---
node: ngo_quyen
type: person
slug: ngo_quyen
title: "Ngo Quyen"
lead: "Ngo Quyen (897-944) was the general who ended a thousand years of Chinese rule with his victory at the Bach Dang River in 938. He proclaimed himself king in 939."
published: 2026-07-09
updated: 2026-07-09
image_file: ngo_quyen.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:T%C6%B0%E1%BB%A3ng_Ng%C3%B4_Quy%E1%BB%81n.jpg"
image_author: "Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 3.0"
---

## Who they were

Ngo Quyen was a general and the son-in-law of Duong Dinh Nghe, the autonomous governor of the Vietnamese lands. When his father-in-law was murdered by a rival who then called in the forces of Southern Han, Ngo Quyen moved against the usurper.

## What they did

He crushed the usurper and met the Southern Han invasion at the Bach Dang River in 938, destroying the fleet with iron-tipped stakes hidden in the tidal riverbed. In 939 he proclaimed himself king, ruling from the old citadel of Co Loa. His reign was short: he died in 944, and the realm fell into the anarchy of the Twelve Warlords.

## Legacy

Vietnamese historiography calls him the "founding father of independence," the man who closed a millennium of Chinese rule. His Bach Dang stratagem became the national template, repeated against the Mongols in 1288.