Si Nhiep holds Giao Chau amid the turmoil of the Three Kingdoms

The last episode went as far as the year two hundred and forty-eight. This one steps back some sixty years, to a man who held the land of Giao Chau for more than forty years through the turmoil of the Three Kingdoms.

That man is Si Nhiep, and there is something strange about him: one and the same person, and two traditions of history have written two different characters. In the Tam quoc chi, the history of the Three Kingdoms, he is a commandery governor, his biography sits in the Book of Wu, and he sends his son as a hostage and brings tribute every year.¹ In the Vietnamese Dai Viet su ky toan thu, he is Si Vuong, King Si, with an annal of his own set level with the royal dynasties.²

Chen Shou, who compiled the Tam quoc chi in the third century, opens the biography with his origins. Si Nhiep, courtesy name Uy Ngan, was a man of Quang Tin, in Thuong Ngo commandery. His ancestors came from Wenyang, in the state of Lu, and when the disorders of Wang Mang came they fled south to Giao Chau. Six generations later came his father, Si Tu, who under Emperor Huan of the Han was governor of Nhat Nam.¹

As a young man he went to the capital to study, under the teacher Liu Ziqi, and read the Zuo commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals. He was recommended as filial and incorrupt, became a gentleman of the imperial secretariat, and lost that post over an official matter. When his mourning for his father was over, he was recommended as a man of flourishing talent, became magistrate of the district of Vu, and was then moved to be governor of Giao Chi.¹

The Tam quoc chi gives no year for his taking up that post. The date one hundred and eighty-seven comes from the Complete Annals, which record the first year of Si Vuong as the year Dinh Mao, the fourth year of the Zhongping reign of the Han.²

The regional inspector of Giao Chau, Chu Phu, was killed by rebels, and the province and its commanderies fell into disorder. Si Nhiep then sent up a memorial asking that his younger brothers be made governors: Si Nhat of Hop Pho, Si Vi of Cuu Chan, and Si Vu of Nam Hai.¹

One family holding four commanderies. Chen Shou describes that power in a passage that is often quoted. In a close translation:

Nhiep and his brothers were all heads of commanderies, the mightiest men of a whole province, set off to one side ten thousand li away, their dignity second to none. Coming and going, they had bells and chimes struck, pipes and drums played, carriages and horses filled the road, and men of the Hu walked close by the wheels burning incense, often several dozen of them.¹

The passage ends with a weighty line: they awed the hundred Man tribes into submission, and even Uy Da could not surpass them.¹ Uy Da is Trieu Da. Keep that line in mind, because in the nineteenth century a monarch will call it an overstatement.

Yet what made his name was peace. The biography records that he was generous and tolerant, and humble toward scholars; men of learning from China who came to shelter with him from disaster numbered in the hundreds; he was devoted to the Spring and Autumn Annals and wrote notes on it himself. Then the biography quotes a letter from Yuan Hui to the director of the imperial secretariat, Xun Yu. One sentence, in a close translation:

Governor Si of Giao Chi, in the midst of great disorder, has kept a whole commandery intact; for more than twenty years its borders have been free of trouble, and the people have not lost their livelihoods.¹

The Han went on granting him offices: General of the Household Who Soothes the South, overseeing seven commanderies, while still governor of Giao Chi; then General Who Brings Peace to Distant Lands, with the title Marquis of the village of Long Do.¹

In the fifteenth year of Jian’an, that is, two hundred and ten, the Wu leader Sun Quan sent Bo Chat to be regional inspector of Giao Chau. The Tam quoc chi uses a very compact phrase for Si Nhiep’s response: he led his brothers in accepting Bo Chat's direction.¹

There was no battle. The Wu made him General of the Left. At the end of the Jian’an era he sent his son Si Ham to them as a hostage; later he rose to General of the Guard, with the title Marquis of Long Bien.¹

And here is the part the Chinese history records most carefully: the tribute. Every time he sent an envoy, he offered incense and fine kudzu cloth, always by the thousand; pearls, great cowries, glass, kingfisher feathers, tortoiseshell, rare things from the rhinoceros and the elephant, and strange fruits such as bananas and longans — not a year went by without it arriving. His brother Si Nhat once offered several hundred horses.¹

The translation of a book of historical studies by Ngo Thi Si carries a comment that works out the cost for us. In name he oversaw seven commanderies, but the taxes really came only from Giao Chau; forty years of supplying on that scale — how could the strength of one province bear it? The translation does not say whose comment it is.³

The Tam quoc chi records that he held the commandery for more than forty years, and died in the fifth year of Huangwu, that is, two hundred and twenty-six, at the age of ninety.¹

This is a commentator’s note, and the commentator named his source plainly: a book about immortals. The Complete Annals, though, lift the story into the main text, place it in two hundred and twenty-six, the very year Si Vuong died, and change two details: the source book becomes the Liexian zhuan, and Dong Phung’s courtesy name becomes Xuong Di.⁵

Si Nhiep died, and what he had built collapsed at once, in his son’s generation.

