Person
Trieu Hung
Son of Anh Te by the woman of the Cu clan, who came to the throne of Nam Viet while still young. At the banquet laid on to kill Lu Gia, it was he who stopped his mother's spear; later Lu Gia killed him.
At a glance
- Also known as
- The Complete Annals call him by the posthumous title Ai Vuong1
- Role
- King of Nam Viet, who came to the throne while still young; he sent a letter up to the Han, and would not listen when Lu Gia remonstrated again and again2
- Family
- Son of Anh Te (Minh Vuong) by the Cu woman of Ham Dan, chosen by Anh Te as his heir; Kien Duc was the eldest son of the same king by his Viet wife2
- End
- Attacked and killed by Lu Gia and his brother, together with the queen dowager and the Han envoys2
Life
The old chronicles say
At the banquet with wine laid on to borrow the might of the Han envoys to kill Lu Gia, the king sat facing north, opposite his mother. When the envoys hesitated and none dared to act, and Lu Gia rose and walked out, the queen dowager flew into a rage and wanted to take a spear to him. The Shiji puts it briefly: the king stopped the queen dowager. The young king is the one who stopped a killing — and later the very man he had saved led troops and killed him.2
How later ages remembered
Later Vietnamese historians call him Ai Vuong, and differ over the root of his disaster. Le Van Huu piles the guilt on Lu Gia: he killed his own king to vent a private grudge, and even putting him to death would not wipe out the crime. Ngo Si Lien writes that the disaster of Ai Vuong, though Lu Gia brought it about, had its seed in Queen Cu, and still counts Ai Vuong among those who did not know the principles of the Spring and Autumn Annals. Le Tung, in the general essay at the front of the Complete Annals, follows the same line: the disaster of Ai Vuong was truly opened by Minh Vuong's doting favour for Queen Cu.345
Mentioned in
Sources for this page
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