Person
Luc Gia
The Han envoy who went down to Nam Viet twice, and both times brought back what an army had failed to take.
At a glance
- Role
- Sent in the eleventh year of Han to invest Trieu Da as king of Nam Viet, then sent down again under Emperor Wen to reproach him for having styled himself emperor1
- Origin
- A man of Hao Tri, according to the recommendation made by Chancellor Tran Binh1
Life
The old chronicles say
He was picked the second time for a plainly practical reason, and the history says so outright: Emperor Wen told Chancellor Tran Binh to put forward someone fit to go as envoy to Nam Viet, and Tran Binh answered that Luc Gia of Hao Tri had been accustomed to that errand under the former emperor. The emperor summoned him, made him a senior counsellor, and sent him off. His task was to reproach Trieu Da for having set himself up as emperor without sending so much as one man to report it.1
What that journey produced was a letter. Trieu Da took fright, wrote to apologise, called himself an old servant, admitted that he had usurped the imperial title merely to amuse himself, then bowed his head and asked to remain a vassal for ever and to send tribute. Immediately after, he issued an order through his country: from this day the imperial style is abolished, along with the yellow canopy and the plume on the left of the carriage. The history records the end of it briefly: Luc Gia returned and reported, and Emperor Wen was greatly pleased. What the empress dowager's army could not do, stopped by plague among the hills, an envoy finished with a letter.1
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