The Trưng Sisters (Part 3)


(…continued fromThe Trưng Sisters Part 2)

And so it was, hidden in the mists of the jungles, within the dark dank caves of the mountainous region of Mê Linh that Trưng Trắc and her sister, Trưng Nhị, along with an entire regiment of rebels began their year-long preparation to go up against General Tô Định.

To understand the scope of what the sisters were dealing with, the geography has to be clearly drawn and delineated.  Mê Linh, where the sisters were born is actually present day Trường Sa city of Hồ Nam region (Changsha, Hunan, China).  To this day, the Chinese have no idea what the name Changsha means or what the origin of that name comes from, but all they have to do is ask the Vietnamese.  We know what that name means because it is Vietnamese in origin.

Changsha Hunan

It is also here, in Mê Linh that the earliest versions of the Tao Te Ching were found—but that’s another story for another day.  Today, I want to focus on the Trưng sisters.

Although it might have been romantic to draw a picture of an entire rebel army going up against a cruel General and his high-handed militia due to the death of their king, that was not the driving factor behind the uprising.  in this case, it was not about the death of Dương Thi.  Oh no.  A single human life, royal though he may be, would not have been enough to propel an entire region of rebels to join the Trưng sisters’ cause.

It was actually General Tô Định’s blood that the rebels wanted.  Everywhere he went, the Han oppression fell on the people in wave after wave of frontal attack.  Given free reign to do as he pleased by the Emperor of China, Tô Định went mad, fueled by his lust for power and glory.  His methods to subjugate the Viet people and assimilate them into the folds of the Han empire were barbaric and unbearable to the point that people were seeking out the twin sisters to join the revolution.

beautiful princess 39Surprisingly enough, the ranks began to swell with women from all ranks and classes, eager and determined to join the cause of the rebels.

Many of them were widows whose husbands had fallen under the sword of Tô Định and his men.  Many more were victims of raped and torture by the militia.

Young and old alike, they found the sisters and asked to join the rebellion.  The sisters, who were very well-versed with martial arts and weaponry, took them in and trained them all in various methods of weapons combat as well as hand-to-hand combat and basic martial arts.

It took a year, but they were finally ready.

In the early spring of 40AD, the Trưng sisters led the ragtag rebel group out of hiding, towards the border of their mother’s land, Mê Linh,

As soon as the rebel group came into view of Tô Định’s men, the Trưng sisters let out a wild cry and began waving their gold flags to start the fight.

Hai Ba Trung

Everywhere Tô Định’s men could see, there were women with weapons, charging at them left and right, like crazed animals.  It was highly organized and it was lethal.  Tô Định’s men did not know what hit them.  Not only were the foot soldiers women, but so were the generals and the commanding officers.  The female fighting battalion was a force to be reckoned with.  Some of the women were even pregnant, but that did not stop them from cutting down Tô Định’s men like butter.

Nothing stopped them.

It wasn’t long before Tô Định’s forces were whittled down to almost nothing.  Town after town, village after village, kingdom after kingdom, the Trưng sisters moved their forces forward, regaining 65 citadels that had been under the dominion of Tô Định for so many years.

beautiful-princess 36b

As the sisters moved forward, they gained more and more followers and sympathetic supporters.  It seemed they could not lose.  Within a month, Tô Định had been defeated, his corpse, among many others, lie rotting on the battlefield.

Never in the history of ancient Asia had there been such brave and powerful women, willing and able to defeat an entire Han Chinese force from the north.  The people loved them and everywhere they went, gold flags were flown and their names were sung.  The people called them Vua Bà, or women monarchs and for three years, the sisters reigned over the entire region of Hồ Nam (Hunan) all the way down to the edge of present-day north Vietnam.

Of course, within these three years, the Han from the north were not sitting idly by.  They had one last card to play—and play them they did.

(…to be continued)


Thuỷ Kinh Chú.  Lệ Đạo Nguyên

 Lục Độ Tập Kinh.  Lê Mạnh Thát

Hậu hán Thư.  Lưu Long



The Trưng Sisters (Part 2)

prince 2

(…continued from Part 1)

His name was Dương Thi.  He was barely 20 years old when he married the headstrong, talented, intelligent, and beautiful Trưng Trắc, princess of the Mê Linh region, a province north of present-day Hà Nội.

His father, Dương Thái Bình, who was the king’s physician and also part of the royal family, ascended to the throne after the king’s death.  He ruled over the Châu Diên region which bordered the Mê Linh region.  This meant that Dương Thi was next in line for the throne of the small kingdom of Châu Diên, hence the importance of his marriage-of-state with princess Trưng Trắc.

