An Dương Vương

An Dương Vương, personal name Thục Phán, was the founding king and the only ruler of the kingdom of Âu Lạc, an ancient state centered in the Red River Delta. As the leader of the Âu Việt tribes, he defeated the last Hùng king of the state of Văn Lang and united its people – known as the Lạc Việt – with his people, the Âu Việt. An Dương Vương fled and committed suicide after the war with Nanyue forces in 179 BCE.

Shu kingdom
According to traditional Vietnamese histories, An Dương Vương came from the Kingdom of Shu (in modern Sichuan), which was conquered by King Huiwen of Qin in 316 BCE. Many chronicles including Records of the Outer Territories of the Jiao province, the Đại Việt sử lược, and Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư state that he was a Shu prince (ms. "蜀王子", literal meaning: "son of the Shu king") or the king of Shu. Some historians doubt the authenticity of this origin. The kingdom of Shu was conquered by the Qin in 316 BCE, making An Dương Vương's position as either king or prince of Shu chronologically tenuous. However the connection between Proto-Vietnam and a region to their northwest may have some merit. There is solid archaeological evidence linking the culture of Yunnan in southwest China to the Proto-Vietnamese. According to Stephen O'Harrow, the exact origin of An Dương Vương might not have been Shu but somewhere else even further away. Due to the gap in time between the origin of the story and when it was recorded, the location could have been changed out of contemporary considerations, or simply mistaken due to an error in geographical knowledge. In the Khâm định Việt sử Thông giám cương mục, the writers expressed doubts about An Dương Vương's origin, claiming it was impossible for a Shu prince to cross thousands of miles, through forests, and many kingdoms to invade Văn Lang. However in the 1950s, historians Trần Văn Giáp and Đào Duy Anh argued that An Dương Vương's Shu origin was in fact true.

Nam Cương
In 1963, an oral tradition of Tày people in Cao Bằng titled Cẩu chủa cheng vùa "Nine Lords Vying for Kingship" was recorded. According to this account, at the end of Hồng Bàng dynasty, there was a kingdom called Nam Cương (lit. "southern border") in modern-day Cao Bằng and Guangxi. This was a confederation of 10 mườngs, in which the King resided in the central one (present-day Cao Bằng Province). The other nine regions were under the control of nine lords. When King An Dương's father (Thục Chế ) died, he was still a child; yet, his intelligence enabled him to retain the throne and all the lords surrendered. Nam Cương became more and more powerful while Văn Lang became weak. Subsequently, he invaded Văn Lang and founded the state of Âu Lạc in approximately 257 BCE, proclaiming himself King An Dương (An Dương Vương).

The story of An Dương Vương's origin in Nam Cương is considered suspect by some historians. The story was published in 1963 as a translation of a Tày story by Lã Văn Lô. In 1969 the Institute of Archaeology attempted to find the origin of this story in Cao Bằng but failed to identify any archaeological evidence for the tale. The investigation did find that the story was originally written down by Lê Đình Sự. Lê Đình Sự was Tày and collected various Tày stories and recorded them in prose. This was supposedly what Lã Văn Lô translated into Vietnamese but the investigation could not confirm whether or not this was true since the person who owned Lã Văn Lô's text had died. As such, some historians doubt the story's validity as a historical document. There is no extant copy of the original Tày version of the story. The title in Tày is Cẩu chủa chenh vùa but with the exception of "Cẩu"("nine" in Tai languages), the rest of the words are simply Vietnamese words with different tones or a minor difference in spelling.

Construction of Cổ Loa Citadel
Historical accounts claim, after purportedly taking power, Kinh An Dương ordered to construct a fortified settlement in Tây Vu known to history as Cổ Loa as his seat of power. It looked like a snail shell design (its name, Cổ Loa 古螺, means "old snail": according to Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư, the citadel is shaped like a snail ). The events associated with the construction of this spiral-shaped citadel are remembered in the legend of the golden turtle. According to this legend, when the citadel was being built, all the work done was mysteriously undone by a group of spirits led by thousand-year-old white chicken seeking to avenge the son of the previous king. In response to the king's plea, a giant golden turtle suddenly emerged from the water, and protected the King until the citadel's completion. The turtle gave the King one of his claws before leaving and instructed him to make a crossbow using it as a trigger, assuring him he would be invincible with it. A man called Cao Lỗ (or Cao Thông) was tasked to create that crossbow. It was then called "Saintly Crossbow of the Supernaturally Luminous Golden Claw" (靈光金爪神弩; SV: Linh Quang Kim Trảo Thần Nỏ); one shot could kill 300 men.

War with Nanyue
In 204 BCE, in Panyu (now Guangzhou), Zhao Tuo established the kingdom of Nanyue. Taylor (1983) believed that when Nanyue and Âu Lạc co-existed, Âu Lạc temporarily acknowledged Nanyue to show their mutual anti-Han sentiment, and this did not imply that Nanyue exerted any real authority over Âu Lạc. Nanyue's influence over Âu Lạc waned after relationship with Han dynasty become normal. The army Zhao Tuo had created to oppose the Han was now available to deploy against the Âu Lạc. Details of the campaign are not authentically recorded. Zhao Tuo's early setbacks and eventual victory against King An Dương were mentioned in Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region (交州外域記) and Records of the Taikang Era of the Jin (晉太康記). Records of the Grand Historian mentioned neither King An Duong nor Zhao Tuo's military conquest of Âu Lạc only that after Empress Lü's death (180 BCE), Zhao Tuo used his troops to menace and his wealth to bribe the Minyue, the Western Ou, and the Luo into submission. However, the campaign inspired a legend whose theme is the transfer of the turtle claw-triggered crossbow from King An Duong to Zhao Tuo. According to the myth, ownership of the crossbow conferred political power: "He who is able to hold this crossbow rules the realm; he who is not able to hold this crossbow will perish." Unsuccessful on the battlefield, Zhao Tuo asked for a truce and sent his son Zhong Shi to submit to King An Dương and serve him. There, he and King An Duong's daughter, Mỵ Châu, fell in love and were married. A vestige of the matrilocal organization required the husband to live in the residence of his wife's family. As a result, they resided at An Duong's court until Zhong Shi discovered the secrets and strategies of King An Dương. Meanwhile, King An Duong mistreated Cao Lỗ, and he left. Zhong Shi had Mỵ Châu showed him the crossbow, at which point he secretly changed its trigger, neutralizing its special powers and rendering it useless. He then asked to return to his father, who thereupon launched a new attack on Âu Lạc and this time defeated King An Dương. History records that, with his defeat, the King was told by the turtle about his daughter's betrayal and killed his daughter for her treachery before going into the watery realm.

Legacy
Vietnamese historians typically view the main events of the era as having roots in historical fact. However concordance of the history with Soviet doctrine of history was incomplete in the 1950s. The capital of King An Dương, Cổ Loa, was the first political center of the Vietnamese civilization pre-Sinitic era. The site consists of two outer sets of ramparts and a citadel on the inside, of rectangular shape. The moats consist of a series of streams, including the Hoang Giang River and a network of lakes that provided Cổ Loa with protection and navigation. Kim estimated the population of Cổ Loa possibly ranged from 5,000 to around 10,000 inhabitants.

In popular culture

 * The British video game Stronghold : Warlords.