Ngu Binh Mountain

Seen from the south bank of the Perfume River, Ngự Bình Mountain has an unusual shape. Its top is not a peak but a flat line, as if someone had swept a very long ruler across it. The whole mountain stands as a trapezoid, quiet in the land south of Hue.

The mountain is only 103 meters high. It is a gentle mountain of earth, with nothing fierce or treacherous about it. Yet for more than 300 years, this small mountain held one of the most important places in front of an entire capital. The Nguyễn lords chose it first, and the Nguyễn emperors after them. The Nguyễn lords were a noble family who ruled southern Vietnam from the 16th to the 18th century. The path to the top is not long. But every slope opens another layer of the story.

The story begins with names. Long ago, the mountain did not carry the grand name it has today. People called it Hòn Mô, or Núi Bằng. Written in Chinese characters, that second name was Bằng Sơn. They were plain, homely names.

With the first slopes underfoot, the story goes back to 1687. That year, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Thái moved his seat of government to Phú Xuân. And the flat-topped mountain to the south became a screen, standing in front of the lord's palace.

In old Vietnamese homes, a screen was a wall raised in front of the house, so that the space inside stayed private and at peace. The lord's palace at Phú Xuân had a whole mountain for its screen.

More than 50 years later, in 1739, the citadel of Phú Xuân was completed under Lord Nguyễn Phúc Khoát. The mountain still stood there, still serving as the screen. Then in 1805, the Hue Citadel was built by Emperor Gia Long, the founder of the Nguyễn dynasty. From then on, by the rules of feng shui, the mountain officially became the citadel's front table, its tiền án.

The word án calls to mind a table set right in front of a person who is seated. The citadel looks out ahead, and that table is the flat-topped mountain across the Perfume River. It is a table made of earth, more than 100 meters high, laid out by heaven and earth themselves.

It was also in the reign of Emperor Gia Long that the mountain received its new name, Ngự Bình. The word ngự points to the emperor. The word bình means a screen. Put together, the name means the emperor's screen.

That reign left another gentle story too. From the time of Emperor Gia Long, there was a rule that every mandarin had to plant one pine tree on Ngự Bình. Each official planted a single tree. Tree by tree, pines slowly came to cover the top of the earthen mountain.

The higher the path climbs, the more people the story gathers. In 1822, Emperor Minh Mạng made a royal visit to Ngự Bình Mountain. On that trip, he named the two small hills on either side. The one on the left is Tả Phụ Sơn. The one on the right is Hữu Bật Sơn.

Tả means left, and hữu means right. Phụ and bật both mean to help, to hold up. So the flat-topped mountain gained two companions at its sides, like two minor mandarins standing in attendance beside a throne.

Then the slope eases, and your feet reach the level ground on top. This is the flat summit seen from far away at the start. Long ago, the mandarins' pines grew on this level top.

From the summit, to the north, lies the Perfume River. Across the river, about 4 kilometers away, stands the Hue Citadel. Between the mountain and the citadel runs a straight line that no one ever drew on the ground, yet the whole capital was built along it. It is the sacred axis, the thần đạo.

The line begins at Ngự Bình Mountain and crosses the Perfume River. It reaches Kỳ Đài, the Flag Tower, and passes through Ngọ Môn, the Noon Gate. It goes on to Thái Hòa Hall, then into Tử Cấm Thành, the Purple Forbidden City. It is like an invisible thread stretched from this summit, through gates and palace roofs, into the deepest part of the royal palace. The small earthen mountain holds one end of that thread.

That is why Ngự Bình is called the first table of the Hue Citadel. It is the foremost of the mountains that stand in attendance before the capital. Some people call it by two short and stately words, Án vua, the emperor's table. The distance from the mountain to the river was considered just right, neither too close nor too far. And Tả Phụ and Hữu Bật stand on either side, holding it up.

The Nguyễn emperors prized the mountain so much that they set its image among the treasures of the court. In 1836, the court cast the Cửu Đỉnh, the nine great urns of the Nguyễn. The shape of Ngự Bình Mountain was carved onto one of them, the Nhân Đỉnh.

The mountain found its way into poetry as well. Two emperors, Minh Mạng and Thiệu Trị, both climbed it and wrote poems about it. Thiệu Trị chose Ngự Bình as one of the 20 famous sights of the capital. His poem in praise of the mountain was carved on a stone stele and placed at its foot. That stele is still whole today.

In more recent times, the mountain also entered a song, Old Hue, by the songwriter Anh Bằng. In that song, the Perfume River and the mountain are named side by side, just as they stand side by side in life. The water flows in front. The mountain stands behind. Each keeps the other whole.

When it is time to come down, the path up becomes the path home. The slopes that told of the Nguyễn lords, of Emperor Gia Long and of the mandarins' pine trees now slip behind, one by one. The flat summit above grows smaller and smaller.

Back on the bank of the Perfume River, a look over the shoulder finds the mountain just as it was at the start. A trapezoid with a flat top, as if someone had leveled it with a ruler. Two small hills stand on either side. And from that flat summit, the invisible thread still stretches across the Perfume River, through Ngọ Môn and into the heart of the royal palace, as it has for more than 200 years.