Giao Chau under the Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties

The last episode told how Si Nhiep held Giao Chau through the turmoil of the Three Kingdoms. When this episode opens, his time is over, and Giao Chau is ground that the Wu and the Jin keep snatching back and forth.¹

Read the history of the next two hundred years, and something odd stands out. In Giao Chau, the post of regional inspector keeps quietly staying inside a few families. One family had five men as inspector across four generations. Another, father first and then son, kept the province at peace. And at the very end, a man of Giao Chi took the province for himself, and the court then granted his cousin that very post.²

This episode stops at four events, in order of time. For each one it says plainly whether the Vietnamese histories copied it down, or whether the story survives only in Chinese books.

The Jin shu, the history of the Jin dynasty, says that Giao Chi slipped out of Wu hands because its governor, Ton Tu, was greedy and cruel, and because of an inspecting officer named Dang Tuan.

Just then the inspecting officer Dang Tuan arrived, and on his own authority demanded three thousand peacocks, to be sent to Moling.¹

But open the Dai Viet su ky toan thu, and the number is quite different. The Complete Annals record thirty birds, sent to Jianye. The Viet su luoc also says thirty.³⁴

Three thousand or thirty. The whole difference is one character, thousand, against another, ten. And the sources read for this episode do not tell us which side miscopied.

The Wu sent an army to win Giao Chi back. The man leading it in this story is Dao Hoang. The Complete Annals put the advance in two hundred and sixty-nine, and the battle at Phan Thuy in two hundred and seventy-one. The Jin shu gives no year for the individual battles.³

The Jin shu tells how he beat Dong Nguyen by a ruse. Then he took several thousand bolts of brocade and silk, seized earlier from the treasure ships, and gave them to Luong Ky, the rebel chief at Phu Nghiem; and Ky brought more than ten thousand men to help Hoang.¹ The Complete Annals copy this story, but change the chief’s name to Luong Te.³

The Jin shu also keeps a sentence in his own words, about the people on the far shore.

The southern shore depends on our salt and iron. Cut it off; do not sell to them.¹

According to the Jin shu, the lands of Vu Binh, Cuu Duc and Tan Xuong were rugged, and the Man people there were fierce and strong, and for generations had refused to submit. Dao Hoang put them down, and set up three commanderies, together with more than thirty districts belonging to Cuu Chan.¹

In two hundred and eighty, the Jin destroyed the Wu. Dao Hoang stayed on, and sent a memorial to the new court asking it not to cut the troops in Giao Chau. The memorial has two figures in it: beyond the frontier, Lam Ap is only seven hundred li away, and the troops under my command were from the start more than seven thousand men.⁵

The Complete Annals copy that memorial too, but there the figure becomes eight thousand.³

The Jin shu says of him: he was in the south thirty years, and his authority and his kindness were renowned among peoples of strange customs; when he died, the whole province wailed as if it had lost a loving father or mother.¹ The Complete Annals copy this almost exactly.³

The Jin shu goes on. His son Dao Uy, then governor of Thuong Ngo, was brought back to take up the post of inspector, and in office he won the people’s hearts, and after three years he died.¹

The Complete Annals copy that sentence almost word for word, adding only one character, the character for ten. In their version, Dao Uy held office thirty years before he died.³

The biography ends with a line summing up the whole family: from Co down to Tuy, four generations, five men governed Giao Chau.¹

In a province that far from the capital, an office granted by the court had begun to look like something handed down to one’s children.

The second event belongs to the Do family. The Song shu, the history of the Liu Song dynasty, opens the biography of Do Tue Do with three generations of background.

Do Tue Do was a man of Chu Dien, in Giao Chi. His family came from Jingzhao. His great-grandfather Nguyen was governor of Ninh Pho, and so stayed on in Giao Chi.⁶

So in the Chinese histories, this is a family of northern origin that had settled in Giao Chi from the great-grandfather’s time. The Complete Annals, writing about his father Do Vien, put it in a sentence chosen with care: Vien was a man of Chu Dien, of our country.⁷ Those words, "our country", belong to the Vietnamese court historians, not to the Song shu.

