Ngô dynasty

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The Ngo Dynasty ( Vietnamese: . Nhà Ngô or Trieu Ngo , chữ Hán :吳朝) was the first Vietnamese dynasty after about a thousand years as a member of Vietnam to China . It was founded by Ngô Quyền in 939 and ruled until around 965.

Emergence

In fact, the regional rulers Khúc Thừa Mỹ and Dương Đình Nghệ had already ruled completely independently in the previous decades ; however, they officially officiated as military governors ( Jiedushi ) of the disintegrating Chinese Empire ( period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Empires ). In 937 Dương Đình Nghệ was murdered by Kiều Công Tiễn ; he then called the southern Han to help in the fight against the followers of the killed . Ngô Quyền, the son-in-law of the Dương Đình Nghệ, first defeated and killed Kiều Công Tiễn, before he almost completely destroyed the Han invasion fleet in a battle on the Bạch Endeng at the end of 938 using stakes buried in the river bed.

After his victory, Ngô Quyền proclaimed himself king ( Vương ) and thus founded the independent Vietnamese state, even if the territory initially continued to bear the Chinese military region designation Jinghaijun ( Tĩnh Hải quân ) and an independent, non-Chinese national consciousness only developed several decades later Demarcation from the Song Dynasty arose. As the capital, Ngô Quy denn did not choose the previous Chinese administrative center Đại La (today's Hanoi ), but rather Cổ Loa , located north of it , which had been the power center of the region over a millennium earlier in pre-Chinese times.

Ngô Quyn's successes had become possible because he had succeeded in getting both the almost completely Sinised population of the Red River Plain ( Giao ) and the population of the western and southern mountainous regions , who still largely lived in indigenous clan structures, to his side. The different interests of the lowland and mountainous people and the resulting conflicts were to have a significant impact on the development of the country up to the Lê dynasty .

Decline

Ngô Quyền died in 944 after only six years of reign. His eldest son and designated heir to the throne Ngô Xương Ngập was probably still a minor at this time, so that Ngô Quyền's brother-in-law Dương Tam Kha , a son of Dương Đình Nghệ, was able to usurp the throne. Ngô Xương Ngập then fled and found refuge with an influential family in the east of the country.

Presumably to legitimize his rule, Dương Tam Kha took a younger son of Ngô Quyn named Ngô Xương Văn into his family. However, in 950 he was able to gain the support of the powerful families in the region and, with their help, depose and banish Dương Tam Kha.

In the years that followed, the two brothers ruled together. However, the double kingship was extremely weak and power increasingly shifted to the family clans. After the older brother's early death in 954 (or 959), the central power largely collapsed, so that the younger brother even felt compelled to ask the Southern Han for support and in return to offer his submission - albeit in vain. He was able to hold out for about a decade and was finally killed in 963 or 965 fighting against family members of the Kiều Công Tiễn.

His death marks the end of the rule of the Ngô dynasty. His completely powerless successor Ngô Xương Xí gave up the capital after a very short time and withdrew to the southern mountainous region. The so-called Anarchy of the Twelve Warlords came about , a phase in which twelve feudal lords and clan leaders fought for power in the country. Among them was another Ngô family member named Ngô Nhật Khánh .

However, Đinh Bộ Lĩnh was finally able to prevail in 968 , forcing the remaining Ngô into submission and making them his followers through marriage alliances. He moved the capital further south to Hoa Lư , named the country Đại Cồ Việt and, in contrast to the Ngô, crowned himself emperor ( hoàng đế ).

List of Ngô kings

  • 939–944: Ngô Quyền ( Ngô Vương ), known posthumously as Tiền Ngô Vương ("former King Ngô")
  • 944–950: Dương Tam Kha ( Dương Bình Vương ), usurper
  • 950–965: Hậu Ngô Vương ("later King Ngô"), collective term for the double kingship:
  • 965: Ngô Xương Xí ( Ngô Sứ Quân ), is usually no longer included

literature

  • KW Taylor : A History of the Vietnamese , Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 45–47
  • Danny J. Whitfield: Historical and Cultural Dictionary of Vietnam , Scarecrow Press, 1976, p. 193 (entries Ngô Dynasty and Ngô Quyền )
  • Hà Văn Thư, Trần Hồng Đức: A Brief Chronology of Vietnamese History , English version, fifth edition, Thế Giới Publishers, Hanoi 2014, pp. 31–33 (Chapter X: Ngô Dynasty (939–965) )