Phung Hung, Bo Cai Dai Vuong

The last episode ended in 722, when the rising of Mai Thuc Loan was put down by Tang troops. Nearly seventy years later, the seat of the Protectorate of Annam was under siege again.

This time there is something odd. Open the Chinese histories and we find the siege, we find the protector-general dead, we even find the name of the man who led it. But that name is not Phung Hung.¹

The name is Do Anh Han. And in the Vietnamese national history Do Anh Han is there too — but only as a man of the same village who drew up a plan for Phung Hung.²

The earliest is the Old Book of Tang, compiled in the middle of the tenth century, more than a hundred and fifty years after the events. In the basic annals of Emperor Dezong of Tang, under the fourth month of the seventh year of Zhenyuan, that is 791, it has one terse sentence:

On the day Ky Mui, the Annam leader Do Anh Han rebelled and attacked the protectorate; the protector-general Cao Chinh Binh died of worry.¹

The New Book of Tang, finished in 1060, is terser still: in the fourth month, the Annam leader Do Anh Han rebelled, and was killed.³ The words "was killed" appear only here. The other versions are silent on what became of Do Anh Han, except for one Vietnamese comment we will meet at the end of this episode.

Only Sima Guang's Zizhi tongjian, presented to the throne in 1084, gives a cause:

The protector-general of Annam, Cao Chinh Binh, taxed heavily. In summer, in the fourth month, the Man chieftains, Do Anh Han and his like, raised troops and besieged the protectorate; Chinh Binh died of worry. When the Man heard the news, they all submitted.⁴

That last sentence deserves a slow reading. By the Tongjian, the rising broke up of its own accord the moment the protector-general died, before the court had even sent a new man out.

Hu Sanxing, who annotated the Tongjian in the thirteenth century, adds a line: the history says this to show that the Man were not fond of disorder, but rose in disorder because they suffered under a greedy commander.⁵

The fourth passage is the biography of Trieu Xuong in the New Book of Tang, which also opens with the Annam chieftain Do Anh Han rebelling and the protector-general Cao Chinh Binh dying of worry.⁶ All four passages call the leader Do Anh Han. Not one of them has the name Phung Hung.

The Dai Viet su ky toan thu, in its annal of the period under the Sui and Tang, gives the year Tan Mui a far longer entry, some two hundred characters. And it opens exactly where the Tongjian opens: in spring, Cao Chinh Binh, at the Protectorate of Annam, governed by heavy taxation.²

Then, in summer, in the fourth month, Phung Hung, a man of Duong Lam in Giao Chau, raised troops and besieged the seat; Chinh Binh died of worry. A small note in the book places Duong Lam in Phuc Loc district.²

At this point the book turns back in time to tell us who this man was.

Before this, Phung Hung was rich and strong; he could throw down a buffalo and wrestle a tiger. Sometime in the Dali era of Emperor Daizong of Tang, that is, somewhere between 766 and 779, when Giao Chau fell into disorder, Hung and his younger brother Phung Hai together brought the neighbouring villages under their control. Hung was styled Do Quan, and Hai the title Do Bao.²

The two brothers fought Chinh Binh for a long time without winning. Only then did they take up the plan of a man from their own village, Do Anh Han, and bring their troops to besiege the seat.²

So, read by the Complete Annals, 791 is not when the rising began. The Phung brothers had already been a force since the Dali era; 791 is the end of the story.

The Complete Annals even record Cao Chinh Binh's death twice in the same entry. The first time in one short sentence, the second time in more detail: Chinh Binh's worry and anger turned into illness; a boil broke out on his back, and he died.² The protector-general did not die by the sword. On that point the Vietnamese and the Chinese histories agree.

Set the two versions side by side and the overlap is hard to ignore. The same year, 791. The same fourth month. The same protector-general, Cao Chinh Binh. The same death from worry. The same cause, heavy taxes. And the same name, Do Anh Han.

