[Zhang_Taiyou]

Zhang Taiyou
(Trương Thái Du)

A New Approach on Old Issues
Of Ancient Vietnamese History

Vietnamese ancient history prior to the time of The Mê Linh Heroines (The Trưng Sisters) has always intrigued and challenged me. Using paths not previously recorded, and with all my reverence toward the temple of history, I have explored that ancient time with a few essays, based on studies of old writings, books and antiques from both Vietnamese and Chinese sources. As these essays near completion, my knowledge of the ancient Vietnamese history has turned a new page. All obvious mistakes, conflicts of ideas will be cleared; single veins of events will be collected into groups to form new and longer, more realistic pages of rewritten history.

Summary of studies:

a) Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) by definition means an area bordering the South of China during the time of Tangyao – Yushun (Đường Nghiêu – Ngu Thuấn). Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) during the beginning of Zhou (Chu) actually was the land of Chu (Sở) (Hubei, China). Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) also was called Jizhi (Cơ Chỉ) or Jichu (Cơ Sở), which was the name of the land of Chu (Sở) during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. During the Qin (Tần), Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) was Xiangjun (Tượng Quận). During the Western Han, Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) was the North Vietnam. Only since the time of Eastern Han, did Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) become a real name given to an area defined on map. Based on the knowledge of astronomy during the Qin – Han (Tần – Hán), Rinan (Nhật – sun, Nam – south ) means an area south of the sun, which is the Southern hemisphere. Jiuzhen (Cửu Chân) means “the foot of the sun” which is the Equator. It is very possible that the Chinese made no mistakes, and more than anyone, they knew the meaning of Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ); however, many historians intentionally caused confusion regarding this word. This was part of the Han’s politics, using literature and culture to secure its colonialism.

– The primitive Wenlang (Văn Lang) government of Luoyue (Lạc Việt) people was first formed at Dongtinghu (Động Đình Hồ) Hunan, China), around 1199 BC, a year of the dog. The last King Xiong (Hùng) among the 18 Kings of Hungs had escaped the Chu (Sở) enemy, traveling southward to the land along Xijiang (Tây Giang, the West River), Guangxi, China – then re established the same primitive government format of Wenlang Dongtinghu (Văn Lang Động Đình Hồ), which then became Wenlang Xijiang (Văn Lang Tây Giang). King Shu (Thục), named Pan (Phán), of the Shu (Thục) Guizhou (Quí Châu), North West of Guangxi had invaded Wenlang Xijiang (Văn Lang Tây Giang) to form a new nation called Xiouluo (Tây – West, Âu – Mountain, land, Lạc – Water, Nation). A large number of people from Wenlang Dongtinghu (Văn Lang Động Đình Hồ) had continued to migrate toward the Hồng River delta, before and after 179 BCE. On the land of the ancient Vietnamese, these immigrants re-established their society using the social patterns from those of Wenlang Dongtinghu (Văn Lang Động Đình Hồ); however, the matriarchal groups were not as well connected. Their King Hùng then was the leader of only small areas, as a tribal chief, or a head of an extended family. In Sima Qian’s language, Xiyu (Tây Vu – the western area of Nanyue) was Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) after it was invaded by Zhaoduo (Triệu Đà) – It was not Xiyu (Tây Vu, the western area of the Hồng River) during Mayuan (Mã Viện)’s time. During Hanwudi (Hán Vũ Đế)’s time, Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) became the county named Hepu (Hợp Phố). The word Xi (Tây, West) in Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc), Xiou (Tây Âu), and Xiyu (Tây Vu) still exists today in the name of Guangxi (Quảng Tây, large area in the West), a county of China that is next to the north of North Vietnam. The people of Luoyue (Lạc Việt) at Hepu (Hợp Phố) then may be the Zhuang (Tráng) of today. The tradition to respect and honor the copper drum as a precious and spiritual symbol of Luoyue (Lạc Việt) is still kept by the Zhuang (Tráng)‘s people. In a very linguistic sense, the word “Zhuang” has the same meaning as the word “Xiong”, (Hùng) in Xiongwang (Hùng Vương) or King Hùng.

c) – The areas of the ancient Luoyue (Lạc Việt) included Hunan, Guangxi, Guangdong, North Việt Nam and Hainan island. The people of Luoyue (Lạc Việt) called their country “Đất (Earth) and Nước (Water), which in Chinese characters became Ouluo (Âu Lạc). Therefore, Luoyue (Lạc Việt) actually was the Việt Nation or Yueshangguo (Việt Thường Quốc). The people of Luoyue (Lạc Việt) who supported Zhaoduo (Triệu Đà) to form Nanyue ( Nam Việt) with the capital at Panyu (Phiên Ngung) also called that place Ouluo (Âu Lạc). Since was born the name Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) which had the same meaning as Xiou (Tây Âu), which was the land to the west of Panyu (Phiên Ngung). Thus, there was not an Ouluo (Âu Lạc) nation on the bank of the Hồng River during the time BCE. After 179 BCE, the people of Luoyue (Lạc Việt) from Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc, the West Area) fled from Zhaoduo (Triệu Đà) to North Việtnam had adapted and mixed both socially and historically with their brothers who came from the same roots of Luoyue Dongtinghu (Lạc Việt Động Đình Hồ). These exact same roots had concealed all the traces of re-connection between the two groups, the gaps between them as well as the deception of Chinese written history; and changed the Ancient Vietnamese history into a story with very few documents of conflicting information which was therefore extremely complex.

d) – Based on the nature of the title Xiongwang (Vua Hùng, King Hùng), the First Trưng Sister (Trưng Trắc) was actually the first and the last King Hùng of the Luoyue (Lạc Việt) who lived on the Hồng River delta. The sounds of their bronze drums, in certain tunes and beats must have been the call for unity of the people from King Hung and his generals. In order to eliminate any chance of revolutions from the Luoyue (Lạc Việt), Mayuan (Mã Viện) had searched widely and collected many bronze drums after he killed the Trưng Sisters. This resulted in the fact that the Vietnamese were robbed of their drums from their cultural and social activities for the past thousands of years.

A. What are the meanings of Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ), Xiangjun (Tượng Quận), Jiuzhen (Cửu Chân), Rinan (Nhật Nam) ?

1. Nanjiao (Nam Giao), an ancient space station:

In Shangshu, Volume I, the earliest Chinese History book known edited by Confucius, chapter Yushu (Ngu thư), part Yaodian (Nghiêu điển) there was already the name Namjiao (Nam Giao): “Thân mệnh Hy Thúc trạch Nam Giao, bình trật nam ngoa, kính trí. Nhật vĩnh, tinh Hỏa, dĩ chính trọng hạ. Quyết dân nhân, điểu thú hy cách”. Meaning: “(King Yao) ordered Xiishu (Hy Thúc) to go to Nanjiao (Nam Giao), to observe the Sun moving Southward, note the Summer Solstice (Hạ Chí). During the longest day, Mars will be directly above our head, and that would be the mid summer day. People wore light clothes, birds changed their feathers.” Nanjiao (Nam Giao) was in the system of locations including: Yanggu (Dương Cốc, East), Meigu (Muội Cốc, West), Shuofang (Sóc Phương, North), Nanjiao (Nam Giao, South). From these 4 locations, the officers ordered by King Yao would observe the pattern of movements of the sun, moon, stars, then systematize these movements into calendar following the changes in nature so the people could apply directly to their daily life. The above four locations actually were the four astronomy stations in the ancient time.

Today, Chinese archeologists are still unable to confirm the exact location of the capital during Yaoshun (Nghiêu – Thuấn) time, although they have always known it was not outside of the areas around the middle part of Huanghe River (Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi). The four space stations would have been at the four corners of which the capital Yao - Shun was at center. In an astronomy mathematical problem, the margin of errors in measurements (must have existed) would affect the results less if the distances between the stations were more. However, when the stations were too far apart, then it became difficult to communicate. I believed the distance between East – West stations or South – North stations would have been about 10 latitudes or longitudes at the most. The interval between latitudes is about 110 km. Therefore, Nanjiao (Nam Giao) could not be any farther from the Yaoshun capital any more than 500km, not talking about beyond the dangerous Changjiang (Trường Giang) river toward the South.

I would like to present a simple astronomy math problem to prove the point: Based on a very primitive way to measure the sun, we can find out the latitude of any location on earth. Knowing the latitudes of two points will help us calculate to shortest distance between them.

For example: Find the latitude of Ha Noi: Pick one of either Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox, or Winter Solstice. Set a pole to form a right angle against the ground. At noon, mark the shadow of the pole which at that time should fall on the North – South direction. We can easily calculate the angle A between the pole and the hypotenuse of the right triangle formed by the pole, its shadow, and the hypotenuse (imaginative). Hà Nội ‘s latitude would be:

a. On Spring equinox or Autumn equinox: V = the angle A
b. On Winter Solstice: V = Angle A – 23 °27’
c. On Summer Solstice: V = 23°27’ – Angle A

Despite the day, V always equals 21°. Similarly, we calculate the latitude of Saigon to be 10°30’. The shortest distance between Hà Nội and Sài gòn is:

D = (21°– 10° 30’) x 111km = 1,165.5 km.

In this case, the margin of error is small and does not affect the approximate results. When the difference is too large, we will have to do a few more calculations.

Simply with a pole, people had calculated rather exactly the numbers of days in one year: that is the cycle that the shadows of pole equal when based on a fixed angle. Not only China, but many civilizations in the Northern Hempisphere had invented the first clock using only 1 pole.When we plant the pole straight up on the ground, the length of the shadow and its angle compared to North – South would always change with the time. Therefore, knowing the facts about the shadow and angle will give us the time of day. Specially, shadows of the pole always move fromt left to right within a circle less than 180 degrees, based on the latitude of the observer. This explains why most clocks have hands that move from left to right. The hands of a clock also mimic the shadows of the simple pole used to study times and space in the old days.

In short, Nanjiao (Nam Giao) was the name of a location. Later, man’s knowledge of astronomy improved with better astrolabes, people do not need to travel far to measure. Nanjiao (Nam Giao) station might have been built right in the capital. Kings can worship the sun easier atop the station, and gradually, Nanjiao (Nam Giao) station was changed to a place used only to worship the sun. The astronomical role of Nanjiao (Nam Giao) was covered by religious practice. Moreover, today, with an astrolabe and knowing how to look up ready made tables in books, we can calculate the most complicated astronomy problems.

2. The name Nanjiao (Nam Giao) contributed to the concept of Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ)

Nanjiao gave way to the concept Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ). That’s right. Jiaozhi with the word Zhi has a subset mean “the area”. Jiaozhi is the area next to, near the border of China southward of Nanjiao. The word Zhi besides the subset, also contained another set with the same pronunciation but written with the meaning of “feet”. The confusion between the two has given historians from the Eastern Han onward many different ways to explain the name “Jiaozhi”. Chenshu (Trần Thư), a history book written by Yaosilian (Diêu Tư Liêm) in 636, had for the first time recorded another Zhi (Chỉ) with the meaning of “Land” in Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ). Old China writing has a principle of “similar sounds, may be used similarly”. Therefore to find a definition to a word, we have to consider the whole text, not automatically trust an obsolete meaning that is not applicable.

The First volume of Shangshu was the first book that mentioned Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ), Part Dazhuan (Đại Truyện, Main Stories) noted: “To the South of Jiaozhi, there was Yueshangguo (Việt Thường Quốc), during the time of Chengwang (Thành Vương, 1063 BCE-1026BCE), they had come to establish a relationship and brought Phoenix as gifts for the nation”. Shangshu also was believed to be a book from heaven. This became the logic for the poem “Nan Guo Shan He” (The country of the South, Nam Quốc Sơn Hà) during the time of Ly dynasty:

The country in the South was where the King of the South lived,
This was written cleary in the Book of Heaven.
All enemies who dared to touch this land,
Surely would be defeated.

