Cac em than men,
Trong dong rac van tim ra vat qui. Trong mot bai viet cung co cai gi hay, dep tuy theo cai nhin va su cam nhan cua tung nguoi.
Bai nay rieng tang Nguyen Van Quang o Uc de nhac lai que noi cua em, dat Ninh Binh cua Dinh Bo Linh. Do la Son Nam Ha trong thoi Nam Bac Trieu (Mac: Bac Trieu; Le & Trinh: Nam Trieu)
Cam on bai phong dich The Old Teacher cua Nguyen Van Quang va Bui Thi Quy.
Ngoc muon sang can nen mai giua,
Nguoi muon nen dac thua cai TAM.
Do la loi duc Quan The Am (Kwan Yin) goi cho toi trong mot bai tho dai 630 cau vao ngay 08-09-1980. Toi xin goi cho hai em nhu mot loi nhan nhu van biet hai em la Catholic. Trong duc tin phai xoa bo ranh gioi de tam hon duoc sang suot va oc vi tha co co may phat trien.
Van Su Lanh
Thay Lan
phamdinhlan (david)
Trong dong rac van tim ra vat qui. Trong mot bai viet cung co cai gi hay, dep tuy theo cai nhin va su cam nhan cua tung nguoi.
Bai nay rieng tang Nguyen Van Quang o Uc de nhac lai que noi cua em, dat Ninh Binh cua Dinh Bo Linh. Do la Son Nam Ha trong thoi Nam Bac Trieu (Mac: Bac Trieu; Le & Trinh: Nam Trieu)
Cam on bai phong dich The Old Teacher cua Nguyen Van Quang va Bui Thi Quy.
Ngoc muon sang can nen mai giua,
Nguoi muon nen dac thua cai TAM.
Do la loi duc Quan The Am (Kwan Yin) goi cho toi trong mot bai tho dai 630 cau vao ngay 08-09-1980. Toi xin goi cho hai em nhu mot loi nhan nhu van biet hai em la Catholic. Trong duc tin phai xoa bo ranh gioi de tam hon duoc sang suot va oc vi tha co co may phat trien.
Van Su Lanh
Thay Lan
phamdinhlan (david)
THREE HERDSMEN IN HISTORY
DAVID LAN PHAM, F.A.B.I.
Three
herdsmen entered Vietnam’s history and left incredible works. Two of them were sweet images in the
Vietnamese people’s memory. The third
one gave horror to his people in spite of his genial military exploits during
the civil war between the Le and the Mac.
These three historic persons were Dinh Bo Linh, Trinh Kiem and Dao Duy
Tu.
****
Dinh
Bo Linh was an orphan. His father, Dinh
Cong Tru, was a mandarin serving the Ngo dynasty. After his father’s death Dinh Bo Linh lived
in his uncle’s house and tended water buffaloes for him. He was illiterate. But he was strong, intelligent and brave. He used to fight the other herdsmen and
defeated them without any difficulty.
After victory he asked the losers to make a palanquin by crossing their
arms to carry him as a king. One day, he
killed his uncle’s water buffalo to celebrate his triumph in spite of his
uncle’s fury. Dinh Bo Linh was portrayed
as a strong and intelligent man, a good diver and fighter. It was said that, when a child, he was hired
by a Chinese geomancer to dive into a dangerous river whirlpool. Linh saw a stone horse in the bottom of the
river. The stone horse greeted him by
shaking its tail. Leaving the whirlpool
Dinh Bo Linh told the Chinese geomancer what he saw. The Chinese geomancer knew that Dinh Bo Linh was predestined to be king.
In
the 10th century many anti- Chinese revolts occurred in our country. Ngo Quyen defeated the Southern Han on the
Bach Dang River to put an end to Chinese domination in our country (938). He acceded to the throne in 939 and died in
944. His death led to the Seigniorial
War. It was the famous Twelve- Seignior
War which ruined the country and led it to the uncertain future. Each Seignior had his own fief and tried to
take over other fiefs by force.
Persistent feudal wars put peasants in misery. Rice fields were abandoned. Houses were on fire. Life got harder and harder while arrest,
torture, piracy and bloodshed increased.
Dinh Bo Linh became a Seignior after the death of his boss Tran
Lam. He defeated all of the then feudal
forces to unify the country. He came to
the throne by proclaiming himself Emperor Dinh Tien Hoang.
