My favorite one is Quang Trung Hoàng Đế Nguyễn Huệ, and I am sure all of you know him.

He's my favorite because of his leadership, his commands to mobolize 100,000 men and marched them from Hue to Hanoi in less than 3 days and defeat the Manchus in one battle. I love his quick decissions at the battle front, he made fast decissions that no other generals have done before. If you ever read his bibliography, his troops movements tactics were also lightning fast.

During his reign as general and emperor, he never lost a single battle. He defeated the Thais in one naval battle, the Thais lost over 90% of their troops trying to invade Vietnam in that battle.


Now who's your favorite Vietnamese hero?

Oh my gosh, I was about to post the same topic!

My favorite has to be that famous anh hung ao vai Le Loi who was assisted by another great diplomat Nguyen Trai. He was responsible for truly winning Viet Nam indepence (the first was Ngo Quyen). His triumph was achieved in such a quick time and was an excellent strategic leader. He was charasmatic and was famous for his forgiveness toward his enemies. The strategy of besieging enemies' fortress as the last resort combined with Nguyen Trai's motto winning (people's) hearts rather than citadels lead Viet Nam toward centuries of peace. Le Loi's creative strategy became the distinctive feature in Vietnamese military. Whoa what a cool guy.

Awesome!!! i was just about to make a topic like this too!!!!! lol.

anyways, i'll get back to you on it. got to take care of something. and there's so many great heroes to choose from.

Wow, what a coincidence!

I would think that you pick Le Loi. I can tell that you like his forgiveness toward his enemies, eventhough the entire country wanted to have a total massacre on those surrendered troops for looting villages and killing innocent civilians. Because of this forgiveness to the Ming troops, the Ming remembered it and helped the later Le emperor to regain his throne when the Mac took control of the country, hence starting the first Vietnam north and south civil war in the 1500s.

Haha, yeah well I do love a compassionate individual and just because you have weapons in your hands does not mean you cannot be human. Other than his liberation movement, Le Loi did establish a strong court tradition for those that followed him. However, I must give props to Hai Ba Trung and Trieu Au (the other female heroine we hear so little about) for their efforts as well.

I admire his leadership and military skills. Can you please provide more information about the battle and , if possible, tell me the name of that loser Manchu general.
Thanks

Certaintly, I will do that. Let me take out my history book. BRB.

I want to learn more about the Vietnam War. Being vietnamese.. I'm sad to say I don't know much. I want to learn but not read a 500 page book that is as boring as my physics book. Can someone catch my attention? I know there are so many heros out there. Let me find one...

oh, and tell me what year was it. I'd like to check out my sources too. Thank you.

Hey for once we're getting along awww, I'm happy. Okay as you have requested, this link is pretty good, here you go:

http://www.nhandan.org.vn/english/people/20001118.html

Thank you so much drunk_on_tea! I owe it to ya this time. AF member with Chinese character username, there ya go. Hope that this will help ya a bit.

Thank, that's very informative.
From my Chinese sources, it's been said that the China's invasion of Vietnam in 1788~1789 was to surpress the rebellion in Vietnam. It's also listed as one of Emperor QianLong's 10 major achievements. I admit I don't have an extensive knowledge on this issue, and my sources may be biased so I better not to judge. After all, I still have a high respect of General Quang Trung Hoàng Đế Nguyễn Huệ

No problem DAI VIET! What are AF friends for?

Cecile: What aspect of Vietnamese history would you like to learn more about? Are you referring to the Viet Nam War that happened several decades ago or...any war? AF members here would love to teach you more about our history but yeah, where should we start?

Really? Wow. Is that source online and in English so that I can read? That would be very interesting. Because I know that emperor Càn Long (QianLong) was one of the greatest Chinese emperor.

I would say General Vo Nguyen Giap. The famous general who is actually well known by Vietnamese and the West.

He is the one who led Vietnamese forces to defeat the French,Americas,Cambodians and Chinese, one right after another.

Many publications and websites called him the greatest military minds of the century.

He was the one credited with the victory over the French in the brilliant Diem Bien Phu battle where he outsmarted the French by digging into mountains and carrying cannons to the mountains that the French thought were impossible.

He was also credited with the Tet Offensive which was the battle that turned the tide of the Vietnam war to the Vietcong and NVA's side. While a military defeat, it was a psychlogical and properganda victory helped defeat America when they left.


I was watching a documentary and they said that the west thinks he is one of the best military minds because he was able to take Vietnamese peasants and train them to become a fierce military with lots of victory records. Under French colonialism, most Vietnamese were just slaves and farmers but Giap made them into a modern army with many victories and in such short of a time that Vietnam needed for Vietnam to become indepedant and drive out invaders.

I was thinking of general Võ Nguyên Giáp, too.

Did you guys know that Hưng Đạo Đại Vương Trần Quốc Tuấn is listed as one of the top ten generals of the world of the ancient times?

Okay im back.

Lets see.. it would be a tie between Ngo Quyen and Le Loi.

Ngo Quyen because of his excellent strategic skills... and because i'm a Ngo. Hehehe

Battle at Bach Dang river.

Le Loi for all of the reason you guys listed already. Prince of Pacification right? Also Nguyen Trai was a good and righteous man who made Le Loi into a legend! you've all heard about the turtle and the sword in the lake right?

Portrait of Le Loi

To me Vietnam is a nation built upon heroes. It seems when Vietnam is in trouble there is always a hero to come out and rescue Vietnam and lead Vietnam to victory.