The Viet had none of the history books left from the Lý, but just the poem above had strongly illustrated the concept that their ancestor was Yueshangguo (Việt Thường Quốc), South of Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ). Jiaozhi was never considered to be a nation by Shangshu. Obviously, Lý Thường Kiệt understood Jiaozhi simply was a concept, so he wrote the poem to encourage the spirit of his people. Previously, he had moved his army Northward as if to explore the possibility of regaining the land of Luoyue (Lạc Việt) that was invaded by China. Century 18, Quang Trung Nguyễn Huệ shared the same thinking. Century 19, King Gia Long wanted to change the country’s name to Nanyue (Nam Việt) but was not successful, therefore his grandson Tự Đức wrote with regrets in Khâm Định Việt Sử: “That (story) helped us to know it was very difficult to try to gain back your lost land ever since years ago, not just today. It was so sad.” Following I will prove that Luo (Lạc) means water or nation. Thus, Luoyue (Lạc Việt) was actually Yueshangguo (Việt Thường Quốc).

Since Yaoshun until the beginning of Zhou, Chinese territory had never crossed beyond the Changjiang River. Chapter Wugong (Vũ Cống) in Shangshu states that the land of China included the South bank of Changjiang, but many scholars believed the content of Wugong had been edited a lot, even might have been written during the Warring States period, not any earlier. Therefore, we need not confirm the exact location of Nanjiao, but still should be able to understand the concept Jiaozhi used to imply the land next to Nanjiao, on the north bank of Changjiang river. Assuming there was a name Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ), since Dongzhou, if Chu (Sở) was formed and expanded southwards, Chu would have moved through Jiaozhi and the name Jiaozhi ought to be written down at least more than once in History Books where there was talk about Chu.

This logic led to a very unexpected question: Did Chu, the land that Zhouchengwang gave Yu Xiong (Dục Hùng) actually belong to Jiaozhi at that time? In the beginning part of An Nam Chí Lược, Lê Tắc quoted Han Guan Yi book of Ying Shan that China expanded from the North (Shuo) then moved Southward to establish Jizhi (Cơ Chỉ). Shi Jing Zhu (Thủy Kinh Chú) by Li Dao Yuan (Lịch Đạo Nguyên) also called Jiaozhi by the name Jizhi (Cơ Chỉ, Cơ sở) where Hanwudi had expanded for his family (more explanations to follow later). Jizhi (Cơ Chỉ) is a synonym of Jichu (Cơ Sở). The word “Chu” in Jichu only differs from the word Chu in the name of the country Chu with a subset “Shi” (Rock) on the left. Based on the principle that “similar pronunciation can be used similarly”, this led to the fact that the land “Chu” which Chengwang gave Yu Xiong was actually the same as Jichu which belonged to the Chu – the land named Jizhi which was part of Jiaozhi (the bordering land in the south) of the Zhou’s dynasty. Yu Xiong came to Dan Yang to establish his country, where today is the land near the north bank of Changjiang River, in Hubei, China.

Nan Man Story (Story of the under-developed land in the South) of Houhanshu, after mentioning Yueshangguo in Main Stories, Fan Ye continued: “The Zhou was loosing its power, when Chu claimed to be Lord of the land, Baiyue (Bách Việt) paid tax to Chu. The logic here is Yueshangguo (Việt Thường Quốc) belonged to Baiyue. Chu also was called Jing (Kinh). The people of Chu bored the Yue’s heredity. Ever since Xiongcong (Hùng Thông), offsprings of Yu Xiong claimed to be King, China had always looked down on Chu as barbarians. Outside of the regulations from The Dong Zhou, Chu continued to expand and had one time ruled all the small groups in the east. Therefore, the concept Jiaozhi was lost for a very long time. This also was the reason China History did not have any details about Yueshangguo and many other areas of Baiyue during the time from the Spring and Autumn period to the end of the Warring States. The history of Chu was considered not the mainstream history to teach, thus most of it was burned by the Qin or was lost.

Shiji of Simaqian, Chapter “Zhao Shi Jia”, in the event of the year 307 BCE Zhao Ling Wang disguised as people of Hu to ride horses and build up his horse calvary division, noted: “Yu Di Zhi (The Book of Geography) recorded that during the Zhou, Jiaozhi was Luoyue (Lạc Việt), during the Qin, (it) was Xiou (Tây Âu), the people wore tattooed and short hair to avoid Sea Dragons. Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) was in the west of Panyu. Nanyue and Ouluo (Âu Lạc) had many last name (Han called it “tianxing” (thousands of last name) – different from the Chinese “baixing” (hundreds of last name). “Shiben” book (Book about real life) also noted that the Yue had many groups, and shared the same ancestors with the Chu people.” Yu Di Zhi and Shiben were the two books written by later generations in attempts to explain details from the original Shiji. Thus, about the time of 307 BCE (the last half of the Warring states), in the Jiaozhi area, south of Chu, there was a group of Luoyue (Lạc Việt) that had the same ancestors with the Chu.

When Qin invaded Chu, Chu was combined with the middle part of China (Zhongyuan), and the concept of Jiaozhi did not appear. History, Stories about Nan Yue (Shiji), wrote: 214 BCE, Qin took over Yangyue to create 3 districts: Guilin, Nanhai, and Xiang. Guilin and Nanhai had been rather obvious, however, for the last two thousand years, people had wasted countless amount of ink and paper to no avail in order to find the exact location of Xiangjun. All because the Qin was too short, and the war afterward destroyed most of books and writings. An Nam Chí Lược by Lê Tắc wrote: “The Qin named Jiaozhi by Xiangjun.”

Once the concept of Jiaozhi was not used, there must be another concept replacing it. Was that “Xiang”? To describe something abstract, people used symbols, or “xiangzheng”. The story of “a blind man tried to describe an elephant” used an elephant as symbol. The meaning of “xiang” is most clear in Chinese Chess. The Chinese had invented Xiangqi (The Symbolic Game of War), when tanks were still considered the most powerful king of the battle. This super war game symbolizes a battle in the ancient time, using 64 squares divided in the middle by a river. Each side has 2 elephants. These were not simply elephants as many people has mistaken. The elephants never cross the river. They symbolized abstract factors that have certain effects to the whole war like psychological war, people motivations, human’s will to sacrifice … Bình Nguyên Lộc in his book “Nguồn Gốc Mã Lai của dân tộc Việt Nam” informed us that in Liji, chapter “Wangzhi” noted during the Xia, Shang, Zhou, the Chinese used “Xiang” to name the South. The Zhou dynasty had created a rank for an officer called “Xiangzi” whose responsibilities were to take care of relationships with the barbarians in the South.

Xiangjun may be understood as an area in the South that was to put on the back burner, did not need to invade at the time, and there was not time to explore or “develop” just like the language used during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. Xiangjun was a symbolic name that was only a concept by the Qin, similar to Jiaozhi from the Zhou. Jiaozhi during Qin Shi Huang was Xiangjun, thereafter, Xiangjun was the same as Rinan (Nhật Nam) would be very logical in the ancient ways of language and thinking based on limited geology knowledge.

Rinan (Nhật Nam) means South of the Sun. Shiji wrote: “Territory of the Qin … the South expanded to the areas where houses facing north.” Just like the word “Jiaozhi”, Rinan (Nhật Nam) originally was only a concept and was related to astronomy. The land of China is mostly above the Tropic of Cancer, (23°27’), across the city of Guangzhou, therefore to them, the sun always comes from the south, rises from the southeast and sets in the southwest. Therefore, to perform ceremonies to God (the Sun), Tianzi (King) – son of the sun – had to face South. It must have been at the latest during the Qin, the Chinese understood the earth was a sphere that rotate around its own axis. They were able to calculate orbit of the sun (Huangdao) and reasoned that when one go south, there would be a point where to face the sun and enjoy its warmth, one would have to build houses facing north.

The above statement made by Sima Qian proved that despite their knowledge in astronomy, the Chinese had never set foot on the area of Rinan (Nhật Nam). To be exact, Rinan (Nhật Nam) must be very far far away, beyond the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, to the islands south of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea of today.

3. The confusion between Concept and Name of Area:

The Qin disregarded the concept Jiaozhi (The land out of the southern border) to use the word “Xiangjun” (A Symbolic disctrict). The Han was in power after the Qin, and just like Chu before, Nanyue under Zhao leadership had confined the Han’s territory in the South for 93 years. When Nanyue was erased, the confusion between using the word “Jiaozhi” as a name to the area simultaneously as a concept began. This happened when they name the area just invaded in 111 BCE.

Hanshu (Book about the Han) written by Ban Gu had a statement: “We had settled Nanyue and divided it into nine districts: Daner, Zhouya, Nanhai, Shangwu, Yulin, Hepu, Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, Rinan.” Zhouya and Daner are on Hải Nam islands. Nanhai, Shangwu belonged to Guangdong. Yulin and most of Hepu was in Guangxi. To me, Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen and Rinan were still just concepts, the kind of concepts purely based on astronomy that illustrated the self elevation, greediness, and imperialism of the Han.

The Chinese used the concept Jiaozhi (The land at the border [to the South of China]) to call the new 9 districts. Jiaozhi District was a conceptual name for the area. The officer that managed Jiaozhi District was appointed in 106 BCE, that was Officer Shidai. If Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, Rinan were actual areas, there ought to be an officer there to manage these districts. This only happened 100 years later, in the beginning of the common era, with Jiguang and Renyan (appointed as officers to look after Jiaozhi). Hanshu also recorded that in the year 48 BCE, based on reports from Jiajuanzhi, King Han had abandoned Zhouya district since the Han’s officers there often were being opposed and killed by the local people. Officer Shunxing at the end of King Hanwudi was a case in point. It then is very difficult to explain that Jiaozhi at that time was a populated district with civilization, once was the land of Ouluo (Âu Lạc), with the capital of Wenlang (Văn Lang). Why did the people there submit to the domination of foreigners with imaginative officers, and pay outrageous taxes for hundreds of years until the time of the Me Linh Heroines?

Until this time, even if Jiaozhi belonged to Jiaozhi district or Jiaozhi Area, it still was the land at the border of the Han’s territory in the South. Therefore, throughout hundreds of years of the Chinese‘s Southward expansion, the concept “Jiaozhi” also moved along with the foot steps of the imperial’s army. Is that the reason why “Zhi” was given another way to write with subset “foot”.

It became complicated when there was Jiuzhen (Cửu Chân) in between Rinan (Nhật Nam, South of the Sun – the land unkown to the Han at that time), and Jiaozhi district. I believe Jiuzhen means where the Sun is, or “The Equator” area. Jiu is number 9, which symbolized God, with no doubts. Zhen for sure means “root”, as in “Guizhen” means coming back to your roots. Zhen also has the meaning of “Zhong” (Real [very] ), as in Zhong xia (Real Summer) means in the middle of the summer – that was previously quoted from Shangshu. The translation of “Jiuzhen” into Vietnamese unexpectedly enlightens the idea: “Chân Trời” means The Horizon!

The concept Jiaozhi, with the word “Jiao” (in contact with) had traveled along with the word Nan and had gone Southward for thousands of years, had stopped at this land. The Han thought they had reached the Equator (Jiuzhen), which was not very wrong, since at noon on the Spring Equinox and the Autumn Equinox, the sun almost always right above the head of the people in the area of Thanh Hóa, Việt Nam. The assumption that on the other side of “the root of the sun” (Jiuzhen) the sun shines northward is logical. The Chineses who came to the East Sea to scout or trade probably could not afford to have with them an expert in astronomy (who might only accustom to working in the office at the Han’s capital). However, the new meanings of Jiuzhen and Rinan were still concepts, the kind of thinking originated from the progressing astronomy, the ideas that were needed after the concept of Jiaozhi had lost its meaning to take on the role of a name for an area.

The Chinese Astronomy at that time required more facts to confirm their theories. To gather more facts takes time, and they actually had waited hundreds of years until the day Mayuan took the army Southward. This gap of time had diluted all the astronomical aspects in the names Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, Rinan, much so that they lost their conceptual meaning and rightly became names for geological areas on the Map of the Han.

