Qualla: Lệ Thủy https://qualla.com/le-thuy-district en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:39:18 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/5/c/le-thuy-district-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lệ Thủy https://qualla.com/le-thuy-district Lệ Thủy: Introduction https://qualla.com/le-thuy-district/ Photo credit Genghiskhanviet, Public domain. Two men from the same stretch of river plain ended up on opposite sides of the twentieth century. Võ Nguyên Giáp was born in the village of An Xá on 25 August 1911, in the old canton of Đại Phong Lộc, and went on to command the army that broke the French at Điện Biên Phủ. From Đại Phong in that same canton came the Ngô Đình family — Ngô Đình Khả, and his son Ngô Đình Diệm, the first president of South Vietnam. Lệ Thủy is a modest place: rice fields, a slow river, sand dunes, fishing hamlets. It supplied the century with both of its answers.

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/5/c/le-thuy-district-wp/w75c-l-th-y-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lệ Thủy: Water in Every Name https://qualla.com/le-thuy-district/ Photo credit Genghiskhan, CC BY-SA 3.0. Look at a list of Lệ Thủy's villages and one syllable repeats past the point of coincidence. Hồng Thủy, Ngư Thủy, Thanh Thủy, Lộc Thủy, Hoa Thủy, Cam Thủy, Sen Thủy, Mỹ Thủy — thủy is water, and this is a place defined by it. The land tilts from the Annamite Range in the west, al...

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Image: Genghiskhan | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/5/c/le-thuy-district-wp/w75c-l-th-y-water-in-every-name.mp3 0:06 2 full Lệ Thủy: 29 November https://qualla.com/le-thuy-district/ Photo credit Genghiskhan, CC BY-SA 3.0. Over the day and night of 28-29 November 1947, French troops came to Mỹ Trạch, a village in Mỹ Thủy commune. They forced the residents to the foot of the bridge, lined them up and killed them with machine-gun fire. Women and girls were raped before they were murdered. When it was...

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Image: Genghiskhan | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/5/c/le-thuy-district-wp/w75c-l-th-y-29-november.mp3 0:06 3 full Lệ Thủy: The Call and the Answer https://qualla.com/le-thuy-district/ Photo credit Toanvungtau, Public domain. Lệ Thủy's oldest surviving art form is an argument set to music. Hò khoan Lệ Thủy is a folk song of the river communities, sung antiphonally: performers split into two sides, sometimes men against women, sometimes one village against the next, and trade improvised verses in plain...

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/5/c/le-thuy-district-wp/w75c-l-th-y-the-call-and-the-answer.mp3 0:06 4 full Lệ Thủy: The Trail and the Highway https://qualla.com/le-thuy-district/ Photo credit Genghiskhanviet, Public domain. The western third of Lệ Thủy is Annamite mountain, and during the Vietnam War the Hồ Chí Minh trail ran through it — the supply network that made the war in the south possible, threaded through some of the most heavily bombed terrain in the world. What runs through the district n...

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/5/c/le-thuy-district-wp/w75c-l-th-y-the-trail-and-the-highway.mp3 0:06 5 full Lệ Thủy: The Name That Was Demoted https://qualla.com/le-thuy-district/ Photo credit Genghiskhan, CC BY-SA 4.0. In June 2025 Vietnam rebuilt its map. Quảng Bình province, which had contained Lệ Thủy since long before either Giáp or Diệm was born, was dissolved and merged into Quảng Trị, and the district tier of government was abolished nationwide. Lệ Thủy district — 1,400 square kilometres...

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]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/5/c/le-thuy-district-wp/w75c-l-th-y-the-name-that-was-demoted.mp3 0:06 6 full