Person
Fan Ye
The compiler of the Book of the Later Han in the fifth century, some four hundred years after the Trung sisters' rising. Of the accounts of how the sisters' story ended, his book is the earliest we can still read.
At a glance
- Dates
- Compiled the Book of the Later Han in the fifth century, some four hundred years after the year 431
Life
The old chronicles say
In his closing assessment of the whole chapter on good officials, he lists the men most worthy of praise. There is Du Shi, who governed Nanyang commandery and whom the people called Mother Du. And there are Nham Dien and Tich Quang, who transformed the customs of the frontier; these were the men whose usefulness was most plainly seen. The yardstick is stated right there in the sentence: the life of Nham Dien does record fields spreading and the people having enough to eat, but in the final summing up, what is called the two men's greatest achievement is that they changed the customs of the people on the frontier.4
Even within his one book there are two accounts of the sisters' death. Ma Yuan's biography says that in the first month of forty-three he beheaded the two sisters and sent their heads to Luoyang. The chapter on the southern peoples says instead: in summer, in the fourth month of that year, Yuan broke Giao Chi and beheaded Trung Trac, Trung Nhi and their followers, and the rest all surrendered or scattered. The same author, the same book, three months apart. The book disagrees with itself elsewhere too: one chapter says Trung Trac took sixty-five towns, the other says more than sixty. But on the ending, both chapters use the same word: beheaded.15
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