Do Vien’s great service was putting down a revolt. The Complete Annals record that Ly Ton, governor of Cuu Chan, rebelled in three hundred and eighty, and was beheaded the following year. The Song shu says only, briefly: Vien gathered troops and beheaded Ton, and the province was at peace.⁷⁶ The Viet su luoc calls this man Nguyen Ton, and at the end of this episode we will see that book turn the surname Ly into Nguyen twice more.⁴

In the seventh year of the Yixi era, that is, four hundred and eleven, Lu Tuan was beaten and fled from Guangzhou. The Jin shu records: Tuan then made a surprise attack on Hop Pho, took it, and advanced on Giao Chau. At Long Bien, the inspector Do Tue Do defeated him by a stratagem.⁸

The Song shu tells it at greater length. Tue Do led six thousand men, civil officials and soldiers alike, out to block Lu Tuan at Thach Ky. On the other side were two sons of Ly Ton, Ly Dich and Ly Thoat, who had fled to Thach Ky, banded together with the Ly and the Lao peoples, each of them with his own retainers, and gone over to Lu Tuan.⁶

Then came the battle at Long Bien. The Song shu records: on the Canh Ty day of the sixth month, Tuan reached the south landing at dawn, and ordered his whole army to take the city first and eat afterwards.⁶

That meal never came. Tue Do brought out all the private wealth of his clan to pay as rewards. Then they loosed fire arrows and pheasant-tail torches; foot soldiers lined both banks and shot from either side; every one of Tuan’s ships caught fire, and in a moment his force broke apart; Tuan was struck by an arrow, leapt into the water and died.⁶

The Jin shu tells that death differently. In the biography of Lu Tuan, before he died he poisoned his wife and children, asked his concubines which of them would die with him, and then threw himself into the water; Tue Do pulled the body out and cut off its head.⁸

The Complete Annals chose to follow the Jin shu’s version.⁷

Tue Do was made Marquis of Long Bien district, with the revenue of a thousand households.⁶

The Song shu places Do Tue Do’s life in its chapter of Good Officials, the chapter for officials who governed well, and describes how he ruled.

He stamped out the shrines of illicit cults and restored the schools; in years of bad harvest, when the people went hungry, he gave out relief from his own salary. And the history praises him: it came to the point that the city gates were not shut at night, and no one on the road picked up what others had dropped.⁶

According to the Song shu, Tue Do’s son, Do Hoang Van, also appears in that same biography.⁶ The Do, like the Dao before them, had become one of the families of Giao Chau.

The third event is the string of attacks by the kingdom of Lam Ap, the neighbour Dao Hoang said lay only seven hundred li away, on the lands of Nhat Nam and Cuu Chan.

The heaviest scene is in the Thuy kinh chu. Li Daoyuan records that in the second year of the Jianyuan era of the Jin, that is, three hundred and forty-four, Pham Van of Lam Ap attacked Nhat Nam, Cuu Duc and Cuu Chan; the common people fled in every direction; for a thousand li there was no smoke from a cooking fire; and only then did he go back to Lam Ap.⁹

That scene exists only in the Chinese histories. The Complete Annals do not have the name Pham Van at all. The Lam Ap raids they do record fall in the years three hundred and ninety-nine, four hundred and thirteen, four hundred and fifteen, four hundred and twenty, and four hundred and thirty-one.¹⁰

Do Tue Do was there for the raid of four hundred and thirteen, and the two sides record different endings. The Thuy kinh chu quotes a book called the Lam Ap ky: Do Tue Do came to the mouth of the Cuu Chan river, fought the Lam Ap king Pham Ho Dat, and captured and beheaded two of Ho Dat’s sons.¹¹ The Complete Annals say instead that Ho Dat raided Cuu Chan, and that Tue Do fought him and beheaded him.¹⁰ In one, two sons are beheaded. In the other, the king himself.

Once, Lam Ap came not with an army, but with a letter. The Song shu records that in the tenth year of the Yuanjia era, that is, four hundred and thirty-three, the Lam Ap king Pham Duong Mai sent envoys with a memorial and offerings of local produce, asking to be given Giao Chau to govern; the edict in reply said the road was long, and refused.¹² The Complete Annals put this one year earlier.¹⁰

Those words, "the road was long", in that refusal, are also what this whole episode is made of.

Eight hundred years later, Le Van Huu read this far and commented: Lam Ap took advantage of a time when our Viet country had no army, raided Nhat Nam and Cuu Chan, and asked to be given them. Then he leaps straight to the Ly dynasty, and treats the campaigns of Ly Thai Tong and Ly Thanh Tong against Champa as washing away the disgrace of that time.¹³ A thirteenth-century court historian was reading a fifth-century story as the story of his own country.

