Nguyễn Công Trứ

Nguyễn Công Trứ (阮公著) also Hi Văn (Uy Viễn, Hà Tĩnh 1778–1858) was a Vietnamese poet and scholar.

When he was an officer in charge of farms (a General takes on agriculture owing to being ordered by the King), Nguyễn Công Trứ broke fresh ground to bring farmers 45.990 acres of enriched rice fields.

To give credit for his distinguished civil services, the residents set up Nguyễn Công Trứ’s shrines.

The king gave him valuables such as hundreds of ingots of silver, an agate sculpture of horse, a gong bearing a golden inscription “Lao năng khả tưởng” (the meaning: his credits and devotion to duty deserves rewarding).

Furthermore, in the event of Kim Son’s and Tien Hai’s bumper crops, the residents invited the 75-year-old mandarin to join the harvest festival as a red-carpet treatment, and dishonest officials vilified him a rebel leader in Kim Son and Tien Hai but then he succeeded in justifying himself to King Tự Đức.

When French colonists invaded Viet Nam in 1858, Nguyễn Công Trứ was one of feudal intellectuals bravely fighting against the enemy’s deployment.

Besides, he went unhesitatingly: “Should I be at my last gasp, I will fight tooth and nail for the country’s freedom and independence.” Nguyễn Công Trứ died on 7 December 1858.

Many poems of Nguyễn Công Trứ’s is on Vietnamese high school curriculum, namely “BÀI CA NGẤT NGƯỞNG” and “NỢ NAM NHI”.