These heroes use clever techniques to win like when a famous Vietnamese general defeated the Mongols by using a technique of luring them into a low tide of water, but then the water level would raise up trapping the mongol army so they would be defeated.

Sorry it's in books, but I'd show you what his 10 Military Achievements are :

1. Quell DaXiaoJinChuan ( Southwestern minorities) in 1749
2. Quell ZuenGerre ( a Mongol faction) 1755
3. Quell ZuenGerre ( again) 1757
4. Quell Hui ( Northwest Chinese muslims) 1759
5. Quell Burma 1769
6. Quell DaXiaoJinChuan (again) 1769
7. Quell Taiwan 1788
8. Annam ( Vietnam) 1789
9. WoErGe ( Nepal) 1791
10. WoErGe (again) 1792.

Yay that's two for Le Loi. Just kidding.

Researchers say that the turtles in the lake might be near extinction because it seems as though there may be only five at the most now living at the bottom of the lake and resources such as food are running out, the good news is that a project to study the lakes ecosystem and environment was approved in October 1998.

Byron, I don't think the water level rises and trap the ships. The water has to lower to trap the ships.

Yeah I really don't know much about that battle. So feel free to correct me.

Thank you, but it wasn't a rebellion in Vietnam, it was a civil war. Anyways, different countries have different sources. Thanks for letting us know that.

An old Chinese saying goes : 時勢造英雄. It means the situation creates heroes. No one is born as a hero, but time will make them if necessary.

Exellent quote!

"Thời thế tạo anh hùng"

Yes, I've heard of that true quote before. Now, let's try to write it in Nom. Just Kidding.

I'm surprised Gengis Khan wasn't in that list, considering he created the largest empire within the life of one person. And if that list of greatest military leaders in ancient times includes the whole world and not just asia then I'm surprised Alexander the Great who I believe is the one of the greatest generals of all time he never lost a single battle and he conquered all of Persia and parts of India.

What list are you talking about Byron? Can you give me the names of those on that list?

The list that he posted above with the top 10 military achievements of all time.

No Byron that was the achievements of vua Can Long, those were the campaigns he launced abroad and it adhered to our discussion of Quang Trung Nguyen Hue.

According to Chinese sources, the Qing army that King Quang Trung defeated in 1789 was only around 20,000 men, not 200,000-290.000 like Vietnamese sources have claimed. I've always wondered about the total Chinese troops of China around 1780's. Chinese have claimed that they marched into Vietnam with 20,000 men just to "help" Le Chieu Thong only, not to invade Vietnam.

Yeah, you confuse me a little bit there Byron. Ghengis Khan was 500 years before Quang Trung and Can Long.

Qian Long did not even know that his army was defeated badly. I don't blame him, tv was not invented at that time yet.

Hehheheheheheheheehehheheee... talking about TV, I gotta watch MXC on Spike channel. Go Japanese! You guys are funny.

lol. Personally I don't like QianLong as much. He was doing well for the first 40 years of his reign. ( actually he inherited his ancestors' achievements that's why his time went very smoothly). and for the last twenty years he was surrounded by a bunch of retards. QianLong's reign was the peak of Qing, but also the dynasty's watershed.

I think Kang Hsi (not sure of the spelling) was much better. Wouldn't you agree?

Here are the non-Vietnamese military leaders that i think are the greatest

Alexander the Great

Genghis Khan

Sultan Alauddin Khilji (The Mongols invaded his country 6 times but he defeated them 6 times badly)

Yes I like KangXi, and KangXi's son - YongZheng, and KangXi's grandpa - Huang Taiji. They were all great emperors of Qing whom I admire.

How do you feel about Mongol Chinese emperors like Kublei Khan who was the emperor that Marco Polo met in China.

Mongols were great warriors. But honestly, Yuan dynasty is not given a good reputation. Many Han Chinese said , the Mongols could "Conquer the world on horses, but they couldn't govern the world on horses". The bad thing about Yuan is they did not care much about civil lives than war, war, and war.

My non Vietnamese military leaders (not in any particular order):

Alexander the Great (Maccedonian)
Julius Caesar (Roman)
Napoleon (French)
Abraham Lincoln (American, wasn't much of a military leader, but an extrodienary leader)
Hannibal (Carthagian)
Hàn Tín (Chinese)
Kublai Khan (Mongol)
William Wallace (Scottish)

lol how true.

Besides, many Han people detested the "Racial classification system". The people were divided into 4 classes. Mongol, then Color-Eyed ( mainly Northwestern and Tibetian minorities), then Han ( northern Han) and southerners ( southern Han). Khubilai Khan wasn't trying to be racist, rather, he was nervous. The Mongol population was less than 1 million. He didn't want the Mongols and other minorities to be taken advantages of just because their inferiority in numbers. However, the Han intellectuals who had spent most of their life time studying and studying, when they passed the civil exam, they could (at most) be assigned to the position of vice mayors of some small, unimportant villages. while the mongol soldiers who couldn't even write their names could hold high positions.

I personally don't think Vo Nguyen Giap is a great general at all. At the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the French only lost 2000 men while the Vietnamese lost around 8000.

oh, I thought he was widely worshipped and admired by many Vietnamese people. Wasn't the battle of Dien Bien Phu an important mark of France's downfall in Vietnam?

Who is your favorite Vietnamese hero tqt? Did we list already?

Yes, Vietnam was liberated because we won the battle of Dien Bien Phu but we lost more men than the French in that battle.

drunk on tea,

I admire many Vietnamese heroes and heroines but i personally don't have a favorite one.

I see, okay cool.

One notable Vietnamese heroine is General Bui Thi Xuan.