The copper poles erected by Mayuan in the year 43 at Jiaozhi District and Xituyi also were a form of astrolabe. The Old Tangshu [Cựu Đường Thư] (written by Liufu in the years of 924 – 946) had the most explicit writing about this in Chapter 4 of Geography: “Mayuan went pass Rinan, Linyi, to the border of Xianglin and Xituyi to erect two copper poles marking the great achievement of the Han Dynasty. Tens of those persons who went could not make it back (?), they stayed there near the poles, until the Sui Dynasty they had multiplied into about 300 families. The Nanman (Barbarians in the South) called them Maliuren (People left back by Mayuan).”

There are two possibilities:

First is that Liufu honestly did not know the real reason Mayuan erected the copper poles was to measure the movements of the Sun, to establish an astronomical table and calculate the distance from Xianglin to the capital of Han.

Second is that Liufu knew but obeyed the strict principles to protect secret knowledge of science that the Chinese possessed at that time, and was writing only for the people who knew the principles. During the time of Mayuan, the studies of astronomy to confirm locations of new land required observations years after years. The standard astrolabe pole had to be durable and sturdy, therefore a cooper pole was selected. To have a complete observation, they had to appoint someone to stay there, to gather numbers and reported annually to the King. Vietnamese folk story about Mayuan erecting a copper pole in North VietNam confirmed this was an astrolabe and not a landmark. No one would erect a pole as a landmark right in the populated area, asking everyone passing by to throw a rock to it hoping it would not fall down. The saying “Đồng Trụ chiết, Giao Chỉ diệt” (If the copper pole falls down, the land of the South goes down with it.” from Mayuan implied to pay special attention to that small “space station”. That was the whole reason! My simple astronomy mathematic problem in [1] illustrates this thinking.

4. Thousands of years trapped in false beliefs of Chinese and Vietnamese Studies of History.

It is not necessary to list series of false deductions from Chinese and Vietnamese Scholars about the meaning of Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, Rinan from the Eastern Han until now. One who stated “the truth never belonged to the crowd” should be conferred with. I will point out reasons for those naïve deductions.

Shiji (completed during the 90s, century 1 BCE) did not list the names of 9 districts in the South of Han, these districts were invaded by Lubode in 111 BCE. It might be that Sima Qian did not catch up with current events. Those 9 names only appeared in Hanshu [Book of Han], a book of history that recorded events from 206 BCE to 6 CE written by Bangu (32 CE- 92 CE). In “History of the Later Han period” [Hou Hanshu] written by Fanye (398 – 455), recorded events from 25 CE until 190 CE, there were unsubstantiated explanations about the name Jiaozhi.

China since the period of Yin – Shang already had a rank of History Officer, who recorded past events. We observed that in the time of Mayuan and Bangu, the History Officer also was responsible for studies of astronomy, and writing calendars. For example, Sima Qian worked with Husui to edit old calendars into Calendar of the Han. Shiji and Hanshu always included chapters about astronomy that articulated and listed many studies about astronomical events that happened through the years as in Tianshi (Rocks from Heavens / Meteorite) in Qin Shi Huang’s edition, the black spots in the sun (Wuxingzhi, Hanshu). Therefore, the possibilities that these officers conferred with the King their ideas to name new areas based on concepts originated from astronomy knowledge were understandable. They did not have any real documents about Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, Rinan, and had to make assumptions based on astronomy.

From the time of Sima Qian and Bangu onward, Chinese astronomy developed quickly. For example, Dongzhongshu used “Jiaguwen” to calculate and predicted that there would be a Lunar Eclipse on the Full Moon of the second lunar month in the 29th year of Wuding. Today, we searched our calendar (written based on the sun) and found that exactly on that date (November 23, 1311 BCE) there was a Lunar Eclipse. In the era of the Western Han, Chinese astronomers had calculated out the cycle of Mars was 584.4 days, compared to the finding of 583.92 days based on current astronomical methods, the margin of error was too minute to imagine! Hunyi, a rather accurate astrolabe was created during the time of King Hanwudi, with chapter about longitudes, the orbit of the sun, and the equator. In the time of Zhangheng (78 – 139), Chinese old astronomy had reached the height of mankind. Zhang invented Huntianyi which illustrate the patterns of movements of planets and stars, with the orbit of the sun and the equator to form an angle of 24° while in real life it is 23° 27’ (this is the number to calculate Hanoi ‘s latitude in the astronomy mathemathical problem I presented in part 1.)

Due to the complexity and hefty size of new knowledge in astronomy, the Officer was no longer able to perform the duty as a space observer. I presumed that astronomy had formed its own branch. Fanye (398-455), author of Houhanshu, might not have adequate knowledge about astronomy, therefore he did not understand the language of Sima Qian, Bangu. Fanye himself had started a movement of reasoning about concepts and names of areas that many of later scholars from Viet Nam or China had followed suit, believed 100 percent in what was written. In the story of Nanman (the Barbarians in the South), post Han era, Fanye wrote: “The Book of Orders (Liji) called the people in the South “The Barbarians”. They used tattoo, and their big toes from both feet almost touch each other. In their traditions, boys and girls could bath in the same river. We called them Jiaozhi.” Fanye’s explanation was outdated and used a lot of deductions, he only edited what Jiajuanzhi spoke in Hanshu: “In Luoyue (Lạc Việt), father and children used to bathe in the same river.” Judging with the spirit of Chinese Confuciannism, Fanye could not understand how the father and children of Luoyue were so equal, therefore he substituted the picture with boys and girls. To violate the rule “Boy and Girl should never be close” was still better than violate “The Five Rules”.

It is too easy to say everyone was wrong. Occasionally, in books published during generations after Houhanshu, we still found Jiaozhi being used as a concept, with its original meaning, although at that time Jiaozhi obviously was a defined area. Lidaoyuan wrote in Shijingzhu (completed in the year 515): “King Hanwudi expanded the border Shuo (North) Fang (Direction) Northward, and also explored Jiaozhi (land at the border of the South) to establish a foundation for his offsprings.” A perceptive reader will notice the pairs of concept North – South used in place of Shuofang – Jiaozhi, not much different from the pair Shuofang – Nanjiao that was quoted in Shangshu.

There may be another way to explain. The Chinese made no mistakes, they intentionally caused confusion and gave the wrong meaning to the word Jiaozhi. This is the literary aspect as part of the whole strategy of Han’s colonialism. The Han also attacked using language. A case in point, they used the Viet with subset “go” for the name Viet Nam, yet the name for the people in Guangdong was written with a subset “grains”, although the native people lived in Guangdong, Guangxi and Viet Nam were both Luoyue (Lạc Việt). The policy of divide to manage had always been a hidden agenda of any countries in power, from the past until now. With this background, we may now realize the greatness of the heroes in Viet Nam such as Lý thường Kiệt, Nguyễn Huệ, Nguyễn Ánh … On the contrary, the faculty of History in Viet Nam should change its work habits.

B. The Roots of The Viet People

1. Theory “Eden in The East” and waves of migration.

Theory “Eden in the East” believed mankind evoluted from the monkey in Africa. Waves of migrations had spread mankind all over the world. I would like to use Spencer Wells’ genetic studies as foundation for this essay [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman.html]. Although there are many other opinons from other human genetic scientists, they all had questions only about the time frame of migrations. I would use logical reasoning based on cultures, archeology, and history to rub on Wells’ Genetic Theory, hoping to come up with a proposed assumption.

Based on Spencer Wells’ conclusion, I found out: The first migration from Africa took place 60,000 years ago. People moved along the South Asia Ocean to Southeast Asia. Here a stone civilization was established. From 9,000 to 12,000 years before, the geographic structure of Indonesia’s volcanic zone with tidal waves, and landslides had drowned the pre southeast Asia civilization. The survivors had divided into two groups, the first came to Australia, the second went northward, then stopped for a long time on the south bank of Changjiang (Yangzi) river. Prior to this time, it was possible that the pre south east Asia civilization had waves of migrations northward and southward, but rare and slow since at the end of the Ice Age, the further away from the equator, the colder it became. The second migration also originated from Africa, about 45,000 years ago. They came to the middle east, then from the middle east two groups was formed, moving toward India and northwest China. The third migration (not discussed in this essay) happened 40,000 years ago, they came to middle Asia then to Europe.

Why did they migrate? All prehistoric civilizations worshipped the Sun. All of man’s first form of writing shared a surprisingly same word “the sun”: a circle with a dot in the middle. The Egypt’s god of the sun is Ra, the Mesopotamia’s is Samat, the Japanese‘s is Amaterasu O Mikami ( God’s General, The Sun’s Goddess). Kings of China and even the Inca in America all believed they were children of God or of the Sun’s god. The image of the sun on Dong Son Drums is very impressionable. Scientifically, the sun is the source of life for the earth, it provides energy for all changes. Migrating toward the east means to move closer to the Mother Sun. There is no other scenario that can compare to the beauty of this: Mankind follow the sunlight to spread out all over the earth.

Why did the first migration of the people of pre-southeast Asia civilization stop at the bank of Changjiang river and not farther to the north? Changjiang is a very dangerous, very broad river, that has somehow obstructed the way. Moreover, according to the studies of water body, under the coriolis effect, the north bank of Changjiang is getting corroded, while the south bank is being piled up with rich soil. The agricultural people tended to settle on fertile land for a longer time. They only moved northward when facing problems with population or other reasons.

The second group migrated to the middle part of Huanghe River by crossing the Gansu walk way, forming a civilization that we temporarily name Huaxia. There archeological items found from the Stone Age with clear connection established the triangle for center of Huaxia civilization: Dadiwan (over 8000 years), on the right bank of Qingshui River, Qinan, Gansu; Banpo (about 6,000 years) in Xian, Shaanxi; and Jiahu (over 8,000 years) in Henan. Banpo and Jiahu both were on the south bank of Huanghe river. Besides, on the north bank of Huanghe, they have just found a wall 130m long, 4500 years old [http://www.china.org.cn]. It showed the development of Huaxia civilization in the beginning. Items found from Huaxia civilization proved that it had no connection to the people on the south bank of Changjiang river, at that time. The seasonal planting in its agricultural productions and the community life styles in primitive cities also were the unique characters of Huaxia civilization. Therefore, that the Huaxia civilization formed the primitive nation of Xia, about 2200 BCE, had partly been confirmed. Archeologists also believed that at this time, the martriachal system of Huaxia gradually was replaced by a patriarchal one. Chinese legendary stories about transferring power to the good man outside of the families, then later power being transferred to brother, and eventually to the eldest son, subscribed to that changing process. Even the story of Yushun - who was Qingyao’s son in law – received the power from Qingyao was reflecting some recessing martriachal traits.

2. The formation and disintegration of Shennong Civilization

During the period on the bank of Changjiang River, the immigrants of pre southeast Asia had established a rather vast area for their immense culture and heritage: to the south was the Ca River Delta, Ma River Delta (Viet Nam today), to the west was the TibeQin plateau, to the east was the Pacific Ocean. I temporarily name this Shennong civilization.

I have considered two different names for Shennong civilization, which are Changjiang civilization and Yangzi civilization. This is the common way to name in history. For example, we have the Mesopotamia Civilization, the Huanghe civilization. However, the name Shennong is most logical, although it may trigger debates about the Vietnamese of Chinese roots of the word Shennong. Please undersQind the meaning of Shen (God) Nong (Agriculture) as “the best farmers that were as powerful as god.” Speaking of Shennong civilization is nothing better than talking about the simple people of the rice paddies. Civilization always belongs to the community of people who built it up with their sweat, tears, and even blood throughout the whole length of history.

Geography and general climate of the area established the unique characters of this civilization: made their living by farming, mostly rice, tamed cattles to use their strong force, studied astronomy and changes in nature to make calendar for their farming, used irrigational system, used herbal medicines and gave birth to Oriental Medicine; mastered the use of boat and aquatic transportations, fishing, took advantage of products from the sea; they chewed betelnut with pupupu leaves, dyed their teeth, used body tattoo, kept hair short, wore shirts with buttons on the left…

Shennong civilization developed consQintly, with many achievements but had two main setbacks: no writing (or at least, some form of notation or marks convenient to use); due to self efficient life styles that directly attached to hard labor on rice paddies, they were very conventional, thus missed the chance to progress from martriachal to partriachal to take their society to the next step. Consequently, Shennong civilization stayed for a long time in families, tribal forms, or limited groups of tribes, instead of extending into a primitive government format.

