First Chinese domination

The old chronicles say

Not every source opens this period in 111. The Shiji and the Han thu keep two points apart: the army set out in the autumn of the fifth year of Yuanding, 112 BC, and Phien Ngung fell in the winter of the sixth, 111. The Thuy kinh chu is further off still: in the second year of Yuanding, Emperor Wu of Han at last took in the Bach Viet, and opened seven commanderies. The Vietnamese histories close the Trieu dynasty in the same year, Canh Ngo, that is 111, even though each opens it in a different year. The Viet Nam su luoc begins its era of Chinese domination in that very year, and the Complete Annals, at the end of the annals of the Trieu, move on to the annals of the period under the Western Han.^479101131

The Shiji says only that nine commanderies were made; the list of names is in the Han thu. Yet the Han thu's own treatise on geography lists only seven commanderies of the Viet lands, because the two island commanderies of Dam Nhi and Chu Nhai, where the Chinese officials and soldiers mostly preyed on and oppressed the people and so every few years they rose in revolt, were given up under Emperor Yuan. Gia Quyen Chi's memorial in the Han thu speaks instead of eight commanderies, a figure that fits neither date. The treatise also leaves a household table for the year two for each commandery: the three southern ones, Giao Chi, Cuu Chan and Nhat Nam, together had 143,643 households and 981,735 mouths — close to a million people, less than two per cent of the mouths of the whole Han empire.⁴⁷⁸¹²

The Han histories tell of the men at the head of the ruling machine in that machine's own voice. The Book of the Later Han places two governors, Tich Quang in Giao Chi and Nham Dien in Cuu Chan, in its chapter on officials who governed well. Nham Dien had farm tools cast, taught the people to clear new land, and ordered more than two thousand Lac Viet to marry at one time, matched by age. Tich Quang, in Giao Chi since the reign of Emperor Ping, closed the borders and held out at the end of Wang Mang's time, then sent envoys with tribute and was made a marquis. The passage on him closes with the line: the civilising of Linh Nam by Chinese ways began with these two governors.¹³

In 40 Trung Trac set herself up as queen; in 43 it was all over. The Book of the Later Han wraps those three years in the words set herself up as queen, then turns to record the Han side readying carts and boats and storing up grain. The Vietnamese histories each arrange those three years differently. The Viet su luoc has no annal for the sisters; her story sits under the entry for Ma Yuan. The Complete Annals give her a whole annal, the Annal of Trung Nu Vuong, just two folios long. The Nguyen court's Cuong muc removed the annal on purpose, holding that the Trung clan raised troops to take revenge but had not yet made a state, and placed the events within the annals of the period under the Han.⁶¹⁴²¹⁵

In the spring of 42 Ma Yuan's army broke the sisters' forces at Lang Bac. On the ending, the Book of the Later Han disagrees with itself: Ma Yuan's biography says that in the first month of 43 he beheaded Trung Trac and Trung Nhi and sent their heads to Luoyang; the chapter on the southern peoples says summer, the fourth month. On the Vietnamese side, the Complete Annals marked this turning point with four characters set right after Cam Khe: the line of the realm was broken once more. As for when and how the sisters died, each source seals the ending with a word of its own, and each century has left an answer of its own. The first period of Chinese domination, and the three years of the Trung sisters, close here.⁵⁶¹⁶¹⁷