Trieu Quang Phuc, King of the Night Marsh, 548-550

In the Dai Viet su ky toan thu, the Complete Annals of Dai Viet, Trieu Quang Phuc has an annal all his own. He has a father, a home district, rank and titles, a base described down to its layers of mud, and a victory dated to the month.¹

And yet directly beneath the name of that annal, the compiler set a line of small print that sounds almost like a confession:

Note: the old histories do not record Trieu Viet Vuong... now, drawing on unofficial histories and other books, we can at last record the Viet king's title.²

This episode tells what the Complete Annals record, and then goes looking for him in other histories.

The last episode told how Ly Bi was beaten at Lake Dien Triet, fell back into the Khuat Lao grotto, handed the defence of the country to his senior general Trieu Quang Phuc, and died there. This episode has to take one step back, because by the Complete Annals, Quang Phuc went into the marsh while Ly Nam De was still alive.

Under the year Dinh Mao, that is 547, the Complete Annals record: Quang Phuc held out against Tran Ba Tien, and neither side won. Ba Tien's army was very strong; Quang Phuc judged he could not resist it, and fell back to hold the Da Trach marsh.³

The book describes the marsh more closely than the fighting:

The marsh lies in Chu Dien, no one knows how many li around, thick with trees and grass, closed in by undergrowth; in the middle is ground fit to live on, and on all four sides mud, hard going for men and horses; it can be reached only in small dugout canoes, poled across the water grass.³

Quang Phuc knew the ways through the marsh, and brought more than twenty thousand men to camp on the ground at its centre. His way of fighting is set down neatly, in two halves that mirror each other: by day, every trace of smoke, of fire, of people put out; by night, troops taken out in dugout canoes to strike Ba Tien's camp. Many were killed and captured, and the grain they seized became their means of fighting a long war. Ba Tien followed the tracks to attack, and in the end could do nothing.³

Then comes the line that gives him the name of this episode: the people of the country called him Da Trach Vuong — the King of the Night Marsh.³

That word king was given by the people of the country, at a time when Quang Phuc's own king was still alive in the Khuat Lao grotto.

The Nguyen court's Kham dinh Viet su thong giam cuong muc copies this passage almost word for word, except for the number: there Quang Phuc takes only more than ten thousand men into the marsh.⁴

Right after the words Da Trach Vuong, the Complete Annals insert a passage in small print, opening with two characters: the tradition goes. The passage sums up the story of Tien Dung and Chu Dong Tu in the age of the Hung kings, and ends: people of that time called the sandbank Tu Nhien bank, and called the marsh the Nhat Da marsh, and the old names remain today.⁵

So one place has two names, on two layers of text. The main text calls it only Da Trach, the Night Marsh. The name Nhat Da Trach, the Marsh of One Night, tied to the story of the citadel that flew up to heaven, appears only in the annotation. The Marsh of One Night and its legend were told in the Chu Dong Tu episode.

Under the Nguyen, the Cuong muc copied that annotation, noted plainly that it came from the Linh Nam chich quai, and judged: the matter belongs among the absurd, set down as an appendix for reference.⁶

The Cuong muc also offers another explanation of the name, quoted from the Da Qing yitong zhi: in the time of Emperor Wu of Liang, Tran Ba Tien attacked Ly Bi, and Bi fled into the marsh and came out at night to raid, and so it was called Da Trach.⁶ By this quotation, the man who went out by night from the marsh was Ly Bi himself, not his general. The Yitong zhi we know only through the Cuong muc's quotation.

The annal of Trieu Viet Vuong opens with a short biography. The king's surname was Trieu and his name Quang Phuc; he was the son of Trieu Tuc, of Chu Dien district, fierce and bold, and he followed Nam De on campaign with distinction and was made General of the Left. When Nam De died he proclaimed himself king, made his capital at Long Bien, and then moved it to Vu Ninh.¹

His father, Trieu Tuc, was there from Ly Bi's very beginnings: in 541, the chieftain of Chu Dien, Trieu Tuc, admiring the king's talent and virtue, was the first to bring his people over to him.⁷

Beneath the king's name the compiler set a comment in small print, whose first half reads: the king relied on difficult ground and laid unusual plans, to break a great enemy.⁸

The Complete Annals take the year Mau Thin, 548, the year Ly Nam De died, as the first year of Trieu Viet Vuong, and record him as reigning twenty-three years.¹ As the last episode mentioned, the Cuong muc faults that reckoning as against the rules of history-writing, because in that year Quang Phuc had not yet proclaimed himself king. It puts the line Trieu Quang Phuc proclaims himself Viet Vuong under the year Ky Ty, 549, and counts his reign again as twenty-two years.⁹

Under the year Ky Ty, 549, the Complete Annals record:

The king, in the marsh, because the Liang army did not withdraw, burned incense and prayed, earnestly beseeching heaven and earth and the spirits; and so he received the auspicious sign of a helmet with a dragon claw, and used it to fight the enemy. From then on the army's strength and fame were great, and wherever it went none could stand against it.¹⁰

The sacred object reached the king, but the main text does not say from whom. There are only two characters: auspicious sign.

