Leaving Tay Son, following Nguyen Anh because… strange omen!

Nguyen Van Truong was born into a poor family in Le Duong district (now Thang Binh district), Quang Nam province. From a young age, he had to herd buffaloes to help his family, and often accompanied the children to herd buffalo to divide troops to fight fake battles. Growing up, Van Truong and his family went to Gia Dinh land to settle down.

Listen to heaven, follow Lord Nguyen

At this time in Dang Trong, the rightful god Truong Phuc Loan manipulated the court and imposed heavy taxes. Taking advantage of that situation, the three Tay Son brothers launched an uprising with the slogan of killing Truong Phuc Loan, supporting the descendant of Lord Nguyen, Nguyen Phuc Duong. The uprising was supported by many people.

In 1776, Nguyen Lu advanced to defeat Gia Dinh, Nguyen Van Truong asked to join the Tay Son army. Seeing that Van Truong had the talent to lead the army, Nguyen Lu appointed him Chief of Staff.

Nguyen Lu entered Gia Dinh citadel, took all his possessions, got on a boat and returned to Quy Nhon.

In 1777, the Tay Son army captured Gia Dinh again. Contrary to the slogan to support the descendants of Lord Nguyen, the Tay Son dynasty killed Nguyen Phuc Duong, Nguyen Phuc Thuan, and the royal family and brothers of Lord Nguyen. As for Nguyen Phuc Anh, who was only 15 years old at that time, he was lucky enough to have a child in a double family singing so he escaped death.

Nguyen Phuc Anh constantly had to flee before the pursuit of the Tay Son army. Thanks to the protection of the people of the South, many times Nguyen Phuc Anh narrowly escaped death.

In the battle at Long Xuyen, Tay Son army defeated Nguyen army, Nguyen Van Truong led troops to chase Nguyen Phuc Anh. Arriving at Tra Son, Nguyen Van Truong sent troops into the forest to pursue. However, when he was about to catch Nguyen Phuc Anh, a strange omen happened, there was no strong wind, but the big trees in the forest for some reason suddenly collapsed to block the road, helping Nguyen Phuc Anh to once again escape. Nguyen Van Truong intends to join Nguyen Phuc Anh since then.

Book “Dai Nam List Story” describe that: “Truong took his army to chase, almost caught up, suddenly saw a big tree in the forest without wind, but pulled it up, the road was blocked. “.

In 1787, Nguyen Vuong Nguyen Phuc Anh gathered forces, sent troops to Ha Tien and then stationed in the land of Long Xuyen. Realizing the fact that the three Tay Son brothers were at odds, they were unpopular, so Nguyen Van Truong brought 300 troops and 15 warships with him to Nguyen Vuong.

Talented Marine General

From here, Nguyen Van Truong made a great contribution to the Nguyen dynasty. The book “Gia Dinh past and present” describes that: He “understood the responsibility of controlling the vanguard of the marines, he proved worthy of Nguyen Vuong’s trust”.

Nguyen Van Truong was very good at using marines, and made many merits for the Nguyen army during the confrontations with the Tay Son army. The book “Dai Nam List Tales” describes: “Truong Tai about naval battles, where the enemy must flee immediately, once told each other that: In ground warfare, the pioneers are slow, in naval battles, the middle troops are enthusiastic,” said Nguyen Van Thanh. Clever but slow, Truong is enthusiastic but fast”.

In 1801, the historic Thi Nai battle took place, this was the key battle that made the Nguyen army conquer Tay Son. In this battle, Nguyen Van Truong played a key role. Accordingly, he filled his 18 boats with firearms pretending to be Tay Son boats, then used secret commands to enter Thi Nai lagoon, suddenly using fire to attack Tay Son ships. Tay Son’s battleships anchored close to each other immediately caught fire and encountered strong winds, so the fire spread from one ship to another.

This victory of the Nguyen army made the Tay Son marines almost annihilated, the warships of the Nguyen army roamed freely and completely controlled the waterway.

After this battle, the Nguyen army captured Phu Xuan citadel, Tay Son king Canh Thinh could not resist and hastily fled.

Last important battle

At this time, the Tay Son dynasty had run out of troops, King Canh Thinh had to order the towns to get more troops, intending to return to capture the capital.

Nguyen Phuc Anh sent troops to Tran Ninh (Quang Binh region) to block the way of Tay Son army to Phu Xuan.

In early 1802, the Tay Son army met the Nguyen army at Tran Ninh. Previously, Lord Nguyen Phuc Tan built Tran Ninh and Sa Phu citadel to rely on each other to prevent Trinh lords extremely effectively. Now the Nguyen lords used the Tran Ninh citadel to stop the Tay Son army.

The Tay Son side, led by the female general Bui Thi Xuan, only canceled the fight very fiercely, using all her strength to attack Tran Ninh.

Meanwhile, at Nhat Le estuary, Nguyen Van Truong commanded a marine team to attack Tay Son navy. Nguyen’s army won a great victory and captured most of the warships, Tay Son general Nguyen Van Kien surrendered.

The news of the defeat at Nhat Le estuary quickly spread to Tran Ninh, causing the Tay Son army to suddenly become confused. Female general Bui Thi Xuan, despite her talent, could not be stopped. After this battle, the Tay Son army deserted a lot and no longer had the strength to fight.

After that, the Nguyen army officially defeated Tay Son, Nguyen Phuc Anh was crowned King with the name Gia Long.

The blessed general of the Nguyen Dynasty

A talented general who made a lot of merit, but Nguyen Van Truong was very humble, kind and didn’t care about fame.

When he was a general Tay Son, once he defeated the Nguyen army and pursued. The defeated Nguyen army waded across the river to escape, the Tay Son army gathered to stab him, Nguyen Van Truong stopped his army saying: “It is not a strong person’s danger to stab someone”, so many people escaped death. . Even when he became a general of the Nguyen army, he also behaved the same way with the Tay Son army.

Nguyen Van Truong avoids killing people, not because of victory or advantage, but arbitrarily kills people. Is that why he led the army to win? He only lost a single battle at Than Tu Mountain in 1801 because the deputy general did not listen to his instructions.

The Dai Nam Book of Tales also states that he “knew how to keep the law carefully, not boasting about his merits, so even though he was originally a general, he was loved by the king before and after, few people kept up with him.” King Gia Long praised “it is very rare to be a general with benevolence like Truong”.

After defeating Tay Son, Nguyen Van Truong was appointed Governor of the North citadel. There was a year because of the flood and the people were hungry. He arbitrarily opened a warehouse to distribute food to the people, then he was reprimanded for this.

In 1805, Nguyen Van Truong was appointed Luu town Gia Dinh. He was a reasonable mandarin, so Gia Dinh people trusted and respected him.

In 1810, Nguyen Van Truong died in Phu Xuan due to old age and weak health, aged 70 years. On the day of burial, the King personally took the boat to the Perfume River to take it away, the mandarins all came to attend the sacrifice ceremony. During the reign of King Minh Mang, he was worshiped at The Mieu Temple.

Nguyen Van Truong’s descendants are all famous. The second son, Nguyen Van Van, was promoted to the rank of Deputy General of the Central Army, as an official of the Field Marshal. The youngest son, Nguyen Van Ngoan, was married to Princess Binh Thai by King Gia Long, and became an official of Kham sai, marshal, and governor of Thanh Hoa town.

Dai Nam’s book of stories spent nearly half of volume 8 just writing about “blessed general” Nguyen Van Truong.