Place

Chan Lap

A state that some of the histories record as having plotted or allied with Mai Thuc Loan in the rising the basic annals place in 722 — a detail absent from the basic annals, and one Sima Guang read but deliberately left out of the Tongjian's main text.

At a glance

Type
A state — the Old Book of Tang calls it the state of Chan Lap, and records Mai Thuc Loan plotting together with it and with Lam Ap; the New Book of Tang has him allied abroad with the states of Lam Ap, Chan Lap and Kim Lan12
Dates
The two biographies of Duong Tu Huc, where Chan Lap is named, set the events early in Kaiyuan; the basic annals place the rising in the tenth year of Kaiyuan, that is 72213

About the place

The old chronicles say

The biography of Duong Tu Huc in the Old Book of Tang records: early in the Kaiyuan era, the An Nam chieftain Mai Huyen Thanh rebelled, styled himself the Black Emperor, plotted together with the state of Lam Ap and the state of Chan Lap, and attacked and took the seat of the An Nam protectorate. The line in the basic annals of the same history says only that he attacked and besieged prefectures and districts, with no allied state. The New Book of Tang, completed in 1060, writes that he allied abroad with the states of Lam Ap, Chan Lap and Kim Lan, occupied the land of Hai Nam, his army claimed at four hundred thousand; among the Chinese histories opened for this event, the state of Kim Lan is found only here.132

Sima Guang had read the story of the plot with Lam Ap and Chan Lap before presenting his Zizhi tongjian in 1084, and his Kaoyi note shows he deliberately left it out of the main text. The An Nam chi luoc of Le Tac, compiled around 1335, keeps Lam Ap and Chan Lap but drops Kim Lan; the Complete Annals (1479) likewise record that Mai Thuc Loan allied abroad with the people of Lam Ap and Chan Lap, his army claimed at three hundred thousand. The Nguyen court historians who compiled the Cuong muc complained that the old history's record of him allying with Lam Ap and Chan Lap, with an army of three hundred thousand, was taken in outline from the Tang histories, without examining the facts.4567

Mentioned in

  1. Episode 11Mai Thuc Loan, the Black Emperor16 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. Old Book of Tang

    book 184, Biographies of Eunuchs, the life of Duong Tu Huc, main text

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  2. New Book of Tang

    book 207, Biographies of Eunuchs, part one, the life of Duong Tu Huc, main text

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  3. Old Book of Tang

    book 8, Basic Annals of Xuanzong, part one, the tenth year of Kaiyuan, the eighth month, day Binh Tuat, main text

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  4. Zizhi tongjian

    book 212, Sima Guang's Kaoyi note as quoted in Hu Sanxing's annotated edition, checked against book 13 of the Tongjian kaoyi in the Siku quanshu copy

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  5. An Nam chi luoc

    book 4, the section "Chinh thao van huong", main text

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  6. Dai Viet su ky toan thu

    Outer Annals book 5, the period under the Sui and Tang, folio 4b, the year Nham Tuat, main text

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  7. Kham dinh Viet su thong giam cuong muc

    Preliminary Annals book 4, the year Nham Tuat, the tenth year of Kaiyuan, the "respectfully examined" comment of the Nguyen court historians

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