The Liang strike back, and Ly Nam De dies, 545-548

How did Ly Nam De die?

Four Chinese histories give almost the same answer: the people of the Khuat Lao cave beheaded him, and his head was sent to the capital of the Liang.¹ Three Vietnamese histories give a completely different one: he fell ill and died; the two later ones add that he had stayed a long time in that cave and caught the miasmal sickness.²

And the war that led to that death is told in most detail in the annals of the winner himself, Tran Ba Tien.³

The last episode stopped in five forty-four, when Ly Bi proclaimed himself emperor. This one begins when the Liang dynasty sent its army south.

The Zizhi tongjian records the dispatch of the army in one short sentence: the Liang emperor sent the governor of Giao Chau, Duong Phieu, to attack Ly Bi, with Tran Ba Tien as his adjutant; and ordered the governor of Dinh Chau, Tieu Bot, to join forces with Phieu at Tay Giang. The book places that sentence after the entries for the sixth month of the eleventh year of the Datong era, that is, five forty-five.⁴

The Dai Viet su ky toan thu copies almost the same thing, and differs only at the end of the sentence: in summer, in the sixth month, the Liang made Duong Phieu governor and Tran Ba Tien adjutant, and brought an army over to invade.⁵ The Chinese history says "to attack". The Vietnamese history says "came over to invade".

The nominal commander was Duong Phieu. Yet the books cannot even agree on how to write his name: the Liang shu, the Nan shi, the Chen shu and the Complete Annals each write it with a different character, and the character in the Complete Annals is so rare that the book has to note its pronunciation right beside it.⁵ The governor’s name is not even certain in writing, while the adjutant under him would later be honoured by one official history as Cao To, the founder of a dynasty.

The Chen shu tells the opening at greater length: it happened that an edict made Cao To adjutant of Giao Chau and concurrently governor of Vu Binh commandery, to go south on campaign together with the governor Duong Phieu. According to that book, Tieu Bot quietly stirred up the soldiers’ fear of the long road. Ba Tien answered with a sentence that laid the blame squarely on the imperial clan: the fault lies with members of the ruling house, who let a usurping rebel seize several provinces, and it has dragged on for so many years.³

Then the Chen shu gives its marker: in the sixth month of the eleventh year, the army reached Giao Chau; Bi’s forces, several tens of thousands strong, built a citadel and palisades at the mouth of the To Lich river to resist the imperial army.³

The Tongjian tells the opening battle in three stages: when the army reached Giao Chau, Bi met it with thirty thousand men, was beaten at Chu Dien, and beaten again at the mouth of the To Lich river. Bi fled into the citadel of Gia Ninh, and the armies advanced and besieged it.⁴

The Complete Annals copy that sentence almost word for word.⁵ The Chen shu, in its account of the fighting, speaks only of one battle at the mouth of the To Lich river, with "several tens of thousands" of men.³

The citadel of Gia Ninh fell in the first month of the following year, that is, five forty-six. Here the books part ways on one small but important point: who took the citadel.

The Liang shu, in the annals of Emperor Wu of Liang, records it down to the day: on the day Quy Suu, the governor of Giao Chau, Duong Phieu, took the citadel of Gia Ninh in Giao Chi; Ly Bi fled into a cave of the Lao people. Giao Chau was at peace.¹ In that whole book of annals, the name of Tran Ba Tien does not appear once. The credit for taking the citadel goes to Duong Phieu.

Those words, "Giao Chau was at peace", were written for the first month of five forty-six, while Ly Bi would live two more years and fight one more great battle.

The Nan shi copies the Liang shu exactly, and only names more precisely where Ly Bi fled: the Khuat Lao cave.⁶ The Tongjian also gives the credit to Duong Phieu and those who went with him: Duong Phieu and his men took the citadel of Gia Ninh; Ly Bi fled into the land of the Lao at Tan Xuong; the armies halted and camped at the river mouth.⁴

Then come the Complete Annals. The Vietnamese history follows the Tongjian almost word for word, but in this sentence the subject has changed: in spring, in the first month, Ba Tien and his men took the citadel of Gia Ninh.⁵

The Chinese histories give the credit to the governor. The Vietnamese official history moves it onto the adjutant. We can see the change, but no explanation for it.