Building
his success on military exploits Emperor Dinh Tien Hoang dreamed of our country’s
prosperity and greatness. He named the
country Dai Co Viet, considered himself equal to Chinese Emperor, and thought
about a million-soldier army. His hope
was to make Dai Co Viet a military power in Southeast Asia. Otherwise, its independence would not be
durable.
Dinh
Tien Hoang used Buddhist philosophy to teach his people. Venerable Khuong Viet born Ngo Chan Luu (930-
1011) was very influential. Many stories
about the Good and the Evil, and the law of causality and finality were spread
in the whole country in the purpose of teaching the grassroots how to do right
things and to avoid wrong ones against
the country’s law and order. Those
people who did good things should have God’s blessings. Dishonest and mean people should be
rigorously punished by laws. After their
death they should go to Hell in which they should be severely punished and
tortured by Devils. Beside such public
education there were a series of severe measures of punishments given to the
wrongdoers. The burglars had their hands
cut or plunged into boiled oil. The
pirates were thrown into the tigers’ cages.
It is certain that these severe punishments are denounced in our time.
What
was going on in this newly independent country?
More
than a thousand years under Chinese rule and twenty two years of Seigniorial
War (945- 967) led to many bad consequences:
social disorder, economic ruins, disunion, growth of skepticism and
pessimism facing unsafe life. The
concept of living from day to day with no thought of tomorrow and that of using
the shortest way to assure happiness was in vogue.
The
state of mind of the military leader was to show his strength and power to
safeguard the kingship prestige. Would
the independent kingship be inferior to the colonial rule in re-establishing
social order, national security and economic stability? The then national economy was based on
farming and fishing. Maybe Emperor Dinh
Tien Hoang did not consider economic development by improving technique of
farming and fishing. His military dream
was great. A one million- soldier army,
if existent, should break the national
economic financial balance.
Emperor
Dinh Tien Hoang and his oldest son, Dinh Lien, were killed by Do Thich in 979
when they both were drunk. Queen Duong
Van Nga committed adultery with Generalissimo Le Hoan, who became King in the
980’s bloodless coup. The Dinh dynasty
lasted 12 years (968- 980).
****
Trinh
Kiem was an orphan from a poor family in Thanh Hoa province. It was written Kiem’s filial piety was
immense. His mother liked to eat
chickens while her family was poor.
Trinh Kiem must steal chickens from his neighbors to feed his mother.
When
a child, Trinh Kiem earned his living by cutting grass to feed horses. He spent his youth beside Generalissimo
Nguyen Kim to resist the Mac, who overthrew the Le in the 1527’s bloody coup
d’etat. Following Nguyen Kim, Trinh
Kiem spent some years living along the Viet- Lao border. Recognizing Kiem’s military talent, Nguyen
Kim allowed him to marry his daughter, Ngoc Bao. It was a great honor for an unschooled and
needy young man to be ‘ennobled’. After
Nguyen Kim’s suspicious death, Trinh Kiem became the true leader of the anti-
Mac resistance for the restoration of the Le.
Trinh Kiem’s political ambition was borderless. He killed Nguyen Uong, son of Nguyen Kim, to
consolidate his power in the Southern dynasty.
In reality, king Le Trang Ton was a puppet one. The best general of the Mac, Mac Kinh Dien,
could not defeat Trinh Kiem, who, in his turn, defeated the Mac when attacking
provinces on the Red River Delta surrounding Dong Do (Ha Noi). King Le Trang Ton died in 1548. Prince Le Duy Huyen was enthroned. It was king Le Trung Ton. In 1556 king Le Trung Ton died
childless. Trinh Kiem would like to
proclaim himself king. He did know that
the folk loved and respected the Later Le for expelling the Ming from Dai
Viet. The anti- Mac resistance for the
restoration of the Le should lose its good cause if Trinh Kiem stole the throne
from the Le. A smart and cautious man,
Trinh Kiem sent a messenger to Hai Duong to ask for Dr. Nguyen Binh Khiem’ s
advice. Our prestigious scholar did not
give any advice to the messenger. He
turned to his servant, saying: “Keep the pagoda to eat truncated sticky rice
cake.” Trinh Kiem understood what Dr.
Nguyen Binh Khiem meant.
