Âu Lạc in 218 B.C.

Âu Lạc — 218 BC · The Spiral Citadel on the Red River.

Âu Lạc — the kingdom of the Lạc Việt and the Âu Việt on the broad alluvial plain of the Red River, ruled from the spiralling ramparts of Cổ Loa. Not three generations past it was two peoples: the Lạc Việt of the wet-rice delta, governed by their hereditary Lạc lords, and the Âu Việt of the wooded hills above. The war-chief Thục Phán bound them into one realm, supplanting the ancient line of the Hùng kings of Văn Lang, and took the style An Dương Vương. His people are masters of bronze — they cast the great patterned drums, the socketed axes and spearheads, and the many-shafted crossbow that is the terror of the rice-fields. In 218 BC a shadow falls from the north: the newly unified empire of the Qin First Emperor is hurling its hosts into the Lingnan and the lands of the Hundred Yue, and all the Việt peoples rise to meet them among the forests and the marshes.

For an age the Red River plain was the country of Văn Lang under its Hùng kings, a loose web of Lạc lords each master of his own stretch of paddy and dyke. Then came Thục Phán out of the highlands, who joined his own Âu Việt to the Lạc Việt of the delta and made of the two a single kingdom, Âu Lạc, ruling as An Dương Vương from the new triple-walled fortress of Cổ Loa. The realm is rich in rice and bronze and skilled in war — yet now the whole world to the north is changed. The Qin have swallowed all the warring states of the Middle Kingdom under one First Emperor, and his generals are pushing armies and colonists south across the passes into Lingnan, into the very heart of the Hundred Yue. The Việt peoples do not yield easily: they melt into the jungle, fall on the supply lines, and make the southern marches a grave for invaders. Behind his spiral walls An Dương Vương watches the storm gather on his frontier.