As for where the citadel of Gia Ninh stood, a note in the Kham dinh Viet su thong giam cuong muc quotes a geography, the Yuanhe junxian zhi, saying it was originally land of Me Linh district.⁷

Ly Bi had not given up. The Tongjian records, after the entries for the ninth month of five forty-six, that Ly Bi again brought twenty thousand men out of the land of the Lao and camped at the Dien Triet lake, building many warships that filled the surface of the lake.⁴

The Chen shu describes the position in more detail: Bi pitched camp on the border of Khuat Lao, built boats until they filled the lake, and the armies were afraid, and camped at the mouth of the lake, not daring to advance.³

According to the Chen shu, this is when Tran Ba Tien stepped forward. Duong Phieu had to ask him for a plan. Ba Tien made a long speech, the generals fell silent, and then his troops alone charged ahead. The Tongjian keeps one sentence from that speech: the Di and the Lao are a rabble, easy to scatter.⁴

Then comes the strange part. That night the river suddenly rose seven zhang and poured into the lake, and the Chen shu adds: the current was fierce. Ly Bi’s army was badly broken, and fled into the Khuat Lao cave.³

The Complete Annals tell of the same battle, but differ in two places. They put the battle in the eighth month, while the Tongjian places it after the ninth month, and the Chen shu pushes it all into the following year. And in the Complete Annals the river rises only seven chi, not seven zhang.⁵ Zhang and chi are two Chinese measures of length. One character apart, and the figure is ten times smaller. The Nguyen court’s Cuong muc follows the Complete Annals, and also writes seven chi.⁸

Where was the Dien Triet lake? The Nguyen court historians could only pass on a note by Hu Sanxing, through the Qing-era Tongjian jilan: the lake was at Tan Xuong, that is, Phong Chau. As for the Khuat Lao cave, they wrote plainly: unknown.⁷

Book one of the Chen shu is the annals of Tran Ba Tien, the man who founded the Chen dynasty. The book was completed early in the Tang, by Yao Silian, who also compiled the Liang shu.³

Those annals have everything a founding story needs, omens included: one night he dreamed that the sky opened several zhang wide, and four men in red came carrying the sun, and told him to open his mouth and swallow it.³

In the Giao Chau campaign, too, the light falls on one man. As we have just seen: the commander has to ask him for a plan, his troops charge first, and the river rises of its own accord on that very night.

The Chen shu also compresses time. It folds the whole chain of events from five forty-six to five forty-eight into the first year of the Taiqing era, and has Ly Bi killed straight after the battle on the lake. The collation notes of the modern printed edition record that gap themselves: Ly Bi’s army was broken in the first month of the first year of the Zhong Datong era, while his killing came in the third month of the second year of the Taiqing era.⁹

That is not an accusation. It is the nature of this kind of text: the annals of a dynasty’s founder see the campaign from where he stood. And it tells us how to read the Chen shu: rich in detail about the fighting, weak on dates.

Comparing the wording shows one thing more. The Tongjian records Ba Tien’s words almost exactly as the Chen shu does, but its dates match the Liang shu — as if Sima Guang took the words from one book and the calendar from the other.⁴

After the battle on the lake, the Vietnamese histories have a passage the Chinese histories do not. The Complete Annals record: the king, having made no preparations, was routed, fell back to hold the Khuat Lao cave, and put his troops in order meaning to fight again; he entrusted the great general Trieu Quang Phuc with holding the country and leading the army against Ba Tien.⁵

This handing over of the army exists only in the Vietnamese histories. Of Ly Bi himself, after the battle on the lake, the Chinese histories record just one more thing: his death.¹

The Cuong muc keeps that detail, but notes that it is taken from "the old history", and changes the rank of the man who received it: not great general, but general of the left. The Cuong muc’s sentence is: he entrusted the general of the left, Trieu Quang Phuc, with holding the country and leading the army to resist Ba Tien.⁸

The Viet su luoc tells it differently. The first half matches the Complete Annals exactly: Bi had made no preparations, was routed, and fell back to hold the Khuat Lao cave. But in the second half nobody is handed the country at all: his remaining followers, fearing the might of Ba Tien’s army, went over in a body and surrendered.¹⁰

What the man entrusted with the country did next belongs to the next episode. This one follows Ly Bi into the cave. And there, the histories begin to record two different deaths.

