Badass Women of History # 6: Lady Triệu

A Vietnamese Amazon

Lady Trieu also known as Trieu Thi Trinh was born Ba Trieu and would come to be known as the Vietnamese Joan of Arc. When it comes to these women warriors in history there seems to be a lot of that the "insert nationality here" Joan of Arc titles going around (Lozen). I swear one day I will publish an article on said French maiden so we can all see what all the fuss is about. But for now I think our current subject has more in common with our last badass lady Emilia Plater, as in she defied her well to do family to lead a short lived rebellion against foreign overlords; and while not realizing their goals in life, would become legendary symbols of those who succeed later on. But you be the judge. Like so many of our other martial ladies, to understand her story we need a little background on how this all came about........

General Ma Yuan

Throughout recorded history, China and Vietnam have repeated a cycle of the former invading and conquering the later and sitting in occupation for about a century; a revolt would ensue, the Chinese would be driven out only to return a number of decades later. Rinse, repeat. But there was something different about the invasion of 43 AD. The Chinese Han emperor had sent general Ma Yuan's army to retake Vietnam from it's current co-rulers, the Trung Sisters. It was a relatively short campaign as the general traveled elusively through the wilderness, avoiding populated areas and limiting contact with civilians until he finally arrived at the sister's capital. And so at the battle of Giao Chi, surprised, outnumbered, and outmatched, with only their personal guard in the immediate area, the sisters were easily defeated. General Yuan had the Trung sisters brought before a massive assembly of Vietnamese civilians and told them to spread the word that the people were not the Han emperor's enemy, that even though Chinese military would garrison in their villages and cities, the Prefects, Governors, and other such officials would be chosen amongst them. He then had the Trung sisters publicly executed as enemies of the emperor's peace and unity of his people. Having their own people govern them seemed to take the sting out of being a conquered nation; as far as most were concerned what difference did it make whether they had to pay homage to who ever sits in Giao Chi or to the far off Han emperor. Talk of rebellion did not exist for the first time during Chinese occupation.

Sun Jian

In and around 185-186, southern China and Vietnam saw a rise in raids from barbarian jungle tribesmen. It played hell with the Vietnamese peasants as they were forced to find places to hide, not being allowed to enter Chinese forts. And even when raids ended, the Chinese troops would do nothing to help rebuild. It was also beyond the ability of the garrisons to defeat the raiders, as they would slip back into the dense jungles and the Chinese troops were loath to follow to far from the towns and cities. Enter the Chinese general Sun Jian, descendant of the legendary philosopher general and author of the revered tome "The Art of War", Sun Tzu. Jian was sent by the Han not only because of his esteemed heritage, but also he was known to the Vietnamese, as he and his father put down pirates in the area in his youth. Sun Jian had already earned a fearsome yet honorable reputation in his role for helping put down the religiously fanatical Yellow Turban Rebellion in North West and central China, and was respectably called the "Tiger of Jiangdong". His forces scoured the jungles for the tribesman, slaughtering any they found and burning their villages. But it took its toll and he demanded from the local government officials money, food, and supplies, in addition to what they were already paying to the central government. The Vietnamese prefects raised taxes, and while it hurt, the peasantry seemed to understand as it was going toward protecting them and securing the land. But this had set a damaging precedent that would come back to haunt the future relations between the Vietnamese and their Chinese overlords. After the carnage was over and not a single tribe was to be heard from again, Sun Jian left, leaving a sort of air that the people of Vietnam owed the Sun family for his efforts. Whether this was intentional or not who can say. 

