Nguyen Khoa Dang and the Coins

A bowl of clear water is set down in the middle of a table. Someone drops a handful of copper coins into it, old coins of a deep brown, and they clink on the bottom. Then every eye looks down. On the still water, from the spot where the coins have just sunk, a thin film suddenly spreads out. It shimmers in seven colors, like a tiny scrap of rainbow. That film is oil. It is only a bowl of plain water, and yet it is about to tell the truth about a theft that so many people had argued over in vain.

The man who set out that bowl of water was named Nguyễn Khoa Đăng. He was a real person, and he lived more than 300 years ago. It was the time of the Nguyễn lords, who ruled the southern realm then called Đàng Trong. He held a high office there called Nội tán, in the region of Thuận Hóa. Today that is the area of Hue and Quảng Trị. He was so skilled at settling lawsuits that later generations still compared him to Bao Công. In old tales, Bao Công was a judge famous for his fairness. The stories that follow are folk tales, not pages of official history.

The tale goes that in a market in that region, there was a man who carried oil on a shoulder pole and sold it from place to place. The oil was kept in jars, and his earnings were wrapped in a small pouch beside his baskets. One busy noon, he was so caught up pouring oil and making change that when he turned around, the pouch had vanished. All his capital and all his profit had been inside. With it gone, he had nothing left to live on.

He remembered that a blind beggar had been hanging around his oil baskets the whole time. He suspected the man and grabbed hold of him. But the beggar protested loudly that he was innocent. He pointed at his tightly closed eyes and said he was blind, unable even to see the road. How then could he know where the pouch was hidden, and reach in to take it? It sounded reasonable. The people of the market crowded around. Some said one thing and some said another, and they argued noisily, but no one could settle the matter.

The case reached the ears of the official, Nguyễn Khoa Đăng. He summoned both men, and had a bowl of clear water brought in. He told the blind beggar to hand over all the money he was carrying, and to drop the coins into the bowl one by one. Everyone held their breath and watched. And there, on the surface of the water, a shimmering film of oil slowly rose.

Now everything came clear. The oil seller's money lay beside his jars of oil day after day. His hands were always oily as he counted the coins over and over, so every coin had soaked up oil. Drop them in water, and the oil rises at once. Anyone else's money would never leave a film like that. The money the beggar was carrying was exactly the money the oil seller had just lost.

The official looked at the beggar and calmly asked one more question. The man claimed to be blind, unable to see the road. So how had he found the exact spot where the oil seller kept his pouch, among so many baskets and poles, and pulled it out so neatly? A man who was truly blind could never have done it. At that, the beggar was left speechless. It turned out his eyes could see perfectly well. He had only kept them shut to beg, and to watch for a chance to steal. Faced with such plain reasoning, he had to open his eyes. He admitted that he had taken the pouch, and he gave it back to the oil seller. A bowl of plain water had been enough to bring the truth into the light.

But settling a quarrel in one market was only a small matter. What made the people of Thuận Hóa remember him forever was the way he made a whole road safe.

People say that in those days there was a stretch of forest road called Truông nhà Hồ, in the Quảng Trị area. A truông is a road that crosses dense forest. It is lonely, with thick trees and undergrowth on both sides. A gang of bandits hid there and lay in wait to take the goods of passing traders. Over time, anyone who heard the name Truông nhà Hồ grew uneasy and afraid, and few dared to take that road. A trade route that had once been busy fell empty. Goods from one region could hardly reach another. People even made a song of it to warn one another. The song said that however much two people love each other, everyone dreads Truông nhà Hồ, and everyone dreads the Tam Giang lagoon.

Making that road safe was no easy task. But Nguyễn Khoa Đăng thought up a very unusual trick. He had carpenters build wooden chests, huge and sturdy. From the outside, they looked like chests holding the treasures of a rich family. But each chest hid something the bandits could never have guessed. Inside each one sat a soldier skilled in martial arts, carrying weapons, fitting snugly within. A few small holes were cut in each chest to let in air, and each had a latch that could be opened from inside.

Then he had some men dressed as ordinary people carry the chests along the forest road. As they went, they let it be known that these were the precious belongings of a rich family, moving to a faraway place. The bandits in the forest saw an easy prize and were overjoyed. They rushed out and seized the chests. They hauled them with great effort all the way back to their hideout, telling themselves they had struck it rich this time.

But no sooner were the chests set down in the hideout than the latches inside sprang open, one after another. The soldiers leaped out of the chests, right in the middle of the bandits' lair. At the same moment, troops sent by Nguyễn Khoa Đăng had quietly followed the trail and closed in all around. The bandits, who had always lain in wait for others, suddenly found themselves trapped inside a ring of men. Caught off guard, they had to give up and beg for mercy.

The finest part of the story comes after that. Once the bandits were caught, Nguyễn Khoa Đăng organized them into work teams and took them to stretches of wild land that still lay empty. He told them to clear the land and make a living. Men who had once blocked the road now held plows and broke the soil. Wild land turned into rice fields, and villages grew up in the empty forest.

Truông nhà Hồ and the Tam Giang lagoon are still there today, on the map of Quảng Trị and Hue, for passers-by to remember. And people added a new pair of lines to the old song. The new lines say that the Tam Giang lagoon has now run dry, and that Truông nhà Hồ now has the Nội tán to keep it safe. The road that once lay empty out of fear filled again with the sound of carried loads. Traders talked and laughed as they passed, in the shade of the villages newly grown beside the forest.