Ngo Xuong Van

An army had left the capital that morning. By noon it turned around and came back. The banners still flapped and the horses' hooves still rang, but the soldiers were heading the opposite way from the one they had taken at sunrise. By the roadside, a child herding buffalo stared after them. The child could not understand why men would march out only to march home. All the child had time to notice was that the young man at the front had a strangely calm face. That young man was Ngô Xương Văn.

To understand why the army turned back, it helps to know who he was.

The old books record that he was a son of Ngô Quyền, the first king of Vietnam's self-ruling era, the man who opened the way to independence for the country. His mother was a queen from the Dương family. He grew up in Cổ Loa, his father's capital.

But his life was not a calm one. The old tale says that in the year 944, his father died. The young man's uncle, Dương Tam Kha, a younger brother of the queen, stepped forward and took the reins of power. He seized the throne that belonged to the Ngô family.

His own mother's brother had taken a nephew's throne. In his heart there must have been sorrow and hurt, yet the young man did not hurry and did not flare up. He waited quietly for his day, and, even more important, he waited wisely.

Then that day came. In 950, the uncle sent Ngô Xương Văn himself, together with two generals, to lead an army against a far-off place. The soldiers marched out in great force, swords and spears ready.

But halfway there, the young man stopped. He had no thought of fighting anyone. He was thinking of the two generals riding beside him. In honest, gentle words that still reached the heart, he told them where the right lay. And the two men listened.

So without a battle, and without a single arrow flying, the army quietly turned around. That was the sight the child by the road watched, as the story is told. With nothing but his wits, the young man had reversed the whole game and won the throne back for the Ngô family.

Some victories need no sword. His father had opened the way to independence for the country. The son won back his family's throne by understanding what lay in people's hearts.

Yet what people remember most about him lies elsewhere. Once the throne was in his hands again, he took no revenge on the uncle who had taken it from him. The old tale says that he forgave his uncle generously, and only let him step back to become Chương Dương Công.

That was the harder part. To beat someone with wit is hard. To beat the anger in his own heart, and to hold out a hand of mercy to the man who wronged him, is harder still. The young man managed both.

His open heart did not stop there. After he regained the throne, he sent for his elder brother, Ngô Xương Ngập, to return. The two brothers did not fight over the crown. Together they carried the work of the country. The elder took the title Thiên Sách Vương, and the younger took the title Nam Tấn Vương. They ruled together under the one roof of the Ngô family, with Cổ Loa still the capital, as in their father's time.

Go back, then, to that road long ago. The child standing by the road that day perhaps did not understand it all. But growing up, the child would tell the grandchildren about a ruler who won back a whole realm without losing a single drop of blood. The army had turned back there, not because it had lost, but because one young man chose wisdom over swords and chose kindness over grudges. All it took was a head that knew how to think and a heart that knew how to care.