Where they differ is precisely the part that name plays. To the Chinese histories, Do Anh Han is the leader at the head of it all. To the Complete Annals, he is the man from the same village who offered a plan, and the leader is Phung Hung.²

The Nguyen court historians who compiled the Kham dinh Viet su thong giam cuong muc saw this mismatch and explained it themselves in a note: examining the basic annals of the Book of Tang, under the seventh year of Zhenyuan in the reign of Dezong it records only the Annam chieftain Do Anh Han, and does not record the affair of Phung Hung — perhaps because the land was far away and not clearly known.⁷

The word "perhaps" is their own. It is a guess made in the nineteenth century, not a newly found document.

Nor did every Vietnamese writer on the year 791 use the name Phung Hung. The An Nam chi luoc of Le Tac, finished in 1335, still follows the Chinese histories in its entry on Trieu Xuong: it happened that the Annam chieftain Do Anh Han had rebelled.⁸ And Ngo Thi Si, in the eighteenth century, in the very comment that episode ten quoted on the rising of Dinh Kien, goes on: Chinh Binh taxed the province heavily and so stirred up Anh Han's troops. As soon as Trieu Xuong arrived, the people were at peace.⁹ That sentence names the rising after Do Anh Han.

This episode does not choose between the two versions. All that can be said is this: among the histories compared here, the name Phung Hung appears only in the Complete Annals and the Cuong muc.

By the Complete Annals, after Chinh Binh died, Hung took the chance to move into the seat of government, and not long after, he died.² The Cuong muc has almost the same: he moved into the seat of government, and then died.⁷

No version gives a date for his death. By the order of the sentences in the Complete Annals, it falls somewhere between the fourth and the seventh month of 791 — but that is inferred from the sequence of the text; the book does not say so.²

So the man later ages would call Bo Cai Dai Vuong never bore that title in his lifetime. The only title the book records for him while he lived is Do Quan.

The Complete Annals record that his son, Phung An, honoured his father as Bo Cai Dai Vuong. A small note explains the name: by common usage a father is called bo and a mother cai, and so it was taken as the name.² Bo Cai Dai Vuong, put plainly, is the great king who is father and mother.

Taken on grammar alone, that sentence in classical Chinese could also be read as "his son, named An, was honoured as...". But the Complete Annals' own editorial principles read it as a son honouring his father. Those principles explain why the book does not give Phung Hung an annal of his own, and leaves him inside the annal of the period under the Sui and Tang:

King Bo Cai was rich and strong, a hero of his time. But he took advantage of disorder and used Do Anh Han's plan to besiege the protectorate; the official in charge there fell ill and died, and he moved into the seat of government, and died before his rank and title were rightly established. Only his son afterwards honoured him as king, and so he is recorded with less weight.¹⁰

The Cuong muc tells it differently at exactly this point: the people set up his son An as Do phu quan, and honoured Hung as Bo Cai Dai Vuong.⁷ By the nineteenth-century history, it was the people who gave the title, not the son. The title Do phu quan for Phung An, too, is found only in the Cuong muc.

The two versions do not agree on who gave the title. But both show one thing: the title came after Phung Hung had died.

The Tang did not wait long. In the fifth month the court set up the Nhu Vien army at the protectorate. The Tongjian and the Complete Annals give the day as Tan Ty; the Old Book of Tang gives Tan Mui.⁴¹

In the seventh month, on the day Canh Thin, the Tang made Trieu Xuong, prefect of Qianzhou, protector-general of Annam, with the added post of commissioner to govern the region and to bring rebels to submit or put them down.¹

The Complete Annals tell what came next from the side of the Phung: when Xuong entered the land, people's hearts were at peace. Xuong sent an envoy to win An over; An brought out his troops and surrendered. Then Trieu Xuong built up La Thanh to make it stronger.²

The New Book of Tang, in the biography of Trieu Xuong, says only that the tribes submitted and dared not defy him.⁶ The Tongjian closes it off in a few words: the Man were then at peace.⁴

So there are two endings. The Tongjian has the Man submitting as soon as they heard that Cao Chinh Binh was dead. The Complete Annals have the Phung moving in to hold the seat, the father dying, and the son holding out until Trieu Xuong came and won him over, and only then surrendering.

Even Trieu Xuong's term of office does not match. The Complete Annals give him seventeen years in the post.² The New Book of Tang gives ten years, after which his feet troubled him and he asked to go home; the Cuong muc, quoting a book called the An Nam ky yeu, also gives ten years.⁶⁷