ConflictSoutheast Asia
Vietnam breaks from China
A thousand years of Chinese rule ends in a river full of stakes
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The same trick was used again against the Mongols in 1288, with the same result. Vietnam kept Chinese script, Confucian administration and the examination system, but remained politically independent — one of few countries to absorb Chinese culture without becoming Chinese. That relation of closeness and resistance still marks Vietnamese self-understanding.
For children
After a thousand years as a Chinese province, Ngo Quyen defeated the Chinese fleet at the Bach Dang river. He had iron-tipped stakes driven into the riverbed at low tide; when the tide fell, the ships were impaled.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org