The Legend of Ly Ong Trong

Before the gates of the Tần capital, on a dark night with no moon, a few Hung Nô men drew closer. Then, out of the darkness, the shadow of a giant appeared. He was unusually tall, and he stood silent as a mountain across the road. The men looked at one another and drew back. They knew that figure. They had faced that man on the battlefield before, and none of them had dared to advance.

But that man was already dead.

Or so it seemed.

This is the story of Lý Ông Trọng. As the old accounts tell it, he was a Vietnamese man who did great deeds in the land of Tần, and even after his death he still struck fear into his enemies. It is a legend, written down in the old books Việt điện u linh and Lĩnh Nam chích quái. It is not a historical event that anyone can dig up and see. But the story has lived on among the people of Chèm village, in Từ Liêm, for thousands of years. And the old communal house where he is worshiped still stands there today.

The old tale goes that Lý Ông Trọng, whose real name was Lý Thân, was born and raised in Chèm village. It lay in the Từ Liêm area, on the land of old Thăng Long, the city now called Hanoi. He lived in the time of Thục Phán An Dương Vương, when the country was in the first days of its history. The first thing everyone noticed about him was not his talent or his spirit. It was his size. The old tellers say he stood two trượng and three thước tall by the old measure, and his strength was far beyond the ordinary. No one in the village came up to his shoulder. Lý Thân rose above the crowd like an ancient tree among saplings.

But the strength he was born with was only the beginning. What truly made Lý Ông Trọng was knowing how to use that strength for something larger than himself.

As the old legend tells it, the king sent Lý Ông Trọng as an envoy to the land of Tần. This was the time when Tần Thủy Hoàng ruled a vast empire and brought lords on every side under his power. He is the emperor known in English as Qin Shi Huang, and Tần is the Vietnamese name for Qin. When the envoy set foot in the capital of Tần, the whole court was stirred. No one had ever seen an envoy like him. He was extraordinarily tall, with bright eyes and a commanding presence. The emperor received him and saw at once that this man was meant for more than carrying messages.

The emperor of Tần kept Lý Ông Trọng at his court. He did not keep him as a prisoner. He gave him a high office.

In the tale, he was given the heavy task of leading troops against the Hung Nô. They were a nomadic people of the north, known in English as the Xiongnu. Again and again they had swept down to raid the land of Tần, as fast as the wind and as hard to predict as fire. Even the seasoned generals of Tần shrank from this challenge. But Lý Ông Trọng did not. He put on his armor, took up his weapons, and went into battle.

The battle was won. The Hung Nô were defeated and fell back to the north. Tần Thủy Hoàng was overjoyed and raised Lý Ông Trọng to a still higher rank.

But in the heart of that Vietnamese general, one thing never went out. It was his longing for home.

He lived in the land of Tần, valued by the emperor and respected by its people. Yet Lý Ông Trọng still missed Chèm village. He missed the Red River in the early morning. He missed the familiar voices of the villagers. He missed the soil, the scents and the sunlight of the place where he was born. He asked the emperor to let him go home. The court did not want to lose such a fine general, but in the end it reluctantly let him leave.

Lý Ông Trọng returned to Chèm village and spent his last years in his homeland. And then he died.

But the story did not end there. In fact, its most wondrous part had not yet happened.

Not long after Lý Ông Trọng died, the Hung Nô came down again. With no Vietnamese general left to lead the troops, the court of Tần grew anxious. Tần Thủy Hoàng sat in his hall and remembered the tall, commanding general of years before. He remembered how the Hung Nô had only to see Lý Ông Trọng to fall back.

And the emperor came to a strange decision.

As the legend tells it, Tần Thủy Hoàng ordered a giant bronze statue cast in the likeness of Lý Ông Trọng. It was tall and stern, and it stood straight like a living man. The statue was carried out and set right before the gate of the capital. It was hollow inside, with room for several dozen people to hide. With a quiet push from the people hidden inside, the statue could move like a living man.

The Hung Nô saw the giant figure towering there. Their hearts tightened. It was Lý Ông Trọng. He was still here. They told one another to turn back, and they no longer dared to cross into the land of Tần.

In this way, the bronze statue of Lý Ông Trọng kept the land of Tần at peace. A Vietnamese man who had already left this life went on guarding the frontier. He did it not with swords, but with the memory of his might, still carved deep in the hearts of his enemies.

The legend of Lý Ông Trọng is different from the usual hero tales. Thánh Gióng was supernatural from the start, born to save the country, and in the end he flew up into the sky. Yết Kiêu was an ordinary man with an uncommon gift. But Lý Ông Trọng was a Vietnamese man who went far from home and won glory in a foreign land. He earned the respect of the most powerful ruler of his age, and still he remembered his homeland.

Today, Lý Ông Trọng is worshiped at the communal house of Chèm village, in Đông Ngạc ward of Hanoi. It is listed as a national site of history and culture. The festival of the Chèm communal house is held every year in the fifth lunar month. It is a time when people from Từ Liêm and from across Hanoi come here to remember him. The old communal house stands on the bank of the Red River, with mossy tiled roofs and a leafy banyan tree spreading its shade.

From the courtyard of the communal house, the view runs toward the Red River. Thousands of years ago, that same river watched a man of Chèm village set out. He left with the stature of a giant, traveled far, and came back with a heart turned toward home. And by that same river the communal house still stands. It reminds people that a man's might can sometimes be greater than life and death. That might grew great enough to be cast in bronze and set before a city gate, where his enemies never stopped fearing it.