After a long period developing in one place, people of Shennong civilization were able to cross Changjiang river. They moved north, exchanged with Huaxia civilization which was on its way southward. Please undersQind these exchanges included lots of disagreements, conflicts, fightings, and could not happen without wars. Chinese legends had a story about the war between King Huang and Shuaiyou (offspring of Shennong) illustrated this.

Huaxia civilization and Shennong civilization met in the middle of the land between Huanghe River and Changjiang River, contributed to the formation of a new civilization which began to have written history, the civilization of Zhongyuan – Huaxia (Zhonghua / China). Huaxia Civilization had features that supplement the lacking parts of Shennong civilization. It absorbed the essence of Shennong civilization to progress, then turned around to suppress its own parents who was Shennong. However, it also inducted the image of Shennong into its legend “Three Lords, Five Kings” which describes the beginning of Huaxia. The name “China” (Central State) was born. Originally, it meant a nation in the middle of the world, since knowledge at that time only had two civilization, two main races of Shennong and Huaxia. Only part of the land with Shennong civilization was added to the land of Huaxia. A large part that remained due to the fact that it spread over a very vast area, all along the Changjiang River, especially the south bank of Changjiang. This area was actually the area of Hundreds of Yue (Baiyue, Bach Viet), as the Chinese used to call them.

The most successful combination of Shennong and Huaxia was in the Chu period, populated, prosperous, large in land, and very advanced in knowledge. At one time Chu was the Lord of all groups, posing threat to the Shenzhou dynasty (which was only a frame after Chu was established). Chu also was the country next to last among the six countries invaded by Qin, causing Qin to loose a large amount of its own army and people, although Chu was right next to Qin. However, not even 13 years after the country was taken, a hero - whose ancestors were generals of Chu - named Hangwu, had risen to power with the logo “revive Chu” destroyed Qin, divided its land to people and called himself “Xi Chu Bo Wang” [ Lord of hundreds in the West – named Chu]. In the year 202 BCE, Hangwu was defeated by Liubang. Liubang of Han also was from Chu. The valiant history of Chu after 500 years then closed for ever.

History of Chu began with Chengwang’s appointment of Meiyuxiong to the rank “Zi” from the Chu, in the southern border of Chu. Yuxiong had contributed a lot to the Chu. Until the time of Xiongcong, offspring of Yuxiong (about the early Dongzhou, period of Wanwang, 719 – 697 BCE), Chu had eliminated and absorbed many countries next to it, expanded to the Changjiang River delta. Although he was not recognized by Wanwang, Xiongcong appointed himself Zhouwuwang and had power over all small countries in the east. Xiongcong passed away, his son Xiongchi took power and together with later generations, expanded Chu territory farther into the Southeast, crossing beyond the challenging Changjiang River.

3. The primitive government of Wenlang (Văn Lang).

Historical events that happened on the land of VietNam have been rather clear since the time of the Me Linh Heroines. The oldest history book written by the Vietnamese that was kept till today appeared at the end of the 14th century. However, there is a legend that has been told again and again. This legend was about the ancestor of King Duong Vuong was the 4th generation of Shennong. Kinh Duong Vuong married to Long Nữ at Lake Động Đình, they had a son named Lạc Long Quân. Lạc Long Quân married Âu Cơ and gave birth to a bag with 100 eggs, which hatched into 100 children. They split peacefully afterward: Âu Cơ took 50 children to the mountains, Lạc Long Quân led the other 50 toward the sea. The nation of Văn Lang was established by King Hùng, the first son of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ. King Hung placed his capital at Phong Châu – a middle area that was rather flat, in the Hong river delta.

Obviously there was a migration hidden in the above legend. The distance between lake Đong Đinh and Phong Chau is almost 1000km. Moreover, conferred with Binh Nguyen Loc, I think the above legend of 100 eggs talked about the split of the Shennong heredity into two main groups: Xiou (Tây Âu) and Luoyue (Lac Viet). The Xiou people went westward to the mountains, with some changes in their original traditions from their Shennong civilization. The Luoyue group stayed or moved eastward and was able to keep most of their traditions. Both Xiou and Luoyue continued to divide into many sub groups. The number 100 eggs, surprisingly, fit exactly to the name “Baiyue, Bách Việt” [one hundred Việt] used by the Chinese to call small groups of people living along the south, middle, and lower bank of Changjiang. This cleary marked the cultural exchange between Shennong and Huaxia civilization. Jingshi (Book of Poems) has a sentence “Wishing you [to have] 100 sons”, therefore, one hundred or “bai” means “many”.

If we agreed to the area of the legend that Kinh Dương Vương had Lạc Long Quân in the Ngũ Lĩnh mountains (the mountains south of lake Động Đình), then we can explain “the Yin’s enemy” in another legend: “Thánh Gióng”. That’s true! Yin – Shang lost their countries to the Zhou in 1066 BCE. The fact that they moved southward before or in exile after the year 1066 BCE, thus got into a fight with Luoyue, completely was based on a strong foundation. Archeology had confirmed the location of the capital of Yin – Shang to be in Henan province, a few hundreds km away from lake Động Đình. It is very possible that the group of martriachal families Văn Lang, the seed of Shennong and Lạc Việt, started from the area of Ngũ Lĩnh mountains to the south bank of Changjiang with the center at lake Động Đình, after the birth of Yin – Shang (about 1700 BCE). [7] I presumed one King Hung was in power for an average of 25 years, the Thánh Gióng story happened in 1066 BCE, therefore King Hung 18 was crowned in 741 BCE. The year 741 BCE is very convincing, because it is not very far from the time that Chu was formed and expanded southward. Đại Việt Sử Ký toàn thư recorded that the first year of the Hồng Bàng was Nhâm Tuất 2879 BCE. My reasoning came up that the Văn Lang era also started in a year Nhâm Tuất, but it was Nhâm Tuất 1199BCE.

As Chinese civilization expanded southward, the brave people who did not surrender to loose their traditions in the process of adapting Chinese culture had left. The ones who stayed mixed with the newcomers to form the country of Chu. Being people who lived on rice, efficient with aquatic transportations, they had two main ways to migrate: walking or by boat. They divided into many small groups of families moving toward the west – the east – the south, or follow Changjiang river to the ocean. Their first goal was to find another river delta to re settle. The best groups always travel the farthest, to the best land, and they eventually had come to the north Vietnam area of today. Facts in the 21 century had proved this, the offspring of the groups who left their country behind now formed Viet Nam, the only nation among 100 Việt that kept their racial identity, not being absorbed by the Han. The road they used was from lake Động Đình, passed the narrow Xijiang river delta, Guangxi, to reach the Hong river delta. There were not a small amount of the people from Văn Lang stayed on the Xijiang river delta. They also established a form of primitive government as Văn Lang Động Đình Hồ with King Hùng as the leader. I called this Xijiang civilization.

The Hong river delta at that time might already had people lived there. However, it ought to be not populated, full of swamps, tropical forest, and flooding in the rainy season. Because of this, the area chosen for settlement was Phong Châu, at a higher altitude. Taking with them the essence of Văn Lang, these indomitable people who loved peace and freedom continued to call their new found home “Văn Lang”. Their leader called himself King Hùng, rightfully taking after King Hung of Văn Lang at lake Động Đình. The journey to find Phong Châu still left some of its image in the legend Sơn Tinh – Thuy Tinh (Fight between God of the mountains and God of the Sea.), in the period of King Hung 18.

Artifacts found by archeologists in Vietnam cannot ignore this assumption about migrations: Phung Nguyen of 3500 years (no copper products yet), Đong Đau over 3000 years (copper products very small like arrows, axes…), Go Mun in century 8 BCE , Đong Son century 7 BCE. Especially, all items found in the dry and high areas, which confirmed the geographical aspect of the assumptions.

The earliest age of bronze drums found in Viet Nam and China also were very close: about century 7 – century 8 BCE [Xiaorong Han, Who invented the Bronze Drum? Nationalism, Politics, and a Sino - Vietnamese Archaeological Debate of 1970s and 1980s. Asian Perspectives, Vol.43, Spring 2004.] . The main areas where bronze drums were found are very vast. It includes north Vietnam, Sichuan, Yunnan, Kuizhou, Guangxi, and Guangdong. Three areas with the most amount of drums found were Đong Son (Thanh Hoa, Viet Nam), Wanjiaba (Yunnan), and the area of the Zhuang (Guangxi). Remarkably, the most exquisite drums were the oldest ones. My assumption explained this: at the height of their culture, the primitive government Van Lang at lake Đong Đinh was under a lot of pressure from the Chinese and was unable to progress any further, had disintegrated into many small groups of families migrating away. The essence of their copper art moved with the migrations. Regretfully, since then their special civilization was regressing, and the bronze drums lost their original beauty.

A very strange thing was the similarity between the middle parts of the Hong river and the Xijiang river. Xijiang flows through Guangzhou city with the name Zhoujiang, before it reaches the ocean. Shuijingzhu by Lidaoyuan remarked about Yeyouhe (Yeyou river) that the source of the river started from Yunnan, ran through Jiaozhi [district or province?] then became three branches flowing eastward. It is very difficult to guess if Yeyouhe was Hong river or Xijiang river. This may be a reason why Van Lang Phong Chau and Van Lang Xijiang resemble each other not only due to the same racial roots, but also similarly described in its geography by books as well as folk songs and stories.

Van Lang Phong Chau, to a degree, is a step backward compared to Van Lang Đong Đinh. The Van Lang man had lost so much on his way to the Hong river delta. The connections between families became less and less, small population spreading on a larger area, affecting by floods and storms, gradually the leaders lost their power, became a pure spiritual symbol. The real image of King Hung was gone from real life, however, it stays forever in the Viet Van Lang’s subconscious, reminding them of a glorious past that never fade away.

----------- Color contexts are editted and pinyinize by the author.

This post has been edited by Zhang_Taiyou: 13 July 2005 - 10:21 AM

[Zhang_Taiyou]

4. Việt Thường Quốc [ The Nation of Việt Thường], Lạc Việt [ Việt nation], Âu Lạc [Earth and Water], Âu Cơ [ Mother from the mountain].

a. Việt

To begin his book “Việt Sử Tiêu Án” [Main Points in Viet History] (1775), Ngô Thì Sĩ wrote: “According the chapter “Vũ Cống”, Việt’s country was to the South of Duong Chau. Based on “Thiên Quan” (Observing the Sky), pass 11° from the Pole Star to Khien Nguu star (The anpha position of Aquila, named Altair) then to Venus 7° are star’s area. It belongs to Buffalo arc and shared the same area with Wu’s country. The South is Viet gate, which had many nations like Ouyue, Minyue, Luoyue (Âu Việt, Mân Việt, Lạc Việt) and therefore was called “Baiyue, Hundreds of Việt”.

Based on the current international star map of astronomy, Baiyue’s area is in the area between longitude 105° – 120 ° east, latitude 20° - 32 ° north. Buffalo arc and the star’s cycle 7° from Altair to Vega are completely within this area. Nguyễn Duy Hinh, in his book “Văn Minh Lạc Việt” (The Lạc Việt Civilization) noted that chapter “Almanac in Hanshu had recorded a star named Việt four times. I searched Hanshu, version online from the Chinese National Studies site, but did not find that; therefore I would like to point this out hoping to receive more information from readers.