Dương Thi was a shy and gentle scholar who was more suited to be a physician than a king.  He was, at heart, a healer, a philosopher, and a writer who was more interested in having peaceful, happy, well-fed, and healthy subjects than he was with fighting and opposing the enemy.  He was quite unlike his brash, bold wife, the beautiful and irascible Trưng Trắc, who was excellent at martial arts and the wielding of arms.  It was truly a perfect combination of yin and yang.  He tempered her with reasoned wisdom and she propelled his actions with force and intensity.

Soon after his marriage to Trưng Trắc, his father passed away, leaving behind the Châu Diên region for Thi Sách and his wife to govern.


Their rule should have been a long and prosperous one.

Unfortunately, at this time, there was a major occupation of the Han Chinese over the Vietnamese territories which had occurred back in 221 BC, after the Era of Warring States, starting with the Qin Dynasty, and later on the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.

Under the rule of Zhou, many regions were culled together to create a huge Chinese Empire.  The kings of each small kingdoms were allowed to independently rule the regions they held, but they were under the jurisdiction and immediate control of the Chinese Emperor and the henchmen who were sent to keep the small kingdoms in line.

The henchman who was sent to carry out the orders of the Chinese Emperor was General Tô Định.

prince 4

According to the history books, Tô Định was cruel and merciless, taking lives and property without impunity.  He established a stronghold in the Châu Diên region that Dương Thi ruled and there he maintained his strong-arm hold of brutality.  The villagers endured countless harsh treatment and continued harassment and pillage under the administration of General Tô Định and his men.  The brutality got so bad that they could no longer endure the harshness of his militia-style enforcement.  They grouped together and went to king Dương Thi for intervention and assistance.

Meanwhile, Tô Định was busy ravaging other areas that had come under his jurisdiction.  His arm of influence reached out across that entire region which also included the neighboring Mê Linh region, which was north of present day Sông Hồng (Red River) or Yuan River (沅江), where Trưng Trắc’s mother, Man Thiện ruled as queen.  As strong as she had to be, she could not afford to raise shy girls who did nothing but embroidery all day.  They had to be strong.  They had to be able to handle the day-to-day workings of holding the reigns.  They had to be political scholars and educated in the art and science of warfare.  They had to know how to fight with arms and without.  They had to be strong women, just as she herself was strong.

The Trưng sisters were that and much, much more.  The were also exquisite beauties, their various talents, well-known.  This soon reached the ears of General Tô Định, who decided that he had to have one of the daughters as his wife and consort.  The elder of the twins was already married to king Dương Thi, but the other was still single.

beautiful-princess 31

He was determined to gain Trưng Nhị for himself.

It did not take him long before he took his armed forces to visit Queen Man Thiện.  The queen received his visits gracefully, but declined his numerous attempts at courtship towards her remaining unmarried daughter, Trưng Nhị.  She absolutely did not want any of her children near this cruel and vicious man.

He was still trying, in vain, to obtain Trưng Nhị, by hook or by crook when he received a letter from Dương Thi, demanding that Tô Định desist in his cruel tactics towards the citizens of the realm or face retribution.  The tone of the letter was such that it raised Tô Định’s wrath against Dương Thi to such an intense level that he immediately took his retinue back to the Châu Diên region with the intention of killing two birds with one stone.

The Trưng sisters were twins.  One was just as good as the other, but with the added zest and excitement of a personal conquest and domination from of the hands of a pesky local overlord, Trưng Trắc became a prize to be obtained by force.  She would be his trophy, his spoils of war.  He was going to have to deal with this rogue lesser-king in person and claim his prize.

Upon returning to Châu Diên, he immediately sought out king Dương Thi at his family home.  There ensued a great shouting match and then a huge fight.  Although Dương Thi was more a scholar than a fighter, his role demanded that he also learn martial arts.  Unfortunately, outnumbered and caught unawares and weaponless within the walls of his own home, he and his entire extended Dương family was murdered to the last man, woman, and child, their home razed and burned to the ground.

Unable to defend queen Trưng Trắc, a small retinue of his followers fled, taking her back to her mother’s home, in Mê Linh for protection.  Heartbroken and in anguish over the loss of her beloved husband, Trưng Trắc was not allowed any time to mourn for her great loss.  Instead, she spent the next year in hiding, moving about her mother’s lands, holing up in one cave or another, moving from forest glen to mountain temple, and barely existing just to evade her pursuer, Tô Định, and his men.

son-doong-cave 2

It was here, somewhere amongst the catacombs of caves within the tall ancient forests of Mê Linh  that Trưng Trắc, along with her sister Trưng Nhị and their queen mother, hatched out a plan to extract revenge for the murder of her husband, king Dương Thi.

It was a doozie of a plan!

(…to be continued)