Di tích lịch sử Quốc gia đặc biệt Bạch Đằng

This guide to the Bach Dang historic site in Ha Long returns to April 1288, when a Mongol fleet retreating down this river after failing to take the Tran capital met the Vietnamese commander Tran Hung Dao, who had spent weeks studying its tides. It traces how his men hammered ironwood stakes into the riverbed at low tide, hidden again once the water rose, and the small boats sent to lure the fleet upriver. The stakes themselves lay buried for centuries, until villagers digging a dyke here in 1953 struck ironwood instead of soil.