Emperor Sun Quan of Wu

For the next couple of decades life went back to normal for the people of Vietnam, meanwhile a series of events were playing out in China that would usher in an age chaos and civil war known as the Three-Kingdoms Era. The Han dynasty collapsed and three great families, the Cao, Liu, and Vietnam's so called saviors, the Sun, vied for control of China; forming their own nations of Wei, Shu, and Wu, respectively. Sun Jian's son Sun Quan claimed the title of Emperor of Wu in 229, which included Chinese occupied Vietnam. Representatives of Emperor Quan came south to tell the everyone the good news, that they no longer lived under the yoke of the old regime and that for now on there was no segregation of peoples; Chinese, Vietnamese, or otherwise; everyone in the Kingdom of Wu were now to be just the people of Wu. It was nice propagandized way of saying that the people of Vietnam had just lost their semi-autonomous status, as Chinese overseers were now brought in to supervise or advise Vietnamese government officials. There was also another new snag, besides the taxes and other tribute now to go to the Wu capital of Wuchang, for the purposes of funding everyday governance, the Wu Emperor also expected additional money and supplies be sent to support his war efforts against his rivals, Liu Bei of the Kingdom of Shu and Cao Cao of the Kingdom of Wei. The imperial officials used Sun Jian's demands for extra supplies during his war with the tribes as a precedent for such confiscation during war time. They also related Emperor Quan's claim that it would be a personal insult to the Sun family to not give him everything he asks after all his father had done for them. For the next 2 decades Vietnam would be relentlessly drained of money, conscripts, food, and natural resources to support Wu war efforts. But unlike last time the people saw no visible benefit; they saw these wars as a Chinese problem, not a Vietnamese problem. And so for the first time in almost 200 years since the start of the current occupation the people of Vietnam started to truly resent their Chinese overlords. Small scale rebellions and riots started breaking out all over.

 And so we come to 246 AD and the Trieu family of Cu'u Chan province, Vietnam. Nothing is really known about the Trieu family except that the Vietnamese family have held favor with the Chinese since the 43 invasion and have been given prominent government positions since. The current head of the family was Ba Trieu's older brother, name unknown, who was prefect of the province. While most of the rest of the country was in chaos, his province was in relative peace. So when the Wu emperor sent General Lu Yin, his army, and a bevy of minor Chinese nobles as officers, to regain control, naturally it was the Trieu compound in the city of Jiazhou that was made the base of operation. Yin was making great progress, regaining provinces and territories by a mix of diplomacy and force. It was soon apparent the reason for the number of  young minor nobles that had come with the army, they started to take direct control of some government functions in re-acquired towns and were brow-beating their way into marriages with the upper class Vietnamese. The prefect himself was forced to marry the sister of one of the Chinese lord-lings to insure his compliance. Ba's new sister-in-law now set her sights on Ba, determined to marry her off to one of her fellow Chinese. But each time a suitor was presented, the Lady Trieu refused, even publicly saying to her pushy new relative,

"I only want to ride the wind and walk the waves, slay the big whales of the Eastern sea, clean up frontiers, and save the people from drowning. Why should I imitate others, bow my head, stoop over and be a slave? Why resign myself to menial housework?"

The Lady Trieu was known for her wild spirit and her skill in hunting and fishing, and she had the physique to match any man. According to most accounts she was athletically fit and extremely tall. How tall? Accounts vary, from between a head taller then any of her male counterparts to one tall's ridiculous claim of 9 feet tall. From taking details from the more historic, less poetic accounts and combing that with anthropological data of the time, historians believe she stood about 6 foot, give or take an inch, in a time when most males stood at 5' 4". She had long black hair and a "harmonic voice like a large tolling bell", whatever that' suppose to mean. Her other notable feature that ever single tale, poem, legend, and chronicle also all agree on and point out, forgive me for saying, is an extremely well endowed female chest. A statuesque beauty like that with a commanding presence to match was not something the Chinese nobles were willing to give up getting control of. So her Chinese sister-in-law tried to force a marriage between Ba and the son of general Lu Yin. Ba Trieu would have non of it and in full view in the public square murdered her sister-in-law and called on any able body willing to fight against the Chinese to follower her into the mountains. Her brother arranged a secret meeting between the two, trying to convince her to come back, that he could convince the Chinese that it was all an accident. But Lady Trieu would have none of it:

"I'd like to ride storms, kill sharks in the open sea, drive out the aggressors, reconquer the country, undo the ties of serfdom, and never bend my back to be the concubine of whatever man."