The Chen shu: Bi fled into the Khuat Lao cave; the people of Khuat Lao beheaded Bi and sent his head on to the capital. That year was the first year of the Taiqing era, that is, five forty-seven.³

The Liang shu, by the same compiler, instead puts it on the day Ky Mui, in the third month of the second year of the Taiqing era, that is, five forty-eight: on that day, the Khuat Lao cave beheaded Ly Bi and sent his head on to the capital.¹

The Nan shi of Li Yanshou, of the Tang, records the same day, and only names the capital as Jianye.⁶ The Tongjian, of the Song, also places it in the third month of that year, and calls the capital Jiankang.¹¹

Four Chinese histories, one ending: Ly Bi was beheaded by the very people of the cave where he was hiding. They differ only on the year.

Then come the Vietnamese histories. The Viet su luoc gives no year, and says only that he fell back to hold the Khuat Lao cave, fell ill and died.¹⁰

The Complete Annals give it down to the day, but do not place the sentence in Ly Bi’s own annals. It stands at the head of the annals of his successor, Trieu Viet Vuong, in the year Mau Thin, that is, five forty-eight: in spring, in the third month, on the day Tan Hoi, the king, having been in the Khuat Lao cave a long time, caught the miasmal sickness and died.²

The Cuong muc follows: King Bi, in the Khuat Lao cave, was steeped in the miasmal air, and at this point died. But the Nguyen court historians corrected the chronology: the year Mau Thin is still counted as the fifth year of Ly Bi’s Thien Duc era, not yet the first year of his successor.⁸

None of those three Vietnamese histories mentions the version with the beheading — not even the Cuong muc, a book that often quotes the Chinese histories in order to refute them. Where the Chinese histories write "beheaded", the Vietnamese histories write "fell ill and died" — with no argument, and no explanation.⁸

There is one more small mismatch: the day. The Liang shu and the Nan shi give the day Ky Mui; the Complete Annals give the day Tan Hoi. In the Tongjian, the line just before the sentence recording Ly Bi’s beheading concerns something in the Eastern Wei, also in the third month, and that line gives the day Tan Hoi.¹¹ It may be that the Complete Annals borrowed their date from that line just above. But that is only a possibility drawn from setting two pages side by side; no book says so.

This episode does not take sides. Two answers standing side by side is all the sources allow.

The Vietnamese histories do not only record. They stop to ask why.

Right after Ly Bi’s death, the Complete Annals set down the comment of Le Van Huu, the thirteenth-century historian. He opens with the art of war: the art of war says that thirty thousand men fighting with all their strength, and no one under heaven can stand against them. Now Ly Bi had fifty thousand men and could not hold his country; so Bi fell short in the talent of a general.¹²

The figure of fifty thousand is Le Van Huu’s own. The main texts of the books record only thirty thousand at the first battle and twenty thousand at the Dien Triet lake, while the Chen shu says "several tens of thousands".⁴

Then he softens it: Ly Bi too was a general of middling talent, and it was not beyond him to meet the enemy and win; yet in the end he was beaten twice and lost his life, and that was because he had the misfortune to meet Tran Ba Tien, who was skilled in war.¹²

Two centuries later, Ngo Si Lien added one more clause, and that clause is the night the river rose: not only did he meet Ba Tien, skilled in war, he also met the river rising strongly to help the other side — was that not the doing of heaven?¹²

The summing-up at the head of the Complete Annals’ section on Ly Nam De of the Early Ly reads like an elegy: the king had the will to destroy the invaders and save the people, but had the misfortune to meet Tran Ba Tien coming to attack, and died swallowing his bitterness.⁵

Set these comments beside the story of the citadel of Gia Ninh, and something odd appears. The Liang shu gives the credit for taking the citadel to Duong Phieu and does not name Ba Tien. The Complete Annals move the subject onto Ba Tien, and then, in their comments, use Ba Tien’s skill in war to explain why Ly Bi lost. The greater the opponent, the easier a defeat is to understand. The Vietnamese histories never say that is why they did it; we only see the two things standing side by side.

Under the Nguyen, Emperor Tu Duc wrote a comment into the Cuong muc that closes the matter from another angle: Ly Nam De, though his strength was no match and so his cause failed, knew how to seize the moment and rise, making himself emperor of his own country, enough to be the herald that opened the way for the Dinh and the Ly — is that not something worthy of praise?¹³

The next episode: Trieu Quang Phuc, King of the Night Marsh, 548-550.