Le Van Huu

The old chronicles say

His comment on Trieu Da opens with four examples of outsiders who achieved great things: without Jizi, Liaodong could not have taken up the custom of robe and cap; without Taibo, Wu and Kuaiji could not have risen to the strength of a king and overlord; Emperor Shun was a man of the Eastern Yi, King Wen a man of the Western Yi. Then he draws his measure: one who is good at governing a state does not count whether the land is wide or narrow, whether the people are Chinese or Yi, and looks at virtue alone. Had Trieu Da been Viet, there would be no need to borrow those examples. Le Van Huu accepts where the man came from, and then changes the measure.²

Laying that measure against Trieu Da, he writes that Emperor Vu of Trieu opened up our Viet country and made himself emperor, stood level with the Han, and began the imperial enterprise of our Viet country — a merit that may be called great. The next clause says what the praise is for: if later emperors of the Viet can follow Trieu Vu, holding the borders firm, establishing the affairs of army and state, dealing with their neighbours by the proper way, and keeping the throne through benevolence, then they will keep their land for a long time. For him Trieu Da is a model, and the comment was written for later Viet kings to read and to imitate.²

With Lu Gia he praises first: Lu Gia urged Ai Vuong and the queen dowager Cu not to ask to become vassal lords of the Han, and not to give up the border gates — this may be called knowing how to value the country of Viet. Then he turns it straight round: Lu Gia went on to kill his own king to vent a private grudge, and could not hold the country either, leaving Viet to be carved up and made subject to the Han — so his crime is such that even putting him to death would not wipe it out. One sentence of praise, one of condemnation, and the condemnation comes last. He piles the whole guilt on one man.³

Of the Trung sisters he speaks in outright praise: two women gave a single shout and sixty-five cities answered; founding a state and taking the royal title was as easy as turning over a hand. Then he turns to rebuke the men of more than a thousand years, from after the Trieu to before the Ngo, who knew only how to bow their heads as servants of the northerners.⁴

How later ages remembered

In the twentieth century that very measure became a target. In August 1936, Phan Khoi's article in Song Huong demanding that Trieu Da and his line be put out of Vietnamese history carried the subtitle: breaking an error running from Le Van Huu and Ngo Si Lien down to Tran Trong Kim. Le Van Huu measured by virtue; Phan Khoi measured by the nation, and counted our country as already lost to Trieu Da at that time.⁵