Battle of Bạch Đằng (1288)

Coordinates: 20°56′13″N 106°37′44″E / 20.937°N 106.629°E / 20.937; 106.629
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other articles of the same title, see Battle of Bạch Đằng.
Battle of Bạch Đằng
Part of the
Quảng Ninh
20°56′13″N 106°37′44″E / 20.937°N 106.629°E / 20.937; 106.629
Result Vietnamese victory
Belligerents Đại Việt Yuan dynastyCommanders and leaders Trần Hưng Đạo
Trần Khánh Dư Omar (POW)
Fan Yi ExecutedStrength Vietnamese Scoure:50,000 94,000
500 ships[1]Casualties and losses 4,000-4,500 killed 80,000 killed or captured
400 ships sunk or captured

The Battle of Bạch Đằng was the last major engagement during

Ha Long Bay in present-day northern Vietnam. The battle was a tactical masterpiece of the same stature as a previous battle of Bạch Đằng
that occurred in 938.

Background

Omar bin Nars al-Din 'Umar al-Bukhari, son of Mongol appointed Khwarezmian governor of

Trần Quốc Tuấn's (uncle of reigning king Nhan Tong) fleet in the coast of Haiphong, nearly succeeded in capturing the king.[6] However, as the Yuan forces were about to be disassembled due to running low on food supplies, Toghon ordered a retreat in June. Yuan forces, getting panicked while en route of retreat, and Toghon failed to inform Sogetu and Omar to withdraw. Sogetu was killed in battle soon after while Omar and his companion Liu Gui were successfully escaping to the beach, found a small boat, and sailed back to China.[7]

In the third invasion in late 1287, some 100,000–170,000 Yuan soldiers were divided into two armies: land forces commanded by prince Toqon, and Omar was put in charge of commanding the naval forces along with Fan Yi and Mahmud, consisting of 18,000 soldiers, tens of thousand sailors, 70 transports, and 500 warships. From

Hainan Island.[10] Other Zhang's supply ships were blown off or drifted away by strong northeast monsoon winds.[2] When the king of Dai Viet heard the news, he said: What the Yuan forces need most of all is food. They may not have heard of the defeat of their transport fleet and maybe planning further offensive action." With logistic superiors were stripped away, the large Yuan army now stranded and began starving. On 5 March Toghon left Hanoi back to the Yuan base of Van Kiep, and 25 days later he decided to withdraw the army back to China, as food supplies ran low and the situation worsened.[10]
Prince Toghon withdrew by land, and then boarded a large warship for himself.

Hearing the news, Prince Hưng Đạo was now about to launch a counterattack. The Vietnamese had destroyed bridges, roads and created traps along the retreating Yuan route. They were pursuing Toghon's forces to Lạng Sơn, where Toghon was forced to abandon his ship and was escorted to the China border by his few remaining troops through the forests.[11] Most of Toghon's land force were killed or captured.[11] Meanwhile, the Yuan fleet commanded by Omar and Fan Yi retreated through the Bạch Đằng river, the same route previously where they entered Dai Viet.[10]

Plan

Chinese warship, probably deployed by the Yuan

The Bạch Đằng River ran through

well-known battle of Ngô Quyền against the Southern Han had taken place in 938.[12]
Beginning from March, Trần Hưng Đạo began preparing the battlefield. He used the same tactic that Ngô Quyền had against the Chinese in 938. He studied the tidal lore, and ordered beds of stakes to be planted under the water and arranged ambushes in a unified plan of campaign.

Trần Hưng Đạo ordered his soldiers to nail the iron-headed poles under the waters of the Chanh, Kênh and Rút rivers. All three rivers are the northern distributaries of the Bach Dang River. Ghềnh Cốc is a reef located across the Bach Dang to the bottom of Chanh river and to the top of Kênh river. Ghềnh Cốc was used as a place for the ambush, in collaboration with the underwater iron-headed poles. They were to block the enemy ships when the tide withdrew. Đại Việt's small flotilla secretly stationed themselves behind Ghềnh Cốc, Ðồng Cốc, Phong Cốc and on the Khoái, Thái, Gia Ðước, and Ðiền Công rivers. The army deployed in Hung Yen, along the left bank of the river Bach Dang and Tràng Kênh, at the right bank of Bach Dang River and Mount Ðá Vôi.

