Phạm Vân Bằng (Trung Vuong High School class of 1958-1966)

(This article was printed on Mầu Kỷ Niệm Special Issue of Trung Vuong Alumni Association of Southern California, published on the occasion of 2023 Global Conference of Trung Vuong Alumi).   

-The year: 39 AD to 43 AD

-The People: Việt race in different settlements Lạc Việt, Mân Việt, Nam Việt and Âu Lạc

-The Place: Mê Linh, Giao Chỉ, Nhật Nam, Cửu Chân, Hợp Phố, Thương Ngô, Lĩnh Nam, Ngũ Lĩnh Mountain Ranges

More than two millennia ago, Viet people were scattered in different settlements and regions, in a large swath of land, south of Ngũ Lĩnh Mountain Ranges. All, on and off, were under Chinese domination. The largest settlement was known as Nam Viet located in Giao Chi, Giao Chau and Nam Hai and other regions in the south. The Viet race was dominated and their land taken by the Chinese for 150 years before the year 39 AD. Tô Định, then, a ruthless Chinese Governor with his headquarters at Giao Chỉ, ran an atrocious and oppressive regime over the region, systematically destroying the Viet culture and identity, forcing the assimilation of the Viet into becoming Chinese, intending to erase the Viet race from the face of the earth.  His savagery effort met with stiffened determination of Viet people to preserve their heritage.

The Viet leaders at the time came from the respected families who were asked by the Chinese to serve as intermediary officials in their governance. Among them were Thi Sách family of Châu Diên and the Trưng Family in the neighboring Châu Phong district.

Thi Sách was the son of a respected Lạc Hầu family. The Trưng family belonged to King Hùng Lineage with its matriarch Lady Man Thiện, a great-great grand-daughter of the last King Hùng. The parents were both warriors. Their daughters Trưng Trắc and her younger sister Trưng Nhị, were born to become leaders of the people. Impressively strong, intelligent, hardworking, decisive, and visionary. They were trained and became avid learners and practitioners of literature, martial and military arts. Sharing their disdain for the Chinese atrocity, the two families gradually formed a coalition and called on other families and regional leaders to join in with the effort to protest against the Chinese inhuman treatment of the Viet people. The marriage of Trưng Trắc and Thi Sách strengthened the tie between the two families in their common effort to oppose the Chinese policy.

Feeling threatened by the anti-Chinese spirit among Viet people and their leaders, particularly Thi Sach and the Trung Sisters, To Dinh ordered the execution of Thi Sách aiming to instill fear in people, and, as a result, suppressing for good the anti-Chinese spirit.

His savagery act, on the contrary, was met with Viet people and the Trưng sisters’ unbending determination to liberate themselves from the yoke of subjugation.

On or about September 4, Kỷ Hợi year i.e., 39 AD, donned the full military regalia, sword in hand, her sister Trưng Nhị by her side, Trưng Trắc made the immortal and solemn vows before a gathering of the people from various families, regions, and districts:

Một xin rửa sạch nước thù
Hai xin đem lại nghiêm xưa họ Hùng
Ba kẻo oan ức lòng chồng
Bốn xin trọn vẹn sử công lênh này

First, I pledge to completely eliminate the enemies of our country
Second, I pledge to restore the lineage of King Hung
Third, I pledge to avenge my husband’s death
Fourth, I pledge to achieve all the objectives of my mission.

These words were the eternal gift the Trưng Sisters gave to the entire Viet race. They were the Declaration of Independence that endowed Vietnamese with the power to rise to reclaim their dignity, their independence, their homeland, and to take control of their own destiny.

Legend has it that from that gathering, after hearing Trưng Trac’s pledges, a new army of 80,000 volunteers was formed. The Trưng revolutionary force launched the first attack at Mê Linh, the district’s capital. After defeating the Chinese soldiers there, the Trưng force moved on to take control of Cổ Loa citadel, then crossed the Hoàng River then the Đuống River, to attack and defeat the enemy at Luy Lâu fortress on the bank of the Dâu River. In a short span of time, the march of the people liberation force under the Trưng sisters’ leadership moved expeditiously to expel enemy forces from all 65 fortresses, citadels, and districts, taking back the country for the Viet people, not only in Giao Chỉ but extended to many other regions, reaching up to the southern piedmont of Ngũ Lĩnh Mountain Ranges. Chinese history recorded the fact that all other regions, including Hợp Phố, Lĩnh Nam, Nhật Nam, Cửu Chân, Nam Hải, had joined in with the Trưng sisters’ revolution. It should be noted  the majority of the Trưng generals and commanders were women who fought fiercely and heroically throughout all phases of the revolution.

Many Chinese generals, soldiers, officials were killed; the rest ran for their life, fleeing back to China.  In the meantime, waking up to the thunder of Viet soldiers approaching, being abandoned by his generals and soldiers, Tô Định threw away all the Chinese Emperor’s official decrees, orders and insignias of power, shaved his head, cut his facial hair, changed his clothes to disguise as a Viet peasant to escape back to China.

The Viet poorly armed and newly formed army under the leadership of the Trưng sisters defeating and expelling all Chinese occupying force from their territory sent a shockwave throughout the vast Chinese empire.

The people and the leaders of all 65 districts and prefectures honored and proclaimed the Trưng sisters their Queens. Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị ascended the throne and became the First Queens of Viet people.