Based on astronomy started from the “ancient space station Nanjiao” in Jingshu, Hanshu, and Thiên Quan books – which were quoted by Ngô Thì Sĩ, I would like to suggest a new way to understand the word “Việt”: “Việt” (with subset [run away]) was already there in the Huaxia’s vocabularies. Until the Thương, it was written on shells. In astronomy, “Việt” was used by the astronomers to indicate the area south of Jiaozhi and to name a star group far away in that direction. Utilizing astronomy to make projections about land that mankind were yet able to reach was the systematic way of the civilization from Huaxia - Zhongyuan. The case of Jiuzhen and Rinan showed the progressing of that system. Lay people or those who did not master astronomy have mystified these effects. People view stars to predict the fecundity of a piece of land, or the success of man – bright star is considered prosperous and successful, etc… and the opposite means depression, failing… As years passed, the Huaxia people gradually gathered more knowledge of the far away south by explorations, fightings, invading. “Việt” was given another meaning: “Crossing beyond the Changjiang river”. At this time, the Chinese noticed this land housed many different racial groups who shared similar appearance and culture such as wearing body tattoo, cutting hair. They coined the word “Baiyue, Bách Việt” [Hundreds of Viet] to describe these groups. Later, linguistic specialists continued farther by writing “Việt” with subset “grain” [rice] to make a realistic notation that people in the south live on seasonal planting and rice is their main grain.

b. Âu, Lạc, Tây Âu, Lạc Việt, và Âu Cơ - Lạc Long Quân:

The story Kinh Dương Vương might be the key to the land where the ancestors of Lạc Việt originated. Kinh and Dương were names of the areas on both sides of the Changjiang River that was described in Chapter Vũ Cống of Jingshu. The center of these areas are now Hubei and Hunan, China.

Sound “Âu” is a pure Vietnamese sound. Using Chinese characters, we have two main groups of “Âu”: Âu with subset “Tile”, and Âu with subset “Girl”. Nguyễn Duy Hinh (in the book quoted previously) remarked: “In literature there was the word “Âu”. Âu is a small pot, with subset Tile, pronounced like “區”. Pay special attention to the present word “區” is pronounced the same as “Âu”; this proved that our pronunciation has changed. The word “Âu” with subset “Tile” used for ceramic items, not for mankind.”

The word “Âu” is a combination of 區 [wild area] means land and the word “瓦” is “Tile” [tile used for roofing]. The meaning “earth” from “Âu” might have originated from the sound “區”.

We have the mutual relationship between words as following (in Vietnamese):

U = raised above = hill, mountain = breast
Vú em = Nursing nanny
U = Mom
Bu = Mom
Khu (earth) ~ U = Mother

It is very possible that sound “Âu” = Khu = U = Mother = Earth = Mountain.

Therefore, Âu Cơ actually means “The noble mother”, “royal mother”. The Vietnamese used to say “Mother Âu Cơ”, of which the word “mẹ” (mother) was extra since Âu is already Mẹ. The word “Cơ” is purely Han character which was added on, to mean woman of a higher rank or royal women like that in Han’s history: Ngu Cơ, Hạ Cơ, Triệu Cơ (mother of Qinshuihuang)…

About the word “Lạc”, this author would not repeat former studies which confirmed that “Lạc” mean “water”, which Nguyen Kim Than and Vuong Loc started in 1971. Thus, Lạc Long Quân has the meaning “The Dragon King of water, of nation”, “The royal father”. What else could “Kinh Duong Vuong” be if not “The Royal Ancestor, the first Lord of two districts Kinh, and Duong.” Kinh here was “Kinh Man” ( Chu ) and Duong was “Duong Viet, Duong Chau” (south of Ngu Linh mountains, lake Đong Đinh).

To me, the legend “Âu Cơ - Lạc Long Quân” symbolized a very ancient mystical concept about “nation” of the Lạc Việt. They called their living area “Đất [earth] Nước [water]”. Đất or Nước can also be used independently from one another yet still mean “nation”. Vietnamese language still maintains this concept until now. Shiji and Hanshu officially confirmed this by phonetically wrote Vietnamese words using Chinese characters: Âu Lạc (Ouluo) = đất nước, Tây Âu Lạc (Xiouluo) = Tây Âu (Xiou) = the area west of Phiên Ngung (Panyu). The word Lạc Việt was formed by two words used for characters: Lạc (Viet’s root) and Việt (Han’s root, inferring the people lived in the Changjiang river delta).

As we research deeper into the complicated connection between words and sounds, we cannot deny the obscure cultural relationship of Viet and Han. The strong mix of both Huaxia and Shennong throughout more than 3000 year past have left many extremely complicated knots, not easy to differentiate. For example, the word “Kim Âu” that King Tran Thanh Tong and King Ho Quy Ly had used. Based on Han’s characters, it was a golden pot, golden container. However, in Vietnamese, it has the meaning of gold mountain, or golden earth. To assume that the Han had borrowed the meaning “golden earth, golden mountain” to coin their word “Kim Âu” with the meaning “lasting forever” is totally logical, although we still need more documentation.

c. Việt Thường Quốc

Việt Thường Quốc (Yueshangguo) first appeared in Shangshu: To the South of Jiaozhi was Viet Thuong Quoc. As previously reasoned, Jiaozhi during the beginning of Chu was Danyang area (now belongs to Hubei, China). South of Jiaozhi was the south bank of Changjiang River, was lake Đong Đinh which was the land of Viet’s ancestors. The Lac Viet people called their country, the land they lived on Đất [earth] Nước [water / ocean] . Viet Quoc may be understood as “the country of Viet” or “Lac Viet”. Therefore, the relationship between Viet Thuong Quoc and Lac Viet based in the meaning of the word “Thuong”.

Old history of Vietnam is very inconsistent: An Nam Chi Luoc of Le Tac (1335) considered Viet Thuong Quoc belonged to Jiuzhen, which is now Thanh Hoa. Dai Viet Su Luoc (1388) categorized Viet Thuong with the 15 ancient tribes of Vietnam. Đai Viet Su Ky toan thu (1697) remarked that the word “Viet” in Viet Thuong was the origin of the name Đai Viet years after. Jiaozhi as well as Viet Thuong both belonged to group Bach Viet, Chau Duong. Viet Su Tieu An of Ngo Thi Si (1775) considered Viet Thuong as one in the 15 groups of Van Lang and reasoned that the Viet when came in contact with the Chu had called themselves “Viet Thuong”. Khan Đinh Viet Su (19th century) established that Viet Thuong belonged to Thuan Hoa, central Vietnam, was one of the 15 districts of Van Lang.

Everyone knows “Thuong” has the subset “clothes” with its original meaning of “the pair of pans”. Thus I suspect the word “Thuong” that ancient Chinese literature imposed onto “Viet” actually was the “briefs”, the special symbol of the Lac Viet, of the Van Lang people (as in the story “Chu Đong Tu”), and until now the drawing of this symbol still shines on the copper drums. In this direction, “Viet Thuong Quoc” was the nation Viet (Nuoc Viet) [Lạc Việt], the country where the people wore “brief” with the naked upper body. The Lac Viet’s tradition of wearing brief with naked body also was mentioned in Shiji, volume 113 “Stories of The Viet in the South: The Tay Au Lac nation where people were naked had appointed themselves a Lord”. Bangu explained the word “nake” used by Simaqian as “half naked”. Besides, with the principle “words with similar pronunciation can be used similarly”, “thường” also means “small”, “common”, “not important”, as in “thường dân” [lay people]. Therefore, “Việt Thường Quốc” also may mean “The small Viet country”, “The group of common people”, those who were inferior to the Zhou. Please understand this is the way Chineses books of histories used in reference to those nations that were not Han, with their “superior” complex. Obviously, in this case, “Thường quốc” [ Small country] was very different from “Thuộc quốc” [colony] – it proves that Lạc Việt was independent ever since the early time of history.

5. The meaning of the legend “An Dương Vương ”:

Recently, the archeological discovery of “Sanxingdui” [http://www.china.org.cn/e-sanxingdui/index.htm] about 40km from Chengdou (Sichuan), had opened up history of the ancient Shu since 3000 BCE. Shu civilization prospered brilliantly, with the formation of urban communities more significant than even the Shang - Yin at their peak. They were the first people of mankind ever used unbaked brick to build houses and castles. According to many Chinese journals today, the trace of ancient wall age 3000 BCE at Sanxingdui showed that it was much larger than those during the Shang’s dynasty on land of the Yin. Would it be that Shu was the group of Shennong (or Xiou, brothers of Louyue) civilization that traveled to mountain and highland or was a group of the immigrants pre South East Asia time?

Shiji, part “Story of Zhangyi”, tells a story that Qinhuiwang followed the advice of Simatuo to invade Shu, denounced Shuwang to be an officer. Thus, there is a possibility that the Lord of Shu and part of his people had left their country to avoid harsh treatment of the Qin. The group going southward formed the Jiang community, when being pushed further by the Han, they followed the Mekong River to the land of Campuchia today and contributed to the proud Khơ Me civilization. The group that traveled southeast had crossed the Changjiang River to Guizhou and northwest of Guangxi. It was most likely that they formed a new nation here.

In the ancient time, Asia only had two communities: Han and Shu – who built castles with protecting walls on flat land like Zhongyuan, Sichuan. We did not hear that Zhaoduo ever built any lasting defensive walls at Panyi, partly because Panyi was very mountainous. A confirmation is the details about the war between Fuba and Jiande – Lujia, as described in Shiji: The soldiers of Jiande – Lujia had left their forte to surrender, they received acknowledgement from the Han’s officers, then turned back to recruit others. Considering this, Zhaoduo’s fort was very simple, built by taking advantage of their geography. That year, the Han only came to Panyi, it is logical to reason that the techniques to build Co Loa by An Duong Vuong on Xijiang River delta originated from Sichuan.

Now the fact that An Duong Vuong was the son of King Shu became obvious. Shu (Guizhou – Guangxi) was next to Văn Lang Xijiang. King Shu had proposed to mary King Hùng’s daughter but was turned down. The next generation, one of King Shu’s son attacked King Hung, invaded the land of Văn Lang Xijiang to establish Tây Âu Lạc. Co Loa fortress with 9 circular walls which were tall and sturdy according to the legend may be on the Xijiang river delta, not on the Hong river delta. Today Vietnamese archeologists had not been able to discover any ancient artifacts at Co Loa Đong Anh to confirm that it indeed was An Duong Vuong’s Co Loa. This is quite undertandable. Chapter “Stories about Nam Viet] in Shiji made clear remarks about this Tây Âu Lạc (Xiouluo) country. Many historians who were not able to make connections between historical documents had strongly believed that Simaqian made a mistake in writing Âu Lạc (Ouluo) as Tây Âu Lạc (Xiouluo)! History has confirmed more than once about the Tây Âu Lạc nation and the Âu Lạc people. Taishigong talked about wars at the border between Nanyue and Minyue: “The people of Âu Lạc (in Nanyue) were in a war (with Minyue), thus creating chaos in Nanyue, letting the Han’s army involved, (being grateful to the Han, therefore …) Prince Yingqi came to live in the Han’s capital (as a good faith gesture)” Chapter Zhaoshijia was later modified as “The book of geography recorded that during the Zhou period, Jiaozhi was Luoyue, during the Qin, it was Xiou. The people wore body tatoo, cut hair short to avoid Sea Dragons. Xiouluo was in the west of Panyi. Nanyue and Ouluo (Âu Lạc) had many families with different last names (Han Chinese: thousands traits, this is different from the Chinese hundred traits). Shiben [book about the world] also noted that Viet people had many last names and had the same ancestors as the Chu people.” Based on logical reasoning throughout this study, it is not difficult to recognize that Luoyue (Lạc Việt) then was a large area including Hunan, Guangxi, Guangdong, and was expanding southward.

After taking over all six nations and united the area of central China, 214 BCE, Qinshuihuang ordered Tushu to take 50,000 soldiers mixed with lay people to cross Ngu Linh mountains, attacked Bách Việt, took over the land in the southeast of Qin, then created the districts of Guilin, Nanhai, and Xiang. Shupan’s Tây Âu Lạc was within the area of Xiang District. Văn Lang Phong Châu which was in the south of Tây Âu Lạc was not involved in this war. Xiang [Symbolized] District was an imaginary area, there is no need to find out if Văn Lang Phong Châu was actually within Xiang District.The people of Tây Âu Lạc who refused to be slaves had left homes to form resurrection forces in the forest, and they had killed Tushu.