Battle

17th-century model of a Vietnamese mông đồng fighting boat, a type which probably had constituted much of the Vietnamese naval fleet 400 years earlier

In the early morning of 9 April, the naval fleet led by Omar, and escorted by infantry, fled home along the Bạch Đằng river. They entered Hưng Đạo's trap when it was high tide. A small fleet of Vietnamese junks sailed unopposed and attacked the Yuan fleet, then retreated. Then the tide receded, with the Yuan fleet pursuing and battling the Vietnamese junks, revealing wooden stakes that had been planted into the river bed. With the Yuan fleet stuck in the trap, the Vietnamese junks returned and destroyed the immobilized Yuan warships. Thousands of Yuan troops jumped into the river and were killed or drowned.[11] Fan Yi, seeing Omar's fleet being destroyed, and his commanding fleet surrounded by Vietnamese small junks, tried to escape. Fan Yi jumped into the river, but was killed by the Vietnamese. The battle lasted from sunrise to sundown and the Vietnamese captured 400 Yuan warships.[13]

The Yuan fleet was totally destroyed, and Omar was captured by the Vietnamese.[14]

Aftermath

Upon receiving news of the Mongol defeat, Kublai angrily banished Toghon to Yangzhou for life. The Mongols and the Vietnamese agreed to exchange their war prisoners. While King Trần Nhân Tông was willing to pay tribute to the Yuan, relations again foundered on the question of attendance at the Yuan court and hostile relations continued.[11] In 1289, King Nhân Tông agreed to send back his prisoner Omar, but Prince Hưng Đạo, who opposed this gesture, contrived to have the ship transporting Omar back to sink at sea.[15]

King Trần Nhân Tông eventually decided to accept the supremacy of the Yuan dynasty in order to avoid further conflicts. Because he refused to come in person, Kublai detained his envoy, Đào Từ Kí, in 1293. Kublai's successor Temür Khan (r. 1294–1307), finally released all detained envoys, settling instead for a nominate tributary relationship, which continued until the end of the Yuan dynasty.

Upon the victory of the Vietnamese, a series of celebrations broke out over the news. The Mongols' failure brought surrounding minor Asian states more confidence on their own wars against the Mongols. The Mongols' defeat also crushed the Mongols' ambitions to conquer all of Southeast Asia. It was known as one of Vietnam's greatest victories in its military history.[citation needed]

Legacy

The battle is well recited in Vietnamese tradition and literature. The Emperor Trần Minh Tông (1300-1357) wrote the poem Bạch Đằng River while visiting the site of the battle.

白藤江
...
山河今古雙開眼，
胡越贏輸一倚欄。
江水渟涵斜日影，
錯疑戰血未曾乾。
Bạch Đằng River
...
This nation had its eyes opened twice,
The contention between Hu and Viet was all but for a moment.
The river carries the sunset reddish hue,
It feels like the battlefield's blood still hasn't been dried.

The Trần dynasty mandarin and scholar Phạm Sư Mạnh (1300-1384) also wrote a poem depicting the battle: [16]

行役簦家山
行役簦家山，
僑首萬里天。
...
洶洶白藤濤，
想象吳王船。
憶昔重興帝，
刻轉坤斡榦。
海浦千艨艟，
陜門萬旌旃。
...
至今四海民，
長說擒胡年。
Hành Dịch Đăng Gia Sơn (Visiting my home mountain while travelling)
Travelling for work, I visited my home mountain.
Raising one's head, a thousand mile sightline.
...
The Bach Dang's gushing tides,
Revealing King Ngô's fleet.
and Emperor Trùng Hưng's feat,
In a heaven-shattering moment.
Hundreds of Mông Đồng galleys,
Their flags enshrouded the river strait.
...
Until this day, from all corners of our realm,
People still recound, the year when we held off the Hu Barbarians.

The Lê dynasty scholar Nguyễn Trãi (1380-1442) also wrote the poem Bạch Đằng hải khẩu (白藤海口) while visiting the place.

Bạch Đằng River was also the name of a patriotic song written by Lưu Hữu Phước during the 1940s.

References

  1. ^ Elleman 2012, p. 297.
  2. ^ a b Elleman 2012, p. 300.
  3. ^ Patricia M. Pelley Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past - Page 185 - 2002 "Presiding over the commemorative ceremony, Tran Huy Lieu began: "Not only did the battle of Bạch Đằng conclude the ... army against the Mongol invaders, it also brought all the Mongol invasions that took place between 1257 and 1288 to an ..."
  4. ^ Elleman 2012, pp. 236–237.
  5. ^ Elleman 2012, pp. 289, 292.
  6. ^ a b Elleman 2012, p. 293.
  7. ^ Elleman 2012, pp. 294–295.
  8. ^ Elleman 2012, p. 298.
  9. ^ Elleman 2012, p. 299.
  10. ^ a b c Elleman 2012, p. 301.
  11. ^ a b c d Elleman 2012, p. 302.
  12. ISBN 978-90-04-28248-3
    .
  13. ^ Elleman 2012, p. 302, cited from Yamamoto Tatsuro, Annanshi Kenkyu (Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu), 1950, p. 243. Corresponding Yuan Shi in pp. 4645-4648..
  14. ^ Elleman 2012, p. ibid.
  15. ^ Elleman 2012, p. 303.
  16. ^ [1]

Sources

External links

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