King Ngo Quyen

In 937, a man was sent to the north with a plea for help. It was meant for the king of the Southern Han, a Chinese kingdom of that time. That one journey would draw a whole navy across the sea. It would also bring a son of the village of Đường Lâm to stand before the greatest river of his life.

That son was Ngô Quyền. He came from the village of Đường Lâm, in the old Sơn Tây region, which is now part of Hanoi. His father, Ngô Mân, served as a châu mục, the head of a whole region.

Ngô Quyền grew up to be a skilled general. At that time the whole region was governed by Dương Đình Nghệ. The governor trusted Ngô Quyền and held him dear. He gave the young general his daughter in marriage and put him in charge of the land of Ái Châu. By then, the country had lived for more than a thousand years under rule from the north. The Vietnamese still spoke their own language and kept their villages and fields. In many hearts there lived a wish that was simple and sacred: to be masters of their own homeland.

Then, in 937, Dương Đình Nghệ fell victim to a plot by Kiều Công Tiễn, who wanted his post as military governor. The plotter at once sent a man north to ask the king of the Southern Han for help. That was the journey at the start of this story, a journey that opened the door for armies from the north to come.

Ngô Quyền did not sit still. In 938, he led his troops out from Ái Châu and attacked Kiều Công Tiễn. Then he moved on to the mouth of the Bạch Đằng River and stood across the route the Southern Han forces would take.

Across the sea, the king of the Southern Han sent his son to lead the navy over the water. The son was Lưu Hoằng Tháo, who held the title Giao Vương. The king himself also brought troops up close to the border, ready to give support. The prince and his large ships swept through the An Bang estuary and headed straight for the gateway of the Bạch Đằng. His ships were many, big and heavy. Meeting them head on, out on the wide water, would be no easy task.

But Ngô Quyền was a man who watched closely and thought things through. He noticed something every family on the river knew well: the tide. The water of the Bạch Đằng rose and then fell back, as regular as the breathing of the river.

From that familiar thing, he worked out a clever plan.

He called on the people to fell trees, sharpen the trunks and cap their tips with iron. Then they drove them into the riverbed as a great field of stakes, right at the mouth of the Bạch Đằng. One log went down, and the water stirred a little, then closed again. Then another, and another, until a whole forest of stakes stood silent on the bottom of the river. When the tide came in, the stakes were hidden, and the surface lay as smooth as if nothing had ever been below.

The stakes were only half of the plan. Behind the field of stakes, he hid troops in ambush, in the side channels of the river and along the right bank. A squad of light boats was given a strange task. They were to go out and offer battle, then pretend to lose and flee.

In the winter of 938, the Southern Han fleet arrived. The tide was running high and covered the whole field of stakes. The light boats glided out to meet the fleet. Then, as if worn out, they turned and fled back into the river. Hoằng Tháo was arrogant and sure that the other side had lost. He drove his whole fleet of big ships after them at full speed. One by one, his ships passed right over the hidden stakes without knowing it.

Ngô Quyền still waited. The troops in ambush still lay quiet in the side channels. The whole stretch of river seemed to hold its breath.

Then the tide began to go out.

The water dropped lower and lower, and the sharp iron tips of the stakes slowly rose above the surface. Only then did Ngô Quyền send his hidden troops pouring out to surround the Southern Han fleet. The ships were big and heavy and could not turn in time. They struck the sharp stakes and were holed, and almost all of them sank. Hoằng Tháo was killed in the battle on that same river.

Near the border, the king of the Southern Han heard the news. He wept for his son, then gathered the troops he had left and withdrew.

Later, the historian Lê Văn Hưu praised Ngô Quyền. With a Vietnamese army that had only just been gathered, he said, the general had routed the million-strong army of Lưu Hoằng Tháo. That huge figure is the generous praise of old writers. But the general's real talent is plain to see. He won not by greater strength, but by understanding the river of his homeland.

In the spring of 939, Ngô Quyền gave up the title of military governor and proclaimed himself king. He founded an independent kingdom, and people called him Ngô Vương, which means King Ngô. He chose Cổ Loa as his capital. It had once been the capital of the kingdom of Âu Lạc. In this way he showed that he carried on the tradition of the Hùng Kings, whom Vietnamese people honor as their ancestors, and of King Thục. The victory on the Bạch Đằng and his rise as king ended more than a thousand years of rule from the north. Together they opened a long era of independence for the country. From then on, the Vietnamese were masters again on a land of their own.

In 944, Ngô Quyền died. But later generations still remembered how he had rebuilt the country. They honored him as the king of kings, and as the ancestor who restored the nation. The title means he was the man who helped the country stand up and come alive once more.

The Bạch Đằng River still rises and falls with the tide, flowing quietly past the old river mouth. Each time the tide goes out, the water draws gently toward the sea, slow and steady. More than a thousand years ago, Ngô Quyền listened to that same tide. From that ordinary sound of water, he opened the way to self-rule for the generations after him.