History books of Vietnam as well as of China only remarked that Zhaoduo was from Zhendinh province (now is Hebei, China). No one had dwelt deeper into the fact that Zhending used to be an area that belonged to the Zhao during the Warring States period. Vietnamese History once copied from what was written in Chinese history. Chinese history obeyed the “uniformity” of Pre-Qin philosophy (started with Confucius, with the principle: “Tôn Chu nhương Di, nội chư Hạ nhi ngoại Di địch”), therefore had erased all the names of “Sanxun”. The great emperor Qinshuihuang had applied successfully the essence of humanity from Pre-Qin philosophy, thus put a stop forever to the warring states, people of the same race killing each. Qinshuihuang was born in the capital Handan of Zhao. His mother Zhaoji came from a well connected family, as noted by Shiji. When his father followed Lupuwei to Qin, Shuihuang and his mother suffered a hard life with the common people of Zhao. After China was united, the Zhao people were ordered to go build The Great Wall. Resenting King Qin, they made up stories that Qinshuihuang was an illegal child of Zhaoji and Lubuwei. The common people even brought lady Mengjiang of Qi from 200 years before to cry near the Great Wall to insult King Qin’s achievement . Embeded with former harsh feelings, King Qin drafted many stubborn people of Zhao to the army of Tushu, Zhaoduo was one of them. Later on, Zhaoduo’s grandson Mingwang Yingqi came to Changan [as hostage] and also married a Zhao’s lady. (Shiji noted she was from Handan) . This lady was Guhou, who helped the Han to invade Nanyue, and was killed by Lujia. The Zhao people who were in exile at Nanhai province lived as a community and formed a small group under the name Zhaozhou, in the northeast of Guangdong, China today.

208 BCE, Zhaoduo formed Nanyue country. Hangaozu after united China was too exhausted to settle the situation in Nanyue, therefore in the year 196 BCE, he appointed Zhaoduo as Nanyuewang (Lord of Nanyue), and advised Nanyue to make peace with Baiyue. When Gaohou took power, Changshawang boycotted trading with Nanyue, hoping to weaken Nanyue so that he could invade it easier. Zhaoduo immediately took his army to attack Changsha, interrupted the commute with Han, and secured vital areas. Gaohou ordered Linxihou to question Zhaoduo, war broke out at the border for over a year, then the Han withdrew due to Gaohou’s funeral.

Free from the Han, Zhaoduo used wealth to bribe the royal people of Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) and Minyue to make sure these two groups stay under their domination. The marriage between Trọng Thủy and Mỵ Châu confirmed the undemanding attitude of the leaders of Tây Âu Lạc in dealing with Zhaoduo. As his psychological war claimed complete victory, Zhaoduo invaded Tây Âu Lạc in 179 BCE, adding the land to Nanyue’s territory. Since then, Nanyue became a very large country, Zhaoduo declared himself King of Nanyue, and used carriage with golden top to resemble that of Han ‘s King. Zhaoduo originated from northern China, trained to fight on land, there was no logic to presume he started the war against An Dương Vương on the Hong River delta. Until the beginning of the common era, roads between southern China and northern Vietnam were still not developed, therefore Mayuan’s army had to travel by boats at that time.

Another group of the people of Tây Âu Lạc, the undefeated ones who had killed Tushu, led their remaining troops and families to the Hồng River delta. I think there was a small group of Tây Âu Lạc people who traveled by boats had reached the shore of central Vietnam. They became the seeds for the Cham civilization which flowered since the 2nd century CE. The connections between Shu – Kh’me – Cham in this essay are pure theory, based on studies from writings, books, and pictures; however, I believe the primitive city Cổ Loa, and the usage of un-baked bricks of the Kh’me and Cham, must have the trade mark of the prehistoric Shu civilization.

The people of Tây Âu Lạc and Lạc Việt of Văn Lang Phong Châu were very close racially, and they might still understand each other’s language after almost 150 years apart (counting from 316 BCE when Shu ‘s Lord was demoted by Qin, until 179 BCE when Zhaoduo invaded Tây Âu Lạc). The people of Tây Âu Lạc in exile had quickly mixed with the natives of North Viet Nam and called the area Âu Lạc. They connected moles and hills to create a barricade against high tide and flood at Cổ Loa, Đông Anh and started a community inside. In 43, Mayuan reinforced the two outer layers, and built another one in between, to form Kiển Thành. The heigh of marks left from Cổ Loa and Đông Anh are about the heigh of the barricades along Hong River, Duong River, confirmed that Cổ Loa was more of barricades against tidal waves rather than true fortes.

Âu Lạc people on the Hồng River delta had escaped the invader Zhaoduo, and lived peacefully. They absorbed the culture of Tây Âu Lạc and all folklores, folk tales about King Hung of Văn Lang Xijiang, about “Lord Shu” named Pan, about Cổ Loa fortress, about the Super Bow and Arrows as well as the legendary of Mị Châu & Trọng Thủy. The much similarities between two groups Văn Lang Phong Châu and Văn Lang Xijiang acted as a glue that united the people and history of ancient Vietnam into one without any seam.

The word “Xi, Tây” in “Tây Âu Lạc”, “Tây Âu”, and “Tây Vu” now still exists in the name “Guangxi”, a Chinese Province near the border of North Vietnam. The people of Tây Âu Lạc who not migrate to the Hồng River delta today had become the largest minority group in southern China. That is the Zhuang who live in Yunnan, Guangdong, and mostly concentrated at the area of self-govern Zhuang in Guangxi, with Nanning as their capital, about 400km away from Hà Nội. Based on statistic of year 2000, the Zhuang people has a population of more than 16.178.000,00. In general, the Zhuang has a unique culture compared to the Han in southern China. They still play bronze drums in their colorful festivals. They also have a writing system similar to that of Nôm of Viet Nam. The place that protects essential traditions of the Zhuang is their village with a forever statement: “We rather sell our farms than selling the language of our people.” Their folk tales still include the legend about a prince with a precious sword who lived with his wife ‘s family with a magic bow – which basically is very much like the story of Mị Châu & Trọng Thủy in Viet Nam. In many linguistic senses, the word “Zhuang” has the same meaning as the word “Xiong, Hùng” in “Hùng Vương” [King Hùng]. Both words can be combined to form a better compound adjective: “Xiong Zhuang - Hùng Tráng” [Brave and Strong].

In 111 BCE, Lubode (Lộ Bác Đức) erased Nanyue (Nam Việt) on the map. The Han sent officers to convince the people of Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) to surrender, with a wicked strategy: letting the wealthy groups of Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) (those who were bribed by Zhaoduo) continue to manage their own lands. Shiji recorded: “Huangtung (Hoàng Đồng) was a general of Ouluo (Âu Lạc). He beheaded the Lord of Xiyu (Tây Vu) to surrender the Han, and was appointed Xialihou (Hạ Lệ Hầu) in the year 110 BCE.” I believe Xiyu is not an area name, but was only a conceptual land to the west of Panyu, the capital of Nanyue’s King. It is easy to understand: Xiyu (Tây Vu) was actually Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) after it was invaded by Zhaoduo (Triệu Đà). Historians who used Xiyu (Tây Vu) as a name to an area had unintentionally considered Xiyu (Tây Vu) of Xiuoluo (Tây Âu Lạc) as the same area as Xiyu (Tây Vu) of Ouluo (Âu Lạc) during the time of Mayuan (Mã Viện) (which is the land to the west of the Hồng River delta). This is a very important detail. It confused Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc - Guangxi) and Ouluo (Âu Lạc - North Vietnam) as one area. Houhanshu, part “Story of Mayuan”, has this remark: “Mayuan reported that the western area where the King placed his officer [may be Long Bien of Tô Định, or Mê Linh] had about 32000 families, from the border to the office was more than a thousand miles, please divide the area into two provinces: Phong Khê and Vọng Hải – [The King] agreed. Making the best of this opportunity, Mayuan created provinces, renovated buildings, cleaned cannals for irrigation, benefit the people.”

In the Han Chinese sentence, the word “province” came after Xiyu (Tây Vu) with the word “office” in the group “from the boder to office”, there is a scenario implied by words. By not paying adequate attention to this scenario, one had moved An Dương Vương Cổ Loa fortress more than 300km from Guangxi to Đông Anh, Hanoi! Even if the word “Tây Vu” used by Mayuan was a name of a real area, we still have to clarify that Xiyu (Tây Vu) in Panyu does not belong to the Hong River delta.

110 BCE, the Han appointed Huangtong (Hoàng Đồng). After that Shidai (Thạch Đái) was ordered to be the Officer of Jiaozhibu (Giao Chỉ Bộ), with the admission office at Guangxin (Quảng Tín), Shangwu (Thương Ngô) district. With Huangtong (Hoang Đồng)’s help, Shidai (Thạch Đái) consoled the people, and officially recognized the Luo (Lạc) officers with a copper stamp to wear around their neck. It was for sure that the ultimate goal of Shidai (Thạch Đái) was to create conflicts among the Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) people, so the Luo (Lạc) officers had no chance to unite their people for a revolution against the invaders.

In the Han’s administrative system, Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) became Hepu (Hợp Phố) District. I have determined this because among 9 districts of Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ), Zhouya (Chu Nhai) and Daner (Đạm Nhĩ) belonged to Hainan (Hải Nam) islands, Nanhai (Nam Hải) was Panyu (Phiên Ngung), and Yulin (Uất Lâm) or Guilin (Quế Lâm) belonged to southern area of Guangdong and north of Guangxi; Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ), Jiuzhen (Cửu Chân), Rinan (Nhật Nam) were only concepts about and area in the south; there were Shangwu (Thương Ngô) and Hepu (Hợp Phố) left for us to consider. Shiji, Nanyue story remarked: “Shangwu king Zhaoguang (Thương Ngô Vương Triệu Quang) had the same last name with Viet king, when he heard the Han’s army was coming, had joined the officer of Jiyang (Kê Dương) named Ding (Định) decided to surrender to the Han. Guilin (Quế Lâm) ‘s officer of Nanyue was Juweng (Cư Ông) had seduced the people of Ouluo (Âu Lạc) to joint the Han.” It is obvious that the name Shangwu (Thương Ngô) were there before the year 111 BCE. We have only one choice: Han had used the land of Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) to create Hepu (Hợp Phố) District.

The Hong River delta now being called Jiaozhi District by the Han. It was an unreal district, a conceptual land in the system of Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, Rinan. The political social life of Âu Lạc had not matured enough to unite the self-governed areas of tribes, families, to form a country. However, with survival experiences, the people of Âu Lạc must have had a flexible relationship with the Han ‘s nearby districts. The Shu people who originated from Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) had brought the urban civilization with them to Cổ Loa Đông Anh, had gradually adapted the natives’ way of life. Assume that Âu Lạc was a well developed nation at that time, the people of Âu Lạc were conscious about their nation’s rights and had been invaded by Zhaoduo ‘s army force [as written in Chinese and Vietnamese historical books], we will realize that the peaceful changes in history from 111 BCE to the year 34 on the Hồng River delta were not normal.

In fact, names of areas, names of people in the south of Changjiang River that were recorded in ancient Chinese History as in Shiji, Hanshu, Houhanshu were quite relative and illogical. Historians had to use Chinese characters to record local pronunciation, which were very difficult, therefore sometimes they omitted the local names to use pure Han Chinese character to conceptualize names of arear or people. The name Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) was a case in point. Âu Lạc means “earth and water”, “nation”, but when being recorded into Han History, Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc) became the name of an area. However, today, we had no idea what words An Dương Vương used to call his country, his “Âu Lạc”, therefore we cannot ignore the words Xiouluo (Tây Âu Lạc).