After
Trinh Kiem killed Nguyen Uong, his younger brother, Nguyen Hoang, claimed to
have mental health problems. Nguyen
Hoang told his sister, Ngoc Bao, Trinh Kiem’s wife, to ask Kiem to allow him to
go go down South.
Trinh
Kiem was considered to be the founder of the Trinh Shogunate in Dang Ngoai
(North i.e the deltas of the Red River
and the Ma, Ca and Chu Rivers).
Nguyen
Hoang was the founder of the Nguyen Shogunate in Dang Trong (South of the 18th
parallel).
Trinh
Kiem died in 1570. Twenty years later
the Mac were totally defeated. They fled
to Cao Bang and got the safety umbrella from the Ming until 1677.
From
1545 to 1786 (241 years) Lords Trinh eclipsed the kings of the Restored
Le. They enthroned, dethroned or killed
the kings at will. They established an
authoritarian and militarist regime in North Vietnam. All the kings of the Restored Le had their
power paralyzed. They became political
victims of the Trinh. During more than
two centuries under the Trinh Shogunate Dai Viet underwent continual wars and jacqueries: war between the Mac and Le & Trinh; war
between the Nguyen and Le & Trinh; war between the Le & Trinh and Mac
in Cao Bang, war between the Trinh and the Tay Son. The Complaints of the Warrior’s Wife
(Chinh Phu Ngam) by Dang Tran Con translated into ‘nom’ by poetess Doan
Thi Diem, the story of a warrior’s wife, who was petrified without seeing her husband’ homecoming, and
many popular songs reflected intermittent bloody civil wars in three
centuries. The Sulky Gianh River,
a Vietnamese song, reminds us of the intestine war between the Le & Trinh
and the Nguyen i.e between the Northerners and the Southerners. The Gianh River was the partition line of our
country in the 17th century. It was
written in the refrain of the song:
Oh!
Dear Gianh River!
Do you weep and lament?
Do you feel angry?
Do you feel ashamed?
Do you feel sad?
Do not recall us of the intestine war
Which prevents our country from seeing
her glorious days.
The grassroots suffered from insecurity, heavy taxes and corvee,
social injustice etc. They compared the
rulers to the pirates, saying:
There are pirates in the night time.
In the day time the pirates are
corrupt mandarins.
Everybody could participate in the
triennial contests provided that they paid a certain amount of sapeques. Rich people could buy titles of tri huyen (district
chief), tri phu (county chief).
In the capital the kieu binh (proud soldiers) martyrized the
dwellers too much. Lord Trinh Giang
(1729- 1740) forbade the residents to light lamps at night. The simple reason of that absurd order was
that he was afraid of being struck by the God of Thunder!! Trinh Giang forced Chancellor Nguyen Cong
Hang to kill himself in 1732.
****
Dao
Duy Tu (1572- 1634) was born into a theatrical family. He was good at literature and poetry but he
could not participate in the triennial contests in Dang Ngoai (North) to change
his social situation. In Confucian
society, no promotion was possible without a parchment. Actors, actresses and slaves were in the
bottom of the social classes. Their
children did not have any chance to improve their life. That was the earmark of the feudal regime and
Confucian society in our country in the past.
Dao
Duy Tu fled to the South and kept water buffaloes for a rich landlord in Qui
Nhon. The latter was a learned man. One day, he invited his friends to a banquet
in which they ate, drank and discussed literature, poetry and politics. That
evening Dao Duy Tu came home with his water buffaloes from the meadow. Hearing the discussion Dao Duy Tu stopped and
wished to express his own opinions. All
the guests felt displeased for he was a young herdsman ignoring neither A nor B
according to their judgement. How could
the herdsman discuss with his boss and his friends? Age and social class was always important in
society. But Dao Duy Tu’ s boss was a
generous and open- minded man. He
allowed Dao Duy Tu to expose his opinions.
Dao Duy Tu showed his large knowledge of the past and present, of
literature, poetry, philosophy, politics, and strategy. His boss, Tran Duc Hoa, was surprised. He felt proud of him. He married his daughter to Dao Duy Tu and
referred him to Chua Sai (Lord Sai) born Nguyen Phuc Nguyen in 1627. Dao Duy Tu served Lord Sai Nguyen Phuc Nguyen
with devotion. Lord Sai appreciated his
intelligence and strategy. In 1630 Lord
Sai carried out Dao Duy Tu’s advice by building the Truong Duc Fortress (Luy
Truong Duc) in Phong Loc district, Quang Binh province. The next year Luy Thay (the Thay Fortress)
was built on the Nhat Le River in Dong Hoi district. The Luy Truong Duc and Luy Thay were built to
prevent the Trinh from invading Dang Trong.
