Person

Tran Trong Kim

Author of the Viet Nam su luoc, a history in the Vietnamese alphabet printed in 1920. He still kept the Trieu in the country's history but gave them only six pages, and called Trieu Da King Vu, following the Cuong muc.

At a glance

Dates
The twentieth century; the Viet Nam su luoc was printed in 19201
Role
Author of the Viet Nam su luoc; stood between the two approaches — still keeping the Trieu in the country's history, but naming Trieu Da as the Cuong muc did: he proclaimed himself king, that is, King Vu1

Life

How later ages remembered

In the Viet Nam su luoc, chapter four of the part on the Ancient Era is titled The Trieu Dynasty, from 207 to 111 BC, and runs exactly six pages. The Era of Northern Rule opens straight after, from 111 BC, that is, from when the Han destroyed Nam Viet. But in naming him, he followed the Cuong muc: Trieu Da proclaimed himself king, that is, King Vu. He kept the Trieu, but kept them small. For the fall of Au Lac he gives 207 BC, where the Complete Annals and the Cuong muc record the cyclical year Quy Ty, which corresponds to 208 BC.123

Those very six pages were mocked. In 1936, Phan Khoi's article in Song Huong carried the subtitle: breaking an error running from Le Van Huu and Ngo Si Lien down to Tran Trong Kim, and named him directly: in the Viet Nam su luoc, the rise and fall of the Trieu still takes up as many as six pages. The figure is right — in the 1920 printing the Trieu chapter fills just six pages. For Tran Trong Kim, northern rule began in 111 BC; Phan Khoi wanted to push that start ninety-six years earlier.41

Mentioned in

  1. Episode 2The rising of Lady Trieu, 24815 min
  2. Episode 3The Trieu: legitimate dynasty or foreign conquest15 min
  3. Episode 3Si Nhiep holds Giao Chau amid the turmoil of the Three Kingdoms17 min

Sources for this page

Every row of the profile and every passage below points to one of these documents. How we choose and check sources

  1. Viet Nam su luoc

    book 1, part 1 chapter 4 The Trieu Dynasty, pages 41-46, and the start of part 2, page 47

    Back to the text

  2. Dai Viet su ky toan thu

    Outer Annals book 1, the Thuc section, folio 9b — the main text gives the year Quy Ty; the figure 208 is a note by the translators

    Back to the text

  3. Kham dinh Viet su thong giam cuong muc

    Preliminary Annals book 1 — the main text gives the year Quy Ty

    Back to the text

  4. Song Huong — Phan Khoi's two articles on Trieu Da

    the article Put Trieu Da and his line out of Vietnamese history, Song Huong issue 3, 15 August 1936 — the typed transcription on Wikisource

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