Đào Duy Từ

Đào Duy Từ 陶維慈
Born	1572 Tĩnh Gia, Thanh Hóa Province, Annam
Died	1634 (62–63 years old) Phú Xuân
Pen name	Lộc Khê
Occupation	Official
Nationality	Annamese

Đào Duy Từ (1572–1634) was a Vietnamese scholar, poet, military adviser, and mandarin who served under the reign of Nguyễn lord Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên.

Đào Duy Từ, born in Hoa Trai village, Ngọc Sơn, Tĩnh Gia, Thanh Hóa (present day Vân Trai, Hải Nhân, Tĩnh Gia District, Thanh Hóa Province), was a son of Đào Tả Hán, a Vietnamese folk singer, who died when Từ was five years old. After this Từ was raised solely by his mother, a woman named Vũ Thị Kim Chi. When Từ was 14 years old his mother sent him to study Confucianism under a local scholar named Nguyễn Đức Khoa. Đào Duy Từ was however forbidden from taking the court examination because his father's profession as a folk singer was considered the most shameful profession under the Confucian system of the Lê Dynasty.

Từ's mother managed to bribe a low-ranking mandarin named Lưu Minh Phương to change Tu's surname from Đào to Vũ which gave Từ a chance to take the court examination. In 1593, Đào Duy Từ, under the false name Vũ Duy Từ, passed his first court examination which prompted Lưu Minh Phương to demand that Từ's mother marry him as a payment for his help. Phương's demand was rejected and therefore he angrily reported the case of Đào Duy Từ to a local mandarin. Because of this Từ was expelled from the examination school while he was taking the second court examination in Thăng Long. After learning of this failure his mother blamed herself and committed suicide by cutting her throat. Both his mother's death and his failure in the examination lead to Từ becoming seriously ill. After some years of inactivity, Đào Duy Từ went south to the land of Nguyễn Lords.

After arriving in southern Vietnam, Đào Duy Từ attempted to meet Lord Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên but failed. After that, Từ became a worker for a landlord named Chúc Trịnh Long in Tùng Châu (present day Bồng Sơn, Bình Định Province) in order to get close to Trần Đức Hòa, a neighbor of Chúc Trịnh Long and a mandarin of Lord Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên. This attempt was a success: after leaning of Từ's ability, Trần Đức Hòa gave his daughter's hand to Đào Duy Từ and hired him as the family tutor . At this time, Từ composed a famous Vietnamese language poem, "Ngọa Long Cương Vãng" (Singing of a Lying Dragon), in which he compared himself to famous Chinese military strategist Zhuge Liang.

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