Lord Sai was a good leader for turning a herdsman in Tung Chau hamlet,
Qui Nhon, into an excellent
strategist. When Dao Duy Tu was in bed
he came in person to see him and to comfort him. Dao Duy Tu died in 1634 after serving the
Nguyen for 08 years. In 1635 Lord Sai
Nguyen Phuc Nguyen died.
Dao
Duy Tu was author of Ngoa Long Cuong (The Sleeping Dragon) in which he
compared himself to Chia Ko Leang (Gia Cat Luong) in the Three Empires. He gave birth to hat bai choi which
has been popular in some provinces of Central Vietnam. Qui Nhon was the cradle of Hat Bai Choi.
****
Three herdsmen
entered history.
Dinh Bo Linh
was Emperor.
Trinh Kiem was
Shogun
Dao Duy Tu was
a strategist.
Dinh
Bo Linh was an illiterate orphan although his father was a mandarin. His kingship was built on his military
exploits. It lasted only 12 years.
Emperor
Dinh Tien Hoang was an alcoholic addict losing lucidity when demoting Dinh
Lien, his oldest son, and choosing Hang Lang as his successor. Dinh Lien had military contributions to his
father’s victory during the Seigneurial War.
Angry at Emperor Dinh Tien Hoang’ s myopic decision, Dinh Lien killed
Hang Lang, his younger half -brother.
Both Dinh Tien Hoang and Dinh Lien spent time drinking rice
alcohol. They were assassinated by Do
Thich. The Dinh dynasty was on the brink
of collapse. The young king, Dinh Tue,
was 06 years old. The Chinese
troops threatened to invade Dai Co Viet. Queen Duong Van Nga fell in love with
Generalissimo Le Hoan. The young king,
Dinh Tue, was dethroned in a bloodless coup led by Le Hoan, who founded the
Earlier Le. Duong Van Nga became the
two- dynasty Queen ( the Dinh and the Earlier Le)!
Trinh
Kiem was a poor and unschooled orphan.
His leadership and military genius
was undeniable. He was brutal,
foxy, authoritarian, and feelingless.
But he was lucid and cautious not to topple down the Restored Le. He kept them and turned them into puppet
kings. The Trinh Shogunate lasted 241
years. It was characterized by
militarism, dictatorship, intermittent wars, jacqueries led by Nguyen
Danh Phuong, Nguyen Huu Cau, Hoang Cong Chat and prince Le Duy Mat, and mutiny
engendered by the kieu binh (proud soldiers), who help Trinh Khai kill
his younger half-brother, Trinh Can, and Can’s mother, Dang Thi Hue, to head
the Trinh Shogunate in the capital in 1783.
Dao
Duy Tu’s father was Dao Ta Han, who was in charge of teaching dancers in the
Royal Palace. Dao Duy Tu was not
illiterate. Knowing Chinese characters,
he was aware of Chinese culture and military arts. He was tired of militarism, conservatism, and
dictatorship in Dang Ngoai headed by the Trinh and the Restored Le. Dang Trong was the land of freedom where the
Nguyen treasured talented persons without any discrimination. The recommendation of talented persons was
the earmark of the new administration in the new land. Allowing a herdsman to marry his boss’
daughter, and to discuss with his boss and his guests was uncommon in feudal
time in Vietnam. Dao Duy Tu helped the
Nguyen establish a center of power in the South which was independent from the
Le and the Trinh in Dang Ngoai.
Dang
Trong was the new land. It was less
populated than Dang Ngoai. Compared with
Dang Ngoai, Dang Trong was weak economically, politically and militarily. However, the Nguyen resisted the Trinh troops
heroically. Sometimes their troops
invaded Nghe An. Dang Trong was really
independent thanks to good leadership of Lords Nguyen, who gained popular
support with their open- minded policy.
Democracy, hope and freedom reigned in Dang Trong while dictatorship,
fear, worries and oppression reigned in Dang Ngoai. The Nguyen had popularity. The Trinh lost it. They became the losers in the people’s hearts
and minds. Dictatorship and conservatism
could not lead the country to progress and prosperity but to stagnation and
backwardness.