Glaive

Her words were enough to move him to full support and he himself went back to Jiazhou and the surrounding villages and was able to recruit about a 1000 men to add to his sisters bandits. Cu'u was now added to the list of Vietnam provinces in open revolt. Her brother differed command of their little army to her and she lead them on numerous raids against Chinese patrols and outposts. Chinese troops would report the same scenario after every attack. The rebels would come rushing out of no were with Lady Trieu at the front, astride a war elephant, wearing a yellow tunic, and wielding a spear or glaive. Her men called her Nhuy Kieu Tu'ong Quan (the Golden Robed Lady General) and they carried the banner of the old Shih dynasty, the late Trung sisters family. For about a year this went on; Lady Trieu won skirmish after skirmish and the scions of Chinese noble houses deserted back to China in embarrassment at being defeated by a woman. Her forces even manged to take the walled capital of the province, her former home Jiazhou. About a third of her foot soldiers, lead by her brother, manged to scale the walls of the city. They were suppose to make a made dash for the gate to let the rest of the rebels in but were held up in deadly street fighting. His men backed up against the wall they had scaled but now had no way of getting back over. He called for help. So the Golden Lady charged her elephant at the gate, bashing it down. The rebels won the day as the Chinese and General Yin retreated. The Trieu siblings knew they could not hold the city, so they took what supplies they could, recruited some of the city inhabitants to replenish their forces and headed back to their mountain hideouts. After that, General Yin was recalled and it was about to become a whole other ball game.

Luc Dan

It was now 248, Lady Trieu, now 21 was riding high and was now looking to set her sights on expanding her rebellion to other provinces, hoping to assimilate other rebel groups into her own. However, as much as Vietnam was small potatoes to Emperor Quan compared to the three way civil war he was engaged in for control of all of China, some were taking notice. The emperor's son Sun Liang decided not to bother his father with the petty problems of their southern territories. He wanted it moped up quickly so as not to distract from the more important conflict with Wei and Shu. He turned to general Luc Dan. Where general Yin was some what of a diplomat and administrative general, Luc Dan was a battle hardened and ready warrior. Well accomplished but known to be brutal and taking a total no holds bar approach to warfare, he had been sidelined in the on going conflicts as to not complicate emperor Quan's plans of making some sort of alliance with Liu Bei, Emperor of Shu. So Sun Liang saw fit to unleash him on the Vietnamese. Luc Dan wanted nothing more than an open field blood bath of a battle to put the upstart Lady Trieu in her place. The problem was drawing her out. He started to viciously pillaging and burning villages all over Cu'u, ruthlessly slaughtering villagers; but leaving enough alive to get word back to the Trieu siblings that he would only stop if they faced him in a proper battle. The Trieus, in the face of watching so many innocents needlessly die, reluctantly accepted. Brother and sister each seated on a war elephant with an army of around 800 at this point faced Luc Dan and his 2000 infantry and 300 cavalry. As always the rebels charged on mass as they usually did. The elephants gained ahead of the rest of the soldiers. When Luc Dan felt the gap between the elephants and the rebel foot soliders was enough he sent his cavalry in and they cut the legs out from under prefect Trieu's elephant. The beast came tumbling down crushing Lady Trieu's brother and tripping up her elephant. As she tried to regain control over her mount, Luc Dan's professional infantry  charged right into her peasant army. Seeing their leaders down and facing a trained and skilled proffesional force, the rebels panicked and tried to flee just to turn around and see the Chinese cavalry, after its initial attack had wheeled around the battlefield and came up behind them. It was a bloodbath and as was his style Luc Dan afforded no quarter, accepted no surrenders. Lady Trieu escaped with only a handful of followers. She once again fled up into the mountains; there she took her own life, throwing herself into the rapids of a near by river, riddled form the guilt she felt for all the lives lost in her name and for failing her people's dream of independence.

Her story would galvanize the people's resolve to drive out the Chinese, as they had done in times before. It would take another 200 years before the last Chinese solider would leave but it was always the image of the giant in a golden tunic that compelled the Vietnamese to push on and not give up. Many Vietnamese soldiers and commanders had claimed that the Golden General had visited them in dreams, telling them to not give up, that she would provide them with her courage when they were in battle, In 544 a new Vietnamese dynasty, the Ly, would come to power and it first king would build a Buddhist temple in her name. Almost every year since its founding the temple holds a festival on April 3rd, Lady Trieu's theorized birthday, to celebrate her and the ideal of Vietnamese independence.

On a side note, as stated in the article, these events occur in the shadow of the monumental War of the Three Kingdoms happening just north, in China. The Three Kingdoms era is another one of those times that I find absolutely fascinating and so expect to see that series sometime in the future; certainty not until I finish up with the Angivens, though God knows when that will be. Speaking of which, I know I had hinted in the last few of my posts that my next Badass Women entry was going to be Empress Matilda and/or Eleanor of Aquitaine. But I figured we all needed a break from jolly old England for now and besides the story of Eleanor will have to come a little later as it would contain spoilers for whats coming in the Angevin series as I try and wrap up Henry II.