Battle of the Bach Dang River
LATE WINTER, 938 AD
BATTLE OF THE BACH DANG RIVER
In 111 BC the powerful Han dynasty of southern China invaded and conquered the region to their south then called Nam Viet (now northern Vietnam). Hungry for the fertile farmland of the Red River Valley and for Nam Viet’s seaports, the Hans annexed the territory into their Annan Province. To the Chinese, the native Vietnamese were uncultured barbarians, and their domination was harsh. They imposed heavy taxes, seized trade functions, and forced Chinese language, religion, and culture upon the Vietnamese–at the expense of native ethnicity and Viet national identity. Sinification continued for the next 1000 years, broken only briefly in several short-lived revolts.
Then in 931 AD, Vietnamese leader Duong Dinh Nghe incited a successful revolt, declaring Annam (Vietnam) independent and himself as jiedushi, or regional military governor. This lasted only seven years until Dinh Nghe was assassinated by pro-Chinese activist Cong Tien in 938 AD, triggering yet another Han army intervention. This time the invaders were met by a Vietnamese nationalist force under the command of Ngo Quyen on the Bach Dang River near Ha Long Bay in what is now northern Vietnam.
Quyen’s 30,000 men were outnumbered 3:1 by the Han, who were embarked on powerful warships. However, Quyen had his men emplaced sharpened, iron-tipped posts in the channel of the river, deeply enough to be covered at high tide. He then baited the Han with his smaller, shallow-draft boats at the river’s mouth. These retreated rapidly upriver at the appearance of the Chinese, on the flood tide. The Han warships, eager for an easy victory, gave chase. But as the tide ebbed over the prepared channel, the Chinese warships impaled themselves on the hidden poles. Their hulls were crushed, and Han soldiers and sailors spilled into the river. Tens of thousands drowned, including the Han commanding general Liu Hongcao. Quyen now attacked, handily routing the remaining Chinese. Upon hearing news of this defeat, Han emperor Liu Yan sent reinforcements overland to augment Cong Tien’s force. But before the two could rendezvous, Quyen marched to Dai La, where he enveloped and annihilated Cong Tien. The battles stemmed the Han invasion and cast off a millennium of Chinese domination.
Then again, 350 years later in 1288, another Vietnamese army used the same tactics, in the same river, with similar success to defeat invading Mongols under Omar Khan, son of Kublai Khan.
It is hard to overstate how indelibly millennia of oppression have inculcated an enduring Vietnamese passion for freedom and an abhorrence of any foreign occupation. Sadly, neither we nor the French comprehended this in modern times.
Watch for more “Today n Naval History” 29 FEB 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Anderson, James A. and John K. Whitmore. China’s Encounters on the South and Southwest: Reforging the Fiery Frontier Over Two Millennia. Leiden, Netherlands, Brill Pub., 2014, pp. 129-30.
Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1983, pp. 98-101.
Turgeon, Al. “History of the Vietnam Wars.” Penn State University Osher Learning Institute lecture series, University Park, PA, 18 September-8 October 2018.