C. The sounds of the bronze drums in Mê Linh.

1. The Trung Sisters’ era: Matriarchy or Maternal Authority ?

Lots of historians agreed to Shuijingzhu whole heartedly that the name of Trung Trac’s husband was Thi. Not only that Thi was not persecuted by Suding (Tô Định), he was side by side with his wife, Trung Trac, in the uprising in 40AD. Thi and Trung Trac fled to Kim Khe when they were exhausted after Mayuan’s attack, and were arrested 3 years later. Shuijingzhu did not mention what happened afterwards. Trung Trac and younger sister Trung Nhi killed themselves for a just cause near Hat river, according to the folklore. Another hyppothesis claimed that Trung Trac and Trung Nhi were arrested and beheaded by Mayuan who brought their heads back to China to report his achievement, therefore temples in memory of Trung Trac and Trung Nhi have custom of abstaining red colour. Houhanshu recorded that Trung Trac was beheaded. Here I would like to answer a question: Why did historians in feudal Vietnam need Suding to lend a hand to execute Thi, husband of Trung Trac ?

The majority of scholars in the 20th century believed those Confucius scholars (in Vietnam) had to “kill” Thi because if Thi were to be alive and Trung Trac were to become ruler or Queen, then it would have been against … the teachings of Confucius and Meng-Zi! They also unified in believing ancient Viet people seemingly followed matriarchy – evidenced by the facts that lots of Trung Trac’s generals were females such as Le Chan (princess Thanh Chan), Ngoc Lam (princess Thanh Thien ), Vu thuc Nuong (princess Bat Nan), Thieu Hoa (Dong Quan Tuong Quan), Dieu Tien etc. Though this explanation is not persuasive enough. I believe there was more profound meaning and different idea hidden behind those “lies”. Those “lies” distracted people from noticing the location of uprising.

Trung Trac and Trung Nhi (The Trung sisters) gathered forces and declared war to To Dinh at Me Linh, with the strong support of their mother, by the name Man Thien. After the success, Trung Trac declared herself ruler or Queen and stationed at Me Linh, her native land. If the Trung sisters did not have brothers, then when a husband passed away, Trung Trac (Trung Trac resided at her husband’s place) returned to her native land and retained the hereditary authority with her sister, and eventually she “hated the greedy, and the feud of her husband being killed would never be forgotten …Raised the flag to uprise (against To Dinh)”. The series of reasoning was smooth, and persuaded lots of people easily. In fact, it had persuaded so many generations of Vietnamese for thousands of years.

Obviously Thi was not persecuted by anyone. He was the son of Lac general Chau Dien, and matched perfectly with Trung Trac as opposed to a porter who had no relatives, was fed and entrusted with one’s master’s daughter (in the patriarchy). If Thi was not beside Trung Trac during the fight against To Dinh, there would be no such question as husband moving to live with the wife’s family after marriage or husband bringing the bride home after marriage. If ancient Vietnamese already followed patriarchy, Trung Trac would have moved to her husband’s family after marriage. And the location of uprising would have been Chu Dien instead of Me Linh. Therefore we could see the role of the bride in a renowned family was quite exceptional.

Now we can undoubtedly conclude that when marrying Trung Trac, Thi had to move to Trung Trac’s native land of Me Linh. The role of Thi was vague during and after the uprising. It was replaced by Trung Nhi, sister of Trung Trac. It was ordinary in a matriarchy where Trung Trac had the hereditary authority and Trung Nhi was the next in line to inherit such authority, Trung Nhi could even inherit her brother-in-law Thi. This is not strange in some primitive cultures in the world in the 20th century. This hyppothesis can be based on the story of the marriage of My Chau and Trong Thuy 200 years prior. The image of king An Duong rode a horse with My Chau fleeing the city of Co Loa was also vague in such My Chau was protected as a “prince” when at risk. Another history book Sanguozhi (Tam Quốc Chí or The story of 3 kingdoms) in China, by Chenshou (Trần Thọ 233-297AD): “In district Me Linh, Giao Chi county and district Do Lung, Cuu Chan county, younger brother married older sister-in-law after the older brother passed away”.

I strongly confirm that during the Trung Sisters’ period, people lived on the Hong River delta still practiced matriarchy, if not maternal authority. The concepts of matriarchy and maternal authority are different, but patriarchy and paternal authority somehow are almost one. Matriarchy rules that the offsprings keep their mother’s last name, only daughters can be heirs. Maternal authority goes farther, when authority in the family or in society belong to the women, and the leader has to be female. Therefore, having male leaders in some of the Viet groups never contradict their matriarchy. This matriarchy spirit stretched out in most of Vietnamese historical tales or ancient stories, although it was suppressed and distorted by the later patriarchy, with alot of wary effort.

Glance over a few ancient legends like Tiên Dung – Chử Đồng Tử (King Hung the 3rd), Trương Chi - Mỵ Nương, Ngưu Lang - Chức Nữ, one can not afford to not recognize that all the “ideal ladies” were Princess, King’s daughter, or God’s daughter, very wealthy; at the same time, the men were very poor, laypersons. It was the opposite of those folklores from the patriarchal civilization, which idolized the male roles while the female roles always poor and common people.

Most obvious, we have to examine the legend of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ, with the pair of concepts “Mother – Earth [mountains]” and “Father – Water [Ocean]”. According to the words’ order of Lĩnh Nam Chích Quái: “Long Quân [Dragon Man] said: “ I am dragon, King of the Ocean; you are fairy, lives on land – although our [negative and positive] charges unified to give births to our children, but water and fire are opposite sings, our races are not compatible by nature, we cannot be together for long.” It is clearly that Mother Âu Cơ was considered positive sign, not negative. One more proof: Đoan Dương festival (the hottest day of the year, when positive sign is at its strongest) or also called Đoan Ngọ, on the 5th day of the 5th lunar calendar month, also is the Âu Cơ ‘s Memorial Day. The patriarchal system could distorted legends but cannot change the traditional memorial day of the mother with the memorial day of the father. In the folk song: “Công Cha như núi Thái Sơn – Nghĩa Mẹ như nước trong nguồn chảy ra” [“The Father’s effort is as high as a mountain, Mother’s Love is like water running from the source”],the pair concepts: “Mother – Earth [mountains]
and “Father – Water [Ocean] from the legend Âu Cơ - Lạc Long Quân was cleverly exchanged by the patriarchal system into “Mother - Water” and “Father – Mountains”. The very fact that “Thái Sơn” originated from China clearly shows the reason for this change. Someone will argue against my hypothesis: based on sexual organs, it is illogical to say Mother is “positive sign”. Incidentally, Lưỡng Nghi [Double signs – positive sign and negative sign] of Yijing resembles Linga and Yoni of Chiem Thanh. However, when we compare the breasts of the male and female, it is obvious that the female has positive features. The issue now is only the point of view.

2. One way of reasoning based on history:

In 111 BCE, Lubode (Lộ Bác Đức) invaded Nanyue (Nam Việt), ending almost 100 years of the Zhao (Triệu) dynasty. Xiangjun (Tượng Quận), the land that was not yet invaded, a conceptual name used by the Qin (similar to that of Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) used by the Zhou) began to be developed by Hanwudi. The nine districts listed in Hanshu were: Daner (Đạm Nhĩ), Zhouya (Chu Nhai), Nanhai (Nam Hải), Shangwu (Thương Ngô), Yulin (Uất Lâm), Hepu (Hợp Phố), Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ), Jiuzhen (Cửu Chân), and Rinan (Nhật Nam). Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, and Rinan continued to be only conceptual names, the concepts that speaking for the pride, superior complex, and the expansionism of the Han.

After hundreds of years staying put and developing the southern areas they had invaded, as well as placing officers to manage these areas (6 districts among the 9 districts under the name of Jiaozhi area), in the early of the common era, the Western Han began to look into the three imaginative districts, which were Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, Rinan. For the first time, we noticed the rank “Taiqu (head of district) of Jiaozhi district, named Jiguang (Tích Quang, Year 1 – 5 CE). This officer surely was only leading a small group, as embassador, to scout out the new area to see if they can establish a dominating system. Jiguang (Tích Quang)’s job was only halfway when China turned chaos due to Wangmang (Vương Mãng)’s revolution.

In 23 CE, Liuxiu (Lưu Tú) conquered Wangmang, but Changan had collapsed and ruined under fire, he moved the capital to Luoyang (Lạc Dương), started the Houhan. To continue exploring the land of ancient Viet, in 25 CE, Renyan (Nhâm Diên) was ordered to go to Jiuzhen (Cửu Chân). The seducing strategies that Jiguang (Tích Quang) and Renyan (Nhâm Diên) applied to woo Viet ‘s people then, surprisingly, was still praised until the 20th century, with rather naïve and shallow perception. Even recently, Tran Trong Kim’s Việt Nam Sử Lược [Outline of Vietnam’s History] still noted: “This officer [Tích Quang] was dedicated to educate the people, teaching them the right ways to live, therefore many people in the district respected him.” And “The people of that district (Jiuzhen, Cửu Chân) admired Nhâm Diên, they built temple to worship him.”

In 34 CE, it was possible that the Han was too optimistic about the situation, that they ordered Tô Định to lead another group to the Hong River delta to carry out their colonialism. The duty of the new officer must have been to establish a taxing system, turning Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) into a piece of cake on the colonial party table. Jiaozhi can no longer be an imaginative land to decorate the map of the Han’s imperialism. It was possible that Tô Định had carried out some terrorizing strategies under the name of Chinese ‘s King and imposed Chinese law on the natives. There was no more fake humanistic actions like those of Tích Quang, Nhâm Diên. The natives’ freedom were seriously afflicted. Trưng Trắc, the leader of the land where Tô Định set up his office, had suffered the most, and therefore had stood up to ask all other leaders to unite in the war against the common enemy.

The Trung Sisters raised the beats of their bronze drums to motivate their people in the revolution against the Chinese in the year 40 CE. The Viet people from everywhere joined the movement to support them. Tô Định fled directly to Nanhai (Guangzhou, Guangdong province – China today.) without any fight or remarkable battle recorded in history or folk tales. This detail confirmed one more time that the scenario I proposed above was logical. Tô Định’s army was very small, and was prepared to fight in battles.

The Trưng Sisters’ army aggression toward Long Biên succeeded promptly. This was the advantage letting The Trưng Sisters gathered more force, appointed themselves sovereign and chose Mê Linh to be their capital.

In the Spring of 42, Mayuan led well-trained soldiers to invade Jiaozhi. With the experiences of a general, Mayuan patiently camped at Lãng Bạc while scouting out the situation. The Trung Sisters took control, attacked them first and failed, had to retreat to Mê Linh then Cẩm Khê (the base of Ba Vì mountains). Mã Viện continued to chase after, and captured the Trung Sisters in January, 43. The defeated Viet army fought fearlessly for the next few months before giving up. The Viet people have two different Memorial Days for The Trung Sisters: February 6, 43 and March 8, 43 (Year of The Cat, Lunar Calendar). The first date may be when they were captured, and the second date may be when they were executed. Here we came across two possibilities: One was that Mayuan kept The Trung Sisters to bait the rest of the Viet’s soldiers. Two was that Mayuan was trying to convince The Trung Sisters to surrender to the Han and obey the Han’s law. However, regardless of the possibilities, it was confirmed that The Trung Sisters chose death but not to surrdender.

The fact that Hai Bà Trưng bravely attacked Mayuan led to a remark on the side: Houhanshu did not record the number of Mayuan’s soldiers, but if we only counted the troop that invaded Jiuzhen (Cửu Chân) afterward, there were up to two thousands battle ships and twenty thousand soldiers. Therefore, Mayuan must have led at least one and a half time larger the amount of soldiers in the war against The Trưng Sisters. Based on the same book, Mayuan killed thousands of The Trưng Sisters’ soldiers and captured tens of thousand at Lãng Bạc. Thus we can guess The Trưng Sisters’ armforce reached tens of thousands, about the same as that of Mayuan’s. With such an army, if An Dương Vương’s Cổ Loa fortress actually was in the Hồng River’s delta (not in Guangxi as this author assumed), then why did the Trưng Sisters not repair the castle to use in the fight against the invaders. In reality, Cổ Loa Đông Anh was only about 20 km of shortest distance, without any obstacles such as large river, strong falls, high mountains, deep chasm in be twe en, and The Trưng Sisters had at least 2 years to be ready for a long term revolution. This reasoning add another negative vote to the legend that An Dương Vương and Cô Loa fortress was in the land of Vietnam today.

