The village of Duong Lam in the former Doai area is famous for its beautiful and imposing scenery, which leaned its back on the range of majestic Ba Vi mountains and turned towards the Red River with all-year alluvium. The Tich River curves smoothly around the foot of Ba Vi mountain range and a village, and down to the Hat River. Holy land gives birth to heroes. On this land, there launched 2 dynasties in the history of Vietnam. The prior one, the first feudal dynasty of Vietnam was settled by Ngo Quyen.
Ngo Quyen was born in 898 in a family of long tradition of patriotism against Northern invaders. Ngo Xuan, the 4th generation ancestor of the Ngo in Duong Lam village, recruited hundreds of soldiers to join the army of Trieu Quang Phuc in the revolutionary cause against Luong invader. Thanks to his great achievements, he was appointed head of the tribe in Duong Lam area. The title was inherited from generations to generations. During the time Ngo Man was the leader of Duong Lam area, he got married to a woman of the Pham family and gave birth to Ngo Quyen.
Since his childhood, Ngo Quyen proved to be both intellectual and brave. The Complete Annals of Great Vietnam described that “he was good-looking, his eyes were as bright as lightning, he walked as leisurely as a tiger, and he was wise, courageous and strong enough to lift up a cauldron". He peacefully spent his childhood with his parents, got to learn archery and sword fighting from his father and military knowledge from books of ancient military strategies. It was unlucky that his parents both died early, forcing him to live by his own with ups-and-downs and harshness.
Growing up when the country just took back its independence, Ngo Quyen had the opportunity to enjoy the new environment of freedom. Following directions set out by ancestors, Ngo Quyen recruited forces to fight and protect the independence of the country. He gradually became a powerful village leader in Duong Lam region.
In 923, by accepting Duong Dinh Nghe’s offer, Ngo Quyen was promoted to be the military governor of Ai division (Thanh Hoa) with great expectations from Duong Dinh Nghe. He soon became the son-in-law of Duong Dinh Nghe, and took control of 3,000 soldiers who were in martial arts training from day to night, waiting for opportunities of defeating the Northern invaders.
In 931, Duong Dinh Nghe appointed Ngo Quyen as the pioneer mandarin, moving the force to Giao division to expel the Southern Han and organizing the protection of Dai La citadel (now Hanoi). After destroying the domination of the Southern Han, Duong Dinh Nghe took up the authority and established the headquarters in Dai La citadel. He assigned Ngo Quyen to control areas of Ai division. Ngo Quyen expanded his forces over Ai division (Thanh Hoa), Hoan division (Nghe An-Ha Tinh) and Giao division (Red River delta).
It was expected that they could focus on developing the country in peace but unexpectedly there was a displacement to the Duong’s self-control government. Duong Dinh Nghe - the commander and also Ngo Quyen’s father-in-law - was killed by Kieu Cong Tien who fought over the military authority. Being informed of the sad news from Dai La, Ngo Quyen felt great anguish and deeply resented. He immediately led his troops to Dai La in order to kill the betrayer and continued to run this self-control government. Afraid of being revenged, Kieu Cong Tien was requesting assistance from the Southern Han dynasty, which had just been driven off away. Taking up the good chance, the King of Southern Han, Luu Cung sent his son, Hoang Thao to lead their troops by marine routes to attack Dai La in the false mission of “assisting” Kieu Cong Tien while their real purpose was to take the chance of invading the country.
In early winter of 938, Ngo Quyen promptly destroyed rebellious military groups of Kieu Cong Tien, making full force preparation to deal with the invasion of Southern Han. He understood well and forecast the situation of the invader, from which he outlined the resistance plan. Ngo Quyen said: “Hoang Thao is a foolish child. He has brought his troops in from a far region; his soldiers are tired, plus Kieu Cong Tien’s death will deprive him of a local spy. All these will make him panic-stricken. Our soldiers are strong enough to defeat their tired soldiers. However, they have the advantage of war vessels and if we haven’t defended in advance, loss or win is not certain. Chances are that our soldiers will place large poles with ironed and sharpened tops underground in the seaport. When their vessels follow the tides to come inside the barrier of the poles, it is easy for us to dominate and no vessels can escape”. After choosing the strategic fighting area, Ngo Quyen secretly sent his soldiers to place poles with ironed and sharpened tops in Bach Dang river bed, which formed barriers and banks of poles.
On a late winter day in 938, the resistance war against Southern Han invader fiercely took place at the seaport and lower section of the Bach Dang River. When the war vessels of the Southern Han invader just appeared in the river head, Ngo Quyen sent out some forces to provoke and pin the enemy down. When the high tide rose, local forces pretended to loose and lure the enemy to come to the setup battle field. The Southern Han invader thought that Ngo Quyen’s forces were using light vessels and the troops were small, and believed they could wipe such troops easily and quickly, so they eagerly entered. As soon as the tide fell and the barriers of poles appeared above the water surface, Ngo Quyen directed all the forces to attack the enemy at the same time and tried their best to kill them. The heavy war boats of the Southern invaders were seriously attacked so they ran into the barrier of prepared poles. Most of the vessels were caught on the poles and lay trapped to the bottom of the river. The Southern Han invader lost and tried their best to escape to the sea. More than half the enemy were drowned in the impressive Bach Dang river, including Luu Hoang Thao. When the other Southern Han invader troops heard of the news, they were so terrified that “they only gathered the survivors to escape”. Since then Southern Han dynasty completely gave up the dream of invading the country. With Bach Dang victory (938), Ngo Quyen’s name is forever engraved in historical books along with his most glorious military feats in Vietnamese history.
In the winter of 939, Ngo Quyen proclaimed himself King (in our historical books, he is called Tien Ngo Vuong), established his capital at Co Loa (now Co Loa commune, Dong Anh district, Ha Noi). In spite of proclaiming himself King, Ngo Quyen was the person who deserved credit for “uniting nation”, gaining full independence for the country after thousands of years of Northern domination as well as opening a new era for Vietnamese feudal dynasties.
Ngo Quyen died in 944 after 5 years in power when he was 47.
Ngo Quyen who was the crystallization of thousand-year history against the Northern domination mobilized, exploited and collected the whole nation’s force as well as maturity and turned them into unconquerable power which resulted in the glorious Bach Dang victory, ushering in a long-lasting independent period - the splendidly developmental period of Vietnamese culture and civilization.
The preeminent patriot Phan Boi Chau of the early 20th century was correct to honor Ngo Quyen as “the forefather of our country restoration”, only following “the creator of country, Hung King” because according to him “Foreign invaders can be swept and the union of the country is continued, no one but Ngo Quyen can do”. Later other historians honored Ngo Quyen as the King to start the Vietnamese independent feudal dynasties: “Tien Ngo Vuong could use newly-recruited troops of Vietnamese land to destroy hundreds of thousands of Luu Hoang Thao’s soldiers, established the country and proclaimed himself King, made Northern invader dare not return. It can be said that anger could settle down people’s minds, good strategies went well with good practice. He only proclaimed himself King and the orthodox of Vietnamese land was united”.
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