Battle of Bạch Đằng (938)
Bạch Đằng River, near Hạ Long Bay, Vietnam
What happened
The Vietnamese leader Ngô Quyền fought a war fleet of the Southern Han kingdom of southern China, led by Prince Liu Hongcao. When a Vietnamese general was murdered, his son-in-law Ngô Quyền moved against the killer, who asked the Southern Han for help. Ngô Quyền's men planted iron-tipped wooden stakes in the riverbed, hidden at high tide, and small Vietnamese boats lured the Han warships upstream. When the tide went out, the big ships were caught on the stakes, and the Vietnamese counter-attacked and drove the fleet back to sea.
Why it matters
Why it matters: The victory ended about a thousand years of Chinese rule over northern Vietnam. It is celebrated in Vietnam as the start of national independence.
What came next
In 939 Ngô Quyền declared himself king and made Cổ Loa his capital. In 1288 another Vietnamese general used the same trick on the same river against a Mongol-led fleet.
Did you know?
The Vietnamese turned the river's own tide into a weapon, using its rise and fall to trap a much stronger fleet.
Timeline
- 937General Dương Đình Nghệ is assassinated.
- 938Ngô Quyền defeats the Southern Han fleet at Bạch Đằng.
- 939Ngô Quyền becomes king and founds the Ngô dynasty.
- 944Ngô Quyền dies.
- 1288The same tactic defeats a Yuan fleet on the Bạch Đằng River.