Some ten-odd years later, an army from the north marched on Lam Ap. The Song shu records: in the twenty-third year, the Dragon-Soaring General and inspector of Giao Chau, Dan Hoa Chi, was sent to attack.¹²

Which year that was, the books do not agree. The Song shu in its chapter on Lam Ap, the Thuy kinh chu and the Viet su luoc all give the twenty-third year of the Yuanjia era, that is, four hundred and forty-six. The biography of Tong Xac in the Song shu, and the Nan Qi shu, give a year earlier. The Complete Annals give the thirteenth year of the Yuanjia era, that is, four hundred and thirty-six, ten years off from every other book, the Viet su luoc included.^12149410

That army took the citadel of Khu Tuc. The Song shu records the outcome in the tone of a ledger: in the fifth month it fell; the chief commander Phu Long was beheaded; gold, silver and goods were taken beyond counting.¹²

The Thuy kinh chu describes what the Song shu passes over.

They beheaded the king of Khu Tuc, Pham Phu Long. Of everyone fifteen years old and over, they buried alive or cut down, and spared none. The towers and halls rained blood, and the corpses were heaped into mounds.⁹

The Vietnamese histories do record this expedition. The Complete Annals record Dan Hoa Chi setting out to attack, and even the story of Tong Xac and the fake lion.¹⁰ But the scene at Khu Tuc exists only in the Chinese histories, just like the thousand li without a cooking fire in three hundred and forty-four. The two cruellest scenes of this event, one on this side and one on the other, both reach us from the books of the north.⁹

The last event is the story of the Ly family, and its source is the Nan Qi shu, the history compiled by Xiao Zixian under the Liang. Before telling it, the compiler passes judgement on the province as a whole.

Giao Chau stands alone and cut off among the islands of the sea, holding sway over the countries beyond; and so, trusting in its strong position, it has many times refused to submit.²

Then the book tells the story.

At the start of the Taishi era of the Song, the inspector Truong Muc died. A man of Giao Chi, Ly Truong Nhan, killed Muc’s retainers who had come from the north, seized Giao Chau and rebelled; within a few years he fell ill and died. His younger cousin Thuc Hien carried on the affair; his orders were not yet obeyed, and he sent envoys to ask for the post of inspector.²

The northern official history itself draws the line plainly: Ly Truong Nhan was a man of Giao Chi, and the men he killed were retainers who had come from the north.

The Complete Annals copy this story, but differ in three places. They put it in four hundred and sixty-eight. They call the inspector Luu Muc, not Truong Muc. And they add a few words: Ly Truong Nhan seized the province and rebelled, and proclaimed himself inspector.¹⁵

The words "proclaimed himself inspector" are not in the Nan Qi shu. At that point the book says only that Truong Nhan seized the province and rebelled, while it was the younger cousin who sent envoys to ask for the post.² The Viet su luoc records the two men as well, but writes their surname as Nguyen: Nguyen Truong Nhan and Nguyen Thuc Hien.⁴

The Nan Qi shu records that Ly Thuc Hien, having received the court’s command, and with the people’s hearts behind him, raised troops, held the strong points, and would not let the newly appointed inspector into the province.²

Then the Qi replaced the Song. Toward the man who had put his troops across the gate, the new court acted like this: in the first year of the Jianyuan era of Taizu, that is, four hundred and seventy-nine, Thuc Hien was kept on as inspector of Giao Chau, by way of pacification.²

The man holding the province was not put down. His office was recognised after the fact.

The Nan Qi shu goes on: Thuc Hien accepted the appointment, and then cut himself off from the countries beyond, and his tribute was meagre.² The Complete Annals likewise record that once Thuc Hien had accepted the appointment, he cut off the tribute.¹⁵

He held the province a few more years. The Nan Qi shu gives the ending in one sentence: Thuc Hien, fearing a surprise attack, took the short road through Xiangchuan and went to the court.² That year was the third of the Yongming era, that is, four hundred and eighty-five, according to the collation note of a modern printed edition; the older text gives the first year of that era.¹⁶

Set the four events side by side, and a path appears. First the Dao: five inspectors in four generations, and, according to the Jin shu, a whole province weeping when Dao Hoang died.¹ Then the Do: from Jingzhao by origin, settled in Chu Dien since the great-grandfather’s time, called a man of Giao Chi by the Song shu and a man of our country by the Complete Annals.⁶⁷ Last the Ly: a man of Giao Chi who killed the northern troops and seized the province, and whose younger cousin was granted by the court the very post he had taken for himself.²

As for the sources: the Vietnamese histories copy the stories of the Dao, the Do and the Ly, keeping close to the Chinese histories but drifting on many of the numbers. Only the Lam Ap events are copied in part; the two most brutal scenes still lie in the Chinese books.

Next episode: The harsh policy of Tieu Tu.