Angry and worried by that humiliating defeat, Chinese Emperor Hán Vũ Đế knew, if the victorious Viet revolution stood firm, his newly established Hán empire would be threatened. Determined to punish the Viet people quickly, Hán Vũ Đế dispatched Mã Viện, one of his most experienced generals, with the title of “Wave Conquering Marshal” to lead a massive force of several thousands of battle-scarred generals and soldiers, with two thousand battle ships, and several divisions of cavalry, fully equipped with advanced armaments, and sufficient logistic systems to support the new war with Viet people. Mã Viện invaded Việt country in three directions of attack.

The Viet army lacked training and experience, equipped only with rudimentary weapons, fought heroically, every step of the way, from the border region to the highland to the plain, in the rivers and up on the mountains, inflicting serious losses to the enemies. Several generals and almost half of the Chinese soldiers were killed in battle or due to sickness and diseases.

However, the newly constituted Viet force, regardless of their valiant sacrifices, did not have the time and the necessary means to stop the onslaught of the massive Chinese well trained and well-equipped invading forces. Near the end, around May of the year 43 AD, the Trưng sisters withdrew to the Hát River where Trưng Trắc had made her vows to the people at the dawn of the revolution.

As the enemy approaching, our two heroines Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị continued to fight to their last breath.  Determined not to allow the Chinese to capture and humiliate the leaders of the Viet revolution, the Trưng Sisters drowned themselves in the Hát River. They had achieved their missions!

By their death, they allowed the Viet people and their country to be alive, forever. As noted by scholar Phạm Huy Thông, “it is a death that never dies.” Our two heroines completed all the objectives of their missions.  The few short years of their reign and continous battles with the Chinese marks the glorious history of the first two greatest heroines of Viet history.

Their immeasurable and unimaginable sacrifice, inspired generations of writers, poets and historians, Vietnamese and Chinese alike. Famous Vietnamese historian Ngô Sĩ Liên of the 15th century wrote “there are no greater spirits than theirs in all of heaven and earth.”   Scholar Cao Huy Diệu wrote in 1715 that the appeal of the Trungs’ declaration of war against the Chinese for independence was an affair of “lifting the heavens and pulling up the earth.”

The popular poem of an unknown Chinese author, written a few years after the war had ended, reflects the poetic and angelical admiration, respect and mesmerization of many Chinese intellectuals for Hai Bà’s heroism.

“cloud of hair,
snow-white shoulders,
fragrant breath,
skin of ivory…
a smile more joyous than a blossoming flower,
leading her army against the Chinese…” 

With their death, they made the whole nation anew, independent, proud, and dignified. In life and in death they instilled in the Viet people the confidence and honor to stand tall to protect and preserve their nation, race, and homeland. Infused by their glorious sacrifice, generations after generations continue to honor them with their own devotion to the survival of the country in times of peril.

The Trưng Revolution began 2000 years ago. The journey they started continues with every generation thereafter. The words they spoke, the battles they fought shall never fade in the hearts and minds of the Viet people of today and tomorrow.

To honor them, Vietnamese people everywhere build temple to worship Hai Bà, and organize annual celebrations and commemorations of the Trung Queens’ glorious sacrifice. In particular, we, former students of the beloved high school, graced with the greatest honor of bearing their names “Trưng Vương”, have also done so in the last several decades in California and elsewhere.

As I write these concluding words, tears welled up in my eyes and pride flooded my mind. Yes, in human history there have never been any comparable great heroines like our Trung Queens. Suddenly, I see myself kneeling down on the bank of the Hát River, listening to its glistening water flowing as it continues to wash away the pain and humiliation our people had suffered under the Chinese domination. And I pray “Sacred water, please never stop! You contain the soul of our nation and the spirit of our people.”  I thank the Hát river for having nursed the sacred bodies of our most beloved and greastest heroines who are smiling at us, telling us to keep our nation and our people safe, independent, strong, and to cherish what they have given us: a land called Viet Nam, a people called Vietnamese.

Epilogue

2023 will be remembered by many of us as the year of the “International Grand Reunion of Trung Vuong High School alumni and teachers” organized by the Southern California Trung Vuong Alumni Association. The Editorial Committee of the “2023 International Grand Reunion of Alumni and Teachers of Trung Vuong High School Year Book” assigned me the task of writing an essay in honor of Hai Ba Trung on this special occasion.

Within the very brief time frame set by the Editorial Committee, this essay reflects my limited ability to account for the enormity of the glorious sacrifice and historically unparallel endeavor of the Trung Sisters to save our Viet race. The “facts” cited herein are from my superficial survey of a few historical writings of both Vietnamese and Chinese historians, legends and folktales about the two Trung Queens and their eternal influence on the past, the present and the future of our Vietnamese race and country. Fundamentally, this essay is more the expression of the emotion that filled my heart when I let my soul drift along the current of our history which began with Hai Ba Trung era more than two thousand years ago, imagining a primitive society consisting of many tribes of the same race, living separately under the atrocious and harsh rule of the northern enemy.

Finally, I thank the Editorial Committee of this Special Year Book and the Organizing Committee of this 2023 International Grand Reunion, for having assigned me this task. They make me think more deeply than ever before about the unparallel historical endeavor of Hai Ba Trung, the greatest Heroines of humankind and of our Viet race. To All my fellow alumni and to Everyone who read this article, My Sincere Thanks!