Tran Ba Tien

The old chronicles say

Book one of the Chen shu is the annals of Tran Ba Tien himself, the man who founded the Chen dynasty — the book was completed early in the Tang, by Yao Silian, who also compiled the Liang shu. Those annals have everything a founding story needs, omens included: one night he dreamed that the sky opened several zhang wide, and four men in red came carrying the sun and told him to open his mouth and swallow it. They also compress time: the whole chain of events from 546 to 548 is folded into the first year of the Taiqing era, a gap the collation notes of the modern printed edition record themselves. That is how to read the Chen shu on the Giao Chau campaign: rich in detail about the fighting, weak on dates.¹⁵

In 545, by the Chen shu, an edict made him adjutant of Giao Chau and concurrently governor of Vu Binh commandery, to go south on campaign together with the governor Duong Phieu. When Tieu Bot quietly stirred up the soldiers' fear of the long road, Ba Tien answered with a sentence that laid the blame squarely on the imperial clan: the fault lies with members of the ruling house, who let a usurping rebel seize several provinces, and it has dragged on for so many years. When the citadel of Gia Ninh fell in the first month of 546, the Liang shu gave the credit to Duong Phieu, and in that whole book of annals the name of Tran Ba Tien does not appear once; the Tongjian also credits Duong Phieu and his men. But the Complete Annals, which follow the Tongjian almost word for word, change the subject of that sentence to 'Ba Tien and his men took the citadel of Gia Ninh'.¹⁶⁷²

By the Chen shu, at the Dien Triet lake the Liang armies were afraid and did not dare advance; Duong Phieu had to ask him for a plan, Ba Tien made a long speech — the Tongjian keeps one sentence from it: the Di and the Lao are a rabble, easy to scatter — the generals fell silent, and then his troops alone charged ahead. That night the river suddenly rose and poured into the lake, its current fierce; Ly Bi's army was badly broken. Le Van Huu, discussing Ly Bi's defeat, said it was because Ly Bi had the misfortune to meet Tran Ba Tien, who was skilled in war; Ngo Si Lien added that Ly Bi also met the river rising strongly to help the other side — was that not the doing of heaven?¹⁷⁸

For the years after Ly Bi's death, the books disagree. The Viet su luoc says his remaining followers, fearing the strength of Ba Tien's army, came over and surrendered in a body, and no one stayed behind to hold the country; the An Nam chi luoc follows the account of the Chinese histories closely: Ly Bi is pursued to the Khuat Lao grotto and beheaded, and then the rest of his troops, who were besieging Ai Chau, are put down. The Complete Annals tell instead of Trieu Quang Phuc holding out against Ba Tien and falling back to hold the Da Trach marsh; in 550 Ba Tien was planning to starve the other side of grain when he was called back over the Hou Jing revolt. The Chen shu, for its part, places him that month at Nankang, leading his army north against Hou Jing. The two cannot both be right about where he stood that month.³⁹¹⁰⁴¹