must love one another, and must always remember the villagers. The three brothers of Tây Sơn, in the days when they climbed the highland slopes barefoot, were one in heart for the people of their villages.

The fire died down, and the night in the forest turned cool. The child leaned on the man's shoulder, wonderfully warm. In the last of the firelight, the child pictured the three brothers of long ago, shoulder to shoulder, climbing into the high mountains and carrying with them the hearts of country people. That bond between brothers, and that heart for the people, stayed on in the land of Tây Sơn, warm as a fire in the night forest.