Trung Sisters - Women - Women's Health

May 23, 2012


		1 Introduction 2 Traditional Vietnamese account 3 Traditional Chinese account 4 Impact 5 Footnotes 6 See also

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Trung Sisters

Wikipedia

History of Vietnam

Image:Haiba.jpg|thumb|200px|Procession commemmorating the Trung Sisters in early 20th century

The Trưng Sisters, known in Vietnamese language|Vietnamese as Hai B?? Trưng (the two Trưng ladies), are two 1st century women regarded as national heroines of Vietnam after they successfully repelled Chinese invasions for three years.

The sisters were known as Tr??ng Tr???c (Traditional Chinese: ??????; pinyin: Zh??ng C??) and Tr??ng Nh??? (Traditional Chinese: ??????; pinyin: Zh??ng ??r) and were born during the thousand-year Chinese occupation of Vietnam. The dates of their birth are unknown, but Trung Trac was older than Trung Nhi. The exact date of their death is unknown but they both died in the year 43|AD 43.

The motivation of the Tr??ng sisters and what happened is open to dispute. The traditional Vietnamese account has been alleged by many to be a highly fictionalized account created in the 14th century to encourage Vietnamese patriotism. The traditional Chinese account, of course, could have been simply a history written by the victors.

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Traditional Vietnamese account

Image:Trungsis.jpg|thumb|150px|right|A sculpture depicting the Trung Sisters
Early Years

The Trung sisters were born in a rural Vietnamese village, into a military family. Their father was a prefect of Me Linh, therefore the sisters grew up in a house with a lot of militaristic influence. They also witnessed the cruel treatment of the Vietnamese by their China|Chinese subjugators. The Trung sisters spent much time studying the art of warfare, as well as learning fighting skills.

When a neighbouring prefect came to visit Me Linh, he brought with him his son, Thi Sach. Thi Sach met and fell in love with Trung Trac during the visit, and they were soon married.

Rebellion

Soon, the Chinese became intolerably cruel, and exploited the Vietnamese, as well as forcing them to Assimilation (sociology)|assimilate into the Chinese. Thi Sach believed this oppression was unbearable and made a stand against the Chinese. In an effort, made by the Chinese, to deter any insurrectionary activity, Thi Sach was Execution (legal)|executed. However it was in fact this event that probably spurred rebellious behaviour on faster.

In 39|AD 39 Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, after successfully repelling a small Chinese unit from their village, together amassed a huge army, consisting mostly of women and within months had taken back many (about 65) citadels from the Chinese, and had liberated Nam Viet. They became queen regnant|Queens of the country, and managed to resist all Chinese attacks on Nam Viet for two years.

Defeat

Their revolution was short lived however, as the Chinese gathered a huge army that managed to overrun and finally recapture Nam Viet. The Chinese army did this by fighting the battle naked. It was an unspeakable taboo for a woman to see a man naked who wasn't her husband, and therefore not all the women fought in the battle, and subsequently, with so little numbers, most of the male battalion|battalions were wiped out. Phung Thi Chinh, a pregnant noble lady was the captain of a group of soldiers who were to protect the central flank of Nam Viet. She gave birth on the front line, and with a baby in one arm, and a sword in the other, continued to fight the battle.

However, the Trung sisters realised that they had been defeated and that to fight now would be death at the hands of the Chinese. Therefore to protect their honour, and to elude ridicule, the two Queens committed suicide by drowning themselves in the Hat River (43|AD 43). Some of their loyal soldiers continued to fight to the death, whilst others committed suicide (e.g. Phung Thi Chinh, who also took her newborn baby's life). There is a story of one woman who would randomly charge through Chinese camps, screaming and slaying random men. Finally, after killing many more, she committed suicide in the hope of returning to her respected commanders.

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Traditional Chinese account

The Chinese traditional historical accounts on the Tr??ng sisters are remarkably brief -- found basically in two different chapters of Hou Han Shu, the history for the Eastern Han Dynasty, against which the Tr??ng sisters had carried out their uprising.

Chapter 86 of Hou Han Shu, entitled Biographies of the Southern and the Southwestern Barbariansref|barbarians, has this short description:

In the 16th year of Jianwu <nowiki></nowiki>40, Jiaozhi (Giao Ch???) modern northern Vietnam and extreme western Guangdong and western Guangxi women Zheng Ce Tr??ng Tr???c and Zheng Er Tr??ng Nh??? rebelled and attacked the commandery capital. Zheng Ce was the daughter of the sheriff of Miling M?? Linh; ?????? County, and she married a man named Shi Suo Thi S??ch; ?????? from ....Chu Di??n ref|origin She was a ferocious warrior. Su Ding ??????, the governor of Jiaozhi Commandery, curbed her with laws. Ce became angry and rebelled. The barbarian towns of Jiuzhen, Rinan, and Hepu Commanderies all joined her, and she captured 65 cities and claimed to be queen. The governors of Jiaozhi Province and the commanderies could only defend themselves. Emperor Guangwu of Han|Emperor Guangwu therefore ordered the Changsha, Hepu, and Jiaozhi Commanderies to prepare wagons and boats, to repair the roads and bridges, to open the mountain passes, and to save food supplies. In the 18th year <nowiki></nowiki>42, he sent Ma Yuan the General Fupuo and Duan Zhi ?????? the General Lochuan to lead ten odd thousands of men from Changsha, Guiyang, Linling, and Cangwu Commanderies against them. In the summer of the next year <nowiki></nowiki>43, Ma recaptured Jiaozhi and killed Zheng Ce, Zheng Er, and others in battle, and the rest scattered. He also attacked Du Yang ??????, a rebel of the Jiuzhen Commandery, and Du surrendered and was moved, along with some 300 of his followers to Linling Commandery. The border regions were thus pacified.

Chapter 24, the biographies of Ma and some of his notable male descendants, had a parallel description that also added that Ma was able to impress the locals by creating irrigation networks to help the people and also by simplifying and clarifying the Han laws, and was able to get the people to follow Han's laws.

The traditional Chinese account therefore does not indicate abuse of the Vietnamese population by the Chinese officials, although that appears to be quite likely based on the negative implication from Ma's biography -- if there was nothing wrong with what they were doing, why would Ma need to improve on them in a major manner? However, it also implicitly disavowed the traditional Vietnamese accounts of massive cruelty and of the Chinese official killing Tr??ng Tr???c's husband. There was further no indication that the Tr??ng sisters committed suicide, that other followers followed example and did so, or that the Chinese army fought naked to win the battle. Indeed, Ma, known in Chinese history for his strict military discipline, would not have likely carried out cruel or unusual tactics.

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Impact

The Trưng Sisters are highly revered in Vietnam, as they led the first resistance movement against the occupying Chinese, after 247 years of domination. Many temples are dedicated to them, and a yearly holiday, occurring in February, to commemorate their deaths is observed by many Vietnamese. In addition, numerous large streets in major cities are named after them. They are often depicted riding on elephants into battle.

The stories of the Trung sisters and of another famous woman warrior, Trieu Thi Trinh|Triệu Thị Trinh, are cited by some historians as hints that Vietnamese society before Sinicization was a matriarchal one, where there are no obstacles for women in assuming leadership roles.

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Footnotes

# note|barbarians The use of the word barbarians is historical, and is used to be faithful in translating the Chinese texts. No disrespect is intended in any way.
# note|origin Shi's home is rendered ???? (Zhu ?), where ? is a character that is not in Unicode and therefore unavailable online.

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