Place
Cam Khe
In the main text of the Book of the Later Han, the place Ma Yuan pursued the Trung sisters to after Lang Bac. Two other sources write Kim Khe and treat it as a cave; no contemporary source says where it lay.
At a glance
- Also known as
- Kim Khe — Kim being the character for gold — in the Giao Chau ngoai vuc ky and the Viet chi, the two characters sounding close in medieval Chinese; the Complete Annals write Cam Khe and note that the histories record it as Kim Khe123
- Location
- No contemporary source has yet told us where the place lay1
About the place
The old chronicles say
After Lang Bac, Ma Yuan's biography in the Book of the Later Han goes on: Yuan pursued Trung Trac and her band to Cam Khe, defeated them several times, and the rebels scattered and fled. In the first month of the following year, that is, 43, he beheaded Trung Trac and Trung Nhi and sent their heads to Luoyang; Ma Yuan was made Marquis of Xinxi, with the revenue of three thousand households. The main text writes Cam with the character meaning to forbid, and Khe with the character for a stream, and treats it as a military location — the place the Han army chased them to.4
Two other sources write Kim Khe, with Kim, the character for gold, and treat it as a cave, a place where people hide. The Thuy kinh chu, quoting the lost Giao Chau ngoai vuc ky, says that when Ma Yuan led his troops against Trac, the one who fled into the Kim Khe cave was her husband — the book calls him by a single name, Thi — and he was caught only three years later. The Tang note of Li Xian, placed right after the words sent their heads to Luoyang, quotes the Viet chi: Trung Trac fled into the Kim Khe cave, and was caught only after two years. So on one and the same page the main text says beheaded and the note says hid in a cave; Li Xian set down both, and did not rule between them. And the two books that tell of the cave do not agree on who hid there.12
The Vietnamese histories know about this mismatch too: the Complete Annals write Cam Khe, then add a note that the histories record it as Kim Khe. But the direction of movement changes. In the Book of the Later Han, Cam Khe is the place Ma Yuan chased them to; in the Complete Annals, it is the place Queen Trung herself, seeing the enemy too strong and fearing she could not hold out, fell back to hold, before her troops scattered and the line of the realm was broken once more. The Nguyen court's Cuong muc has the sisters defeated and dying in its main text, while a note quotes the Nam Viet chi: Trung Trac fled into the Kim Khe cave, and was caught only after two years.345
Mentioned in
Sources for this page
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