Each event seems to unfold before my eyes
The northern power defeated Hồ Quý Ly and ruled our country.
With Lam Sơn as his base and the Thuận Thiên Sword in hand, Lê Lợi launched an uprising to regain national independence and founded the Lê dynasty.
The Lê dynasty lost real power, while the Trịnh and Nguyễn lords were unmatched in the north and south respectively. The country entered civil war, the Trịnh–Nguyễn conflict.
The times create heroes. This exceptionally special period in the nation's history witnessed many talented people, but above all stood two men with a deep feud between them.
The Nguyễn dynasty weakened. This time, using Tây Sơn as their base, the 3 brothers Nguyễn Nhạc – Nguyễn Huệ (later King Quang Trung) – Nguyễn Lữ raised an army in rebellion. Just as the Three Kingdoms era had its “Three Heroes” (Liu Bei – Guan Yu – Zhang Fei), our country at this time had the “Three Great Heroes” of Tây Sơn.
That uprising caused a child only a few years old to lose his father, then later witness his entire Nguyễn royal clan massacred. He nurtured a “will” for revenge and to restore and revive the family.
That child was Nguyễn Ánh (later Emperor Gia Long).
Quang Trung Nguyễn Huệ was a military genius, victorious wherever he fought. Gia Long Nguyễn Ánh was also a rare prodigy, commanding armies and displaying battlefield authority while still in his teens.
Although evenly matched rivals, Huệ always won their battles. Huệ won everything but lost the final battle, called Fate.
Huệ crushed Ánh. Despite his rare talent, Ánh had to hide, flee abroad, and endure countless hardships, “sleeping on thorns and tasting gall,” as long as he remained Alive.
Ánh's greatest talent was always Surviving. Through one event or another, one act of help or another, one miracle or another, Ánh stayed alive. In the Three Kingdoms era, Heaven would not let Liang kill Yi. In this era, Heaven would not let Huệ kill Ánh. Every time he was defeated, using Gia Định (Saigon) as his base, Ánh quickly rebuilt his army within months.
Huệ conquered almost the entire country, leaving only the southern “bone,” Gia Dinh, that he could never finish gnawing. Huệ became obsessed with Ánh. That is why they were evenly matched archrivals.
By the final battle, Huệ had devised a formation that would attack head-on while sending troops around to strike Gia Định from “behind,” leaving no one able to escape. So tight that not even a fly could get away: Ánh was certain to be killed. The plan was complete. Before carrying out that battle, Huệ died. Age 39.
Before his death, Huệ's greatest fear was that Ánh would slaughter his Tây Sơn family.
Ánh acted no differently at all.
The Tây Sơn dynasty lasted only a little over a decade before collapsing. With no worthy rival remaining, Nguyễn Ánh conducted military campaigns over a few years, ended the civil war, unified the country, and founded the Nguyễn dynasty, which ruled for nearly 150 years. Our country officially took the name Vietnam under Ánh. He adopted the royal name Gia Long, signifying the unifier from Gia Định in the south to Thăng Long in the north. History called his name; Heaven ‘chose’ Ánh as the nation's true unifier.
After 25 years of prolonged struggle, carrying his family's grievance and enduring countless torments deep in his heart, Ánh finally won, took revenge, revived his ancestors' legacy, and restored the Nguyễn house.
Today's history favors Huệ and “puts down” Ánh, even in the history books we studied as children. Yet from broader perspectives, both deserve to be called Big Men. Huệ defeated Siamese forces and routed the Qing, “stunning” Qianlong and thrilling the people. The “glory” of those two battles makes it easy to love Huệ and hate Ánh. Later, even the Nguyễn dynasty's attempts to make people forget Tây Sơn's “plain-clothed hero” failed.
When will this cycle of hatred ever end? While alive, Huệ changed his surname to Nguyễn to gain “legitimacy” and make launching his uprising easier. Later, he not only massacred Ánh's entire family but, to sever his lifelong rival's “feng shui” fortune, dug up Ánh's father's grave, crushed his bones and scattered them in the river. Not stopping there, Huệ also dug up the graves of 8 preceding generations of Nguyễn rulers, not even sparing the dead.
Ánh could not let it go. Upon ascending the throne, Gia Long said, ‘I take revenge for 9 generations,’ leaving not a single generation uncounted. Then it was the entire Tây Sơn dynasty’s turn to be massacred. Ánh also found Huệ’s grave, opened it, dragged out his remains, crushed them into a pot and ordered soldiers to urinate into it. His skull was used as a urine container. The remains of the commoner hero and his wife were imprisoned in a dungeon, bound with iron chains and spells. His son, the king, was torn apart by elephants.
What good is hatred? The Nguyễn dynasty later gradually closed its borders and ports, only to be colonized by the French themselves.
How heartbreaking the tragedy of Quang Trung Nguyễn Huệ and Gia Long Nguyễn Ánh. They were Great Men, yet the chaos of war and the negative emotions of hatred swallowed them both.
If studying History were as interesting as this article (apart from a few somewhat violent passages), would you study it?
Learn many more fascinating things and return to our “Roots” through History in the History Talk segment at the “National Convention: The Adventures of Entrepreneurship—The Journey Home” in Đà Nẵng this Saturday, gathering entrepreneurs, startup founders, young leaders, social activists… from across the country.
1.000 people are marching toward Da Nang!