The giver appears only on the lower layer, in another annotation, this time opening with the two characters it is commonly said: the divine being of the marsh was Chu Dong Tu, who at that time rode a yellow dragon down from heaven, drew off a dragon's claw and gave it to the king, telling him to fix it to his helmet and fight the enemy.¹¹

So in the Complete Annals, the dragon claw itself is main text; the name Chu Dong Tu is hearsay, noted underneath, and properly labelled as such.

The Cuong muc keeps that same division of layers: the omen of the dragon claw sits in the main entry, Chu Dong Tu in the notes, with only the divine being changed into an immortal. And it changes one more word in the main sentence: the Complete Annals write that the claw was used to fight the enemy, the Cuong muc that it was used to overawe the enemy.⁹

The standoff ended in the year Canh Ngo, 550. The Complete Annals record: in spring, in the first month, the Liang made Ba Tien General Uy Minh, Inspector of Giao Chau. Ba Tien again planned to hold out for a long time, waiting for the other side to run out of grain and its troops to tire, and then break it. Just then the Liang had the revolt of Hou Jing; Ba Tien was called back, and handed the war against the king to his deputy general Duong San.

The king let loose his troops to attack; San resisted, was defeated and died. The Liang army broke and fled north, and the country was at peace. The king went to live in the citadel of Long Bien.¹²

But within the Complete Annals itself, that death is already told two ways. In another place in the same book, under the year 571, Ngo Si Lien sums up the achievement of Trieu Viet Vuong:

The king gathered the remnants of his army, relied on the difficult mud of the Da Trach marsh, and stood against Ba Tien, a hero of his age, and in the end captured his general Duong San, so that the northerners withdrew their army.¹³

The main text says San was defeated and died; the comment says San was captured. The Linh Nam chich quai has a third version: San was cut down on the field.¹⁴ No text explains why they differ.

The Chen shu is the official history of the Chen, one of the Southern Dynasties, compiled by Yao Silian early in the Tang. Its first book is the basic annal of Tran Ba Tien himself, recorded under his temple name, Gaozu. To learn where he was in those years, this is the book to ask.

The Chen shu records: having finished off what remained of the Ly forces, Ba Tien was made General Chan Vien, Protector of Xijiang, governor of Gaoyao, commanding the troops of seven commanderies. In the winter of 548 Hou Jing attacked the capital, and Ba Tien meant to lead his army to its relief. In the seventh month of 549 he gathered volunteer troops at Nam Hai. In the first month of 550 he set out from Shixing, crossed the Dayu mountains, and advanced to camp at Nankang. At that same time the Prince of Xiangdong, acting for the court, granted him a string of offices, among them General Minh Uy, Inspector of Giao Chau.¹⁵

The main text of the Song-dynasty Zizhi tongjian runs along the same line: in 548, the fighting over, Ba Tien was posted to Gaoyao.¹⁶ Gaoyao lies in what is now Guangdong, Nankang in what is now Jiangxi.

In that annal of the Chen shu, in an edition carrying collation notes, there is no Trieu Quang Phuc, no Da Trach marsh, no Duong San. The main text of the three books of the Tongjian that cover those years has none of those three names either.¹⁵¹⁷ Even the edict of reward summing up Ba Tien's service in Giao Chau, which names each place he fought, has only: Tan Xuong and Dien Triet, every hardship endured; To Lich and Gia Ninh, all turned to mounds of corpses. Not a single marsh.¹⁵

Set the two side by side and there is a strange fit. The Complete Annals have exactly the first month of 550, exactly the post of Inspector of Giao Chau, only with the two words of the general's title swapped round into Uy Minh. But the Complete Annals place the holder of that post at the edge of the marsh, planning a siege to starve the other side of grain. The Chen shu places him at Nankang, leading his army north against Hou Jing; the post of Inspector of Giao Chau was given to a man very far away from Giao Chau.¹²¹⁵

The two cannot both be right about where Ba Tien stood that month, and the surviving texts are not enough to decide between them. Nor does the silence of the Chinese histories prove that Trieu Quang Phuc did not exist. It tells us only that everything we know about him reaches us through Vietnamese books.

And not every Vietnamese book has him. As the last episode quoted, the Viet su luoc, the anonymous history usually placed in the Tran dynasty, says that after Ly Bi died of illness, his remaining followers, fearing the strength of Ba Tien's army, came over and surrendered in a body. No one stayed behind to hold the country. Ba Tien was made General Binh Uy, Inspector of Giao Chau, and before long was called back north — that post, by now, has three names. In the whole upper book there is no Quang Phuc and no Da Trach marsh.¹⁸

The An Nam chi luoc of Le Tac, finished in 1335, follows the account of the Chinese histories closely: Ly Bi is pursued to the Khuat Lao grotto and beheaded, his head is sent to the capital, and then the rest of his troops, who were besieging Ai Chau, are put down.¹⁹ That passage goes straight from Ly Bi's death to the mopping-up of his remaining forces, and leaves no room for any standoff in a marsh.

Those two Vietnamese books of the fourteenth century are silent, just as the Complete Annals themselves admit. The phrase "the old histories do not record" does not say which histories, but the books older than the Complete Annals that we can read do indeed not record him.

It should also be said plainly: that note stands at the head of the annal of Trieu Viet Vuong, while the passage about the marsh comes just before it, in the annal of Ly Nam De.²³ The wording does not say whether that passage comes from the same unofficial sources.