Battle of Bach Dang and Vietnamese independence

In 938 the Vietnamese general Ngo Quyen defeats a fleet of the Southern Han state of southern China on the Bach Dang River, near Ha Long Bay in northern Vietnam. He had driven iron-tipped stakes into the riverbed, lured the Chinese ships over them at high tide, and attacked as the tide fell. The ships were impaled and the Han prince Liu Hongcao was killed. The victory ends about a thousand years of Chinese rule over the Red River delta, which had begun under the Han dynasty in 111 BCE.¹²³

Chinese control had been interrupted by revolts, notably that of the Trung sisters in 40 CE, but the region was ruled as a province, Jiaozhi and later Annam, under the Han and Tang dynasties. The Tang's collapse in 907 left local strongmen in charge. The Khuc family ruled as governors from 905, and Duong Dinh Nghe drove out the Southern Han in 931. When Duong was murdered in 937 by Kieu Cong Tien, who called on the Southern Han for help, Duong's son-in-law Ngo Quyen killed Kieu and then met the Han fleet at Bach Dang. In 939 he took the title of king and ruled from the old capital at Co Loa.¹²⁴

His dynasty broke down after his death in 944, followed by the 'Twelve Warlords' period, until Dinh Bo Linh reunified the country in 968. The Ly dynasty, founded in 1009, built Thang Long (Hanoi) as its capital and made Dai Viet a lasting state with its own government. Chinese rule returned only for 20 years in the early 15th century. Bach Dang became the model of Vietnamese resistance, and Tran Hung Dao used the same tactic against the Mongols in 1288. Vietnam's culture remained deeply marked by its long contact with China.¹²