According to the biography of Si Nhiep, Sun Quan split the province in two: the northern part, Quang Chau, he gave to Lu Dai; the southern part, Giao Chau, to Dai Luong; and he sent Tran Thi to replace Si Nhiep as governor of Giao Chi. Si Nhiep’s son, Si Huy, declared himself governor of Giao Chi and sent out his clan’s troops to resist. An official whom Si Nhiep himself had promoted, Hoan Lan, knocked his head on the ground to remonstrate, and Huy had him flogged to death.¹

Lu Dai made use of a man of the Si clan. Si Khuong, the son of Si Nhat, was an old friend of Dai’s, and was sent to persuade Huy to accept punishment: he would lose his office, but he was guaranteed to have nothing else to fear. Huy and his brothers, six men, came out stripped to the waist to meet him; Dai told them to put their clothes back on. The next morning Dai set up curtains and a tent and invited them in one after another; then he rose, holding his staff of authority, and read out an edict listing their crimes. His attendants bound them and dragged them out, and all were killed, and their heads were sent to Wuchang.¹

The second account is in the same book, in the biography of Lu Dai, and it differs in two places. Sun Quan does not simply strip Huy of office: he makes him General Who Brings Peace to Distant Lands, governing Cuu Chan, which is to say moves him to another commandery. And there is no Si Khuong, and no promise: when Huy hears that Dai is coming he is afraid and does not know what to do, leads his brothers, six men, out stripped to the waist to meet him, and Dai beheads them all.⁶

The biography of Lu Dai also records why he struck so fast: if Huy had time to hold the citadel, the seven commanderies and the hundred Man tribes would answer him like gathering clouds. After that, Huy’s generals, Cam Le and Hoan Tri, led officials and people out to fight, and were routed by Dai.⁶

The same writer, two books, two ways to die. The records read for this episode give no grounds for saying which is right.

As for the rest, according to the biography of Si Nhiep: Si Nhat, Si Vi, Si Khuong and the hostage Si Ham were spared, but reduced to commoners; a few years later Nhat and Vi broke the law and were put to death; Ham died of illness, without sons.¹ About Si Khuong, the Tam quoc chi records only that he was reduced to a commoner; the Complete Annals add a line the Tam quoc chi does not have: only Khuong had died of illness before that.⁷

Pei Songzhi’s commentary quotes Sun Sheng, a man of the fourth century, rebuking Lu Dai outright: Huy and his brothers had given themselves over wholeheartedly to his command; Dai took the chance to destroy them for the sake of merit, and from this the gentleman knows that Sun Quan had no far-sighted plans.⁸ Ngo Si Lien, in the Complete Annals, divides the blame in two: he rebukes Huy for killing the man who remonstrated, then rebukes Lu Dai for coaxing them to surrender and then killing them, because good faith is the treasure of a state.⁷

And Chen Shou, in his verdict at the end of the book, writes that Si Nhiep held the land of Nam Viet and lived at ease all his life, but in his son’s generation carelessness brought disaster down on them. Then comes a sentence that is not easy to hear:

This is what comes of a man of ordinary talent who covets wealth and rank and relies on rugged terrain.⁹

The Complete Annals give him an annal of his own, the Annal of Si Vuong, six folios long. Its opening line records that he held the throne forty years and was loved by the people, that he kept the land of Viet whole to stand up to the might of the Three Kingdoms, and that he was both clear-sighted and wise, and deserves to be called a worthy king.²

Why call him king? The Complete Annals answer that themselves: he was generous and tolerant, humble toward scholars, and the people of the country loved him, and all called him king.² In other words, the title came from what people called him, not from any claim he made for himself. When he dies, the book uses the word hoang, the word reserved for the death of kings and lords.

This annal records that he made his capital at Luy Lau, with a note adding that this is Long Bien, and that the Tran dynasty later gave him the posthumous title Thien Cam Gia Ung Linh Vu Dai Vuong.²

Le Van Huu, a historian of the thirteenth century, praises him as wise, and that wisdom lies exactly in what the Tam quoc chi records as submission. In a close translation:

Though in talent and courage he was not the equal of Emperor Vu of Trieu, he knew how to humble himself to serve the great country so as to keep his territory whole; he may be called wise.¹⁰

Ngo Si Lien, in the fifteenth century, goes further. In a close translation:

That our country came to know the Odes and the Documents, to study the Rites and Music, and to become a land of culture and letters, began with Si Vuong.¹¹

As for the affair of Si Huy, he sets it aside in a single sentence: if the son was worthless, the fault was the son’s alone.¹¹

The same act of bowing the head to a great country: the Chinese history records it as the submission of a commandery governor, and the comment in the Complete Annals calls it wisdom.

Even within the Vietnamese histories there is more than one way to place him. The Viet su luoc, compiled around the fourteenth century, gives him no annal, and puts him instead in the section on officials who governed the land in successive ages, in the same rank as men like Ma Yuan. But in that very passage, the book still calls him king and records his death with the word hoang.¹²

In the nineteenth century, the Nguyen court’s Kham dinh Viet su thong giam cuong muc resolved that paradox in the opposite direction from the Complete Annals. Its editorial principles have a clause that puts him together with the Trung clan:

The Trung clan raised troops to take revenge, but had not yet made a state. Si Nhiep came by command to hold the territory, and never styled himself king. They are not the same as An Duong Vuong and Trieu Viet Vuong. The old histories each gave them an annal of their own; now these are removed, and events are simply recorded as they happened, so as to keep to the facts, still placed within the annals of the period under the Han.¹³

The main text says it again: Si Nhiep was only a Han governor and never styled himself king, and to set him apart in an annal of his own does not fit the principles of history-writing.¹⁴ The comment of Emperor Tu Duc is heavier still: he was only a governor, bending with the times, seeking only his own convenience, with no great talent and no far-sighted plans, and not worth praising; the old history says even Uy Da could not surpass him — is that not going much too far.¹⁵ That comparison with Uy Da, as we have seen, stands in the main text of the Tam quoc chi itself.¹

Yet the Cuong muc keeps Ngo Si Lien’s line about culture and letters, changing only Si Vuong into Si Nhiep.¹⁶ Neither the editorial principles nor the historians’ notes reject a single thing he did. What they reject is the word king.