Let us hide our own racial spirit as well as patriotic attitude (the concepts which could not have developed under the Trưng Sisters’ period.), to cautiously make this statement based on civilization aspects: The results of the battle between The Trưng Sisters and Mayuan could have been predicted. The matriarchal society, or at least some of it, was conquered by a more advanced, more modernized, to liberate the social’s productivity, reorganize the labor divisions, to help human and history move forward. The fact is, The Trưng Sisters had to confront Mayuan, an invader, therefore the real reason for failure of The Trưng Sisters were quite difficult to accept by most of the Vietnamese, without taking education and perception into perspective.

3. Descendants of The Trung Sisters on the far away islands.

In the Spring of 43, The Trung Sisters were executed. There followers retreated to Cu Phong, in Jiuzhen (Cửu Chân) Thanh Hóa. Mayuan continued to chase after them untill the end of 43, when he completed the invasion. Another group of Viet surrendered. However, there was an indomitatble group who had sailed out to the ocean. It was completely logical that the end of year 43 was the point in time and it was an important point, since at that time on the East Sea began the season of wind from the north east. These were the pair of freedom wings Nature blessed the ancient Viet people, pushing their boats to Malacca. There also was a possibility that many people fled on feet, then mixed in with tribes who lived along the coast of Central Vietnam today. They contributed to building the Chiem Thanh Kingdom.

Today, there are two matriarchal communities, with blood connected origin, lived right next to Malacca trait, and belong to two countries. 1. The first community is that of the Minangkabau, on Sumatra island, in Indonesia. They have about 4 million people, which is ¼ the island’s population. 2. The second community live in Negeri Sembilan, of Peninsular, Malaysia. They also are Minangkabau. They crossed Malacca to Penisular in about the 15th to 16th century. Today they scattered over an area of 6.645km2, with a population of 722,000. 00 (document in 1991). Negeri Sembilan means “Nation number 9”. The word “Negeri” here is the same as “Nagar – Nation, country” of the Chiem Thanh and similar to the word “Lạc – Nác, Nước” of the ancient Lạc Việt. Capital of Sembilan is about 64km away from Kuala Lumpur.

These two communities have special and unique cultures. They still kept their matriachy. The heirs are all female. However, the head of an extended family is a male. Their territory is divided into self governed tribes with the name of Luak [Lạc?]. The leader of each self governed tribe is also male, and is elected by the head of the extended families, called Luak Undang. The female heir of the family is called Turun Cicik, her sister is the second heir and is called Turun Nyi ( Pronounced as T’run ch’chik and T’run Nhi in Bahasa, Indonesia.) This pronunciation, after many changes over time, still vaguely remind us of the names Trưng Trắc, Trưng Nhị.

In daily living, the male’s main responsibility is with his mother and sisters. In many areas, men only stay with their wives at night, and come back to be with their sisters during the day time. Married women stay home with their parents. The married sisters always have a close connection with their single sisters, to the point that they may live together. In Indonesia today, Minangkabau are very smart businessmen. This is thank to the unique characters of Minangkabau ‘s culture. The Minangkabau men have to leave families in search for their future. They have to succeed. All over Indonesia, we met many bosses who are Minangkabau. They worship Muslim as their religion for the last few centuries. However, their cultural traditions and religion have blended surprisingly well.

The matriarchy system that exists today in the Minangkabau communities always interest the scholars who study culture, history, and human civilization. The tourism in Indonesia and Malaysia have also brought this into play to attract tourists. In many movies used to promote tourism, the Minangkabau have more than once declared that their ancestors were the Viet who migrated to Indonesia by boats.

The Minangkabau traditional architecture also has caused many people to wonder: “In Indonesia, the Minangkabau have many beautiful houses with curve roofs, very elegant with wonderful synchronization, half resemble that of a boat house, half take after that of the Vietnamese Pagoda [Văn ngọc: The boat shape houses, www.zdfree.free.fr/diendan/articles/u125vngoc.html].

Please refer to a Minangkabau story [Dien A. Rice: “Minangkabau Life and Culture”, www.haqq.com.au]: In the old day, there was conflict between the Minangkabau and the Java, instead of using bloodshed war to solve the problem, they agreed to buffalo fight to decide. The Java had a gigantic buffalo, strong and aggressive. The Minangkabau only had a baby buffalo. The Java was very confident that their buffalo would destroy the baby one. Yet the frail buffalo had won the mighty one. The Minangkabau had let their buffalo starved for days. Before the fight, they attached a sharp knife to the baby buffalo. In the fight, the baby buffalo thought the big one was his mother. Instantly, he reached under her searching to suck her milk. The huge and mighty buffalo died having sharp knife cut through its abdomen. The Minangkabau won. Based on this story, Minang means victory, Kabau means buffalo.

Any Vietnamese will find something very close to the cultural traits of Hong River delta’s civilization. The folklore of Phylosophy Doctor Quynh who used baby buffalo to fight against the Chinese buffalo if compared to the above story, may be just another form of the same thinking, a simple but very sound philosophy: worship mental strength and love of peace, cooperation, utilize brain power to conquer strong muscle, disarm conflicts with a human’s heart. Suddenly, I realized, the golden buffalo chosen as symbol for the first Seagame organized by Vietnam, Seagame 2003, was picked from the subconscious foundation of Viet’s culture and history.

Was the Minangakabau in Indonesia and Malaysia today also the descendants of the Trung Sisters?

Were the names Trung Trac, Trung Nhi that the Viet respect not a personal name but actually was the rank of the two sisters or a group of Vietnamese women who were undefeatable? We are reaching the answer in a very near future.

4. The First Trung Sister (Trung Trac) actually was King Hung:

In the old days, the world “Xiong - Hùng” means “the leader of an area”. Suishu (Century VII), chapter Geography noted “To the barbarians (the Lạc Việt) wealthy men were powerful people”. The son of King Hung was called Quan Lang, governed the area with a system probably similar to that of villages today. The world “Làng” could have originated from “Lang” in “Quan Lang” (Officer of an area). The Mường up to recent time still have the official rank of “Quan Lang”. Thus, we could define “Hùng” as the first leader of the matriarchal system. The cooperation of matriarchal families would change itself into a primitive government like Văn Lang, and King Hùng must be the first leader of this primitive government.

When they migrated to Guangxi, the ancient Lạc Việt tribal groups from Động Đình Hồ remained connected in the same format of their primitive government. This was illustrated in the legend about the conflicts between “Thục Vương Tử” and King Hùng. However, pre and post the time period of 179 BCE (the year Zhaoduo invaded Tây Âu Lạc of An Dương Vương), and 111 BCE (the year Lộ Bác Đức subjugated Nam Việt), the groups who continued to migrate toward the Hồng River delta might have been not able to preserve the ancient Văn Lang social system. This is rather easy to understand: The new land was a wilderness (although there were sure to have a few groups of the South Asia people who lived by alternating areas of planting as well as frequent changes of their habitat, and the economy based on hunting and gathering food). The environment was damp and low, rainy season with frequent flooding presented problems, small population, difficult transportation … To the beginning of the common era, at least the picture of population of the Lạc Việt tribes on the Hồng River delta was improved. To fight against the Donghan strategy to dominate Viet, The Trung Sisters had gathered all area leaders to chase the Han’s officer out of their post, and appointed themselves King. Based on this, Trung Trac actually was the first King Hùng of the early Viet Nam land.

In the ancient Lạc Viet society, bronze drum was a powerful sympbol of the leaders of a tribe or a family. Suishu also remarked: “During the war, the bronze drums were played, people from all areas responded to the sounds of the bronze drums, came together to fight. The Lạc Việt people respected the master of the bronze drum very much.” – This may be the decided reason for Mayuan’s action toward the national treasure: the bronze drums. Mayuan’s southward aggression had shattered the federation of Văn Lang that was just recreated by Trưng Trắc, but he had to let the Viet people self governed at the village level. Therefore, after he had excecuted the Trung’s couple, Mã Viện rushed to have his soldiers gathered all bronze drums in order to stop any embryonic plan of revolution. The true nature of this issue was kept very secret, and the illustration events of Mayuan melted copper to make horses and erected bronze pole as an astronomy station, defined the location of the newly invaded area on the map of Han empire, were only make believes to cover up the truth of history.

I have met many Vietnameses who did not believe their ancestors were the owner of the bronze drums, or who felt that honoring the bronze drum as a national treasure is not very convincing and lacks of substantial facts. They said not like the Zhuang at the self governed area of Guangxi, China (descendants of the people of An Dương Vương who did not fled from Zhaoduo to the Hồng River delta in the year 179 BCE) still play their drums for festivals, the Viet ‘s bronze drums were only discovered from the past burial.

I hope the name Mayuan as a cause that I just pointed out will help to prove that the ancient Viet had no other way but to bury their bronze drums to preserve them for the future, wishing their descendants would honor and protect the drums.

Simultaneously with destroying the bronze drums, ruining the primitive government system of the ancient Viet, Mayuan who represented the Donghan also officially gave birth to the self governed units named Làng (village), and Xã (commun). With this autonomy, the independent and self – directed spirit of the Viet have always been protected and fostered in the homes behind the villages’ bamboo fence. The word “Làng Nước” was born here. Làng became a miniature independent nation of the undefeated Viet. More than 800 years later, this spirit grew up and exploded to liberate the Viet people from Chinese domination and slavery. Once the Viet established their own country, the role of “làng xã” went back to its relatively counter-dependent against the controlling policies of the head quarter’s government. To mitigate the benefits of both central government and the villagers, each village was given a “representative God” chosen by the central government. Therefore, conflicts were resolved at an acceptable level: the king of village was a god (or a real man that was idolized as a saint) officially recognized by the King of the nation in a written statement.

5. Conclusion

The ancient Lạc Việt started almost one century migrating from Lake Động Đình, Kinh district and Dương district to the bank of Changjiang River when Huaxia civilization moved southward and the nation of Chu was established. To the time of Trung Trac, human’s ability was limited, with simple advances while coming to the end of mountains, facing vast ocean, most of them had to stop here, patiently suffered another 800 years of harsh slavery.

The migrating blood of the Viet’s ancestors while facing political conflicts had more than once exploded, almost thousand of years recently showed in their descendants: When the Trần took over power, a branch of Lý had moved to Korea. The wars between Lê - Mạc continued by the struggle between Trịnh - Nguyễn had caused many people to leave home and come to the fertile Mekong river delta. 1954 and 1975, millions of people had once again packed to go south, or sailed out to the open sea to reach the world. The one who had compared the Vietnamese people with the Jewish had indeed a good analogy.

Placing myself in the year 40 CE, I suddenly realized the cliché image of the Trung Sisters “raised the revolution flag” was not quite logical. We should imagine movements of the bronze drums rushing beats throughout peaceful homes (nhà sàn), village after village, one family calling out for another, to unite in the sounds of freedom under the leader of King Hùng – The First Trưng Sister – proceed toward Long Bien, to chase away the invaders from the north.

The Trung Sisters had ended the prehistoric time on the land of Vietnam. This was the twilight period prior to a very long and dark night of slavery. The Viet people patiently suffered lives without freedom to learn, to better themselves. Now and then, a few torches of freedom enlightened the scenary with heroic names such as Triệu thị Trinh, Mai Thúc Loan, or Phùng Hưng. More remarkable, was half of a century of independence under the leadership of Lý Nam Đế and the officers during the “Vạn Xuân” (Ten Thousands Springs) dream. Those were solid advancing steps, cannot be denied of the people and country during the dawn of history, as foundation for a new independence, started with Khúc Thừa Dụ in the year 905. Eight hundred years under the North domination, was an expensive price but never was wasted. The people of Viet, and the Viet Civilization which was formed in a difficult environment with many challenges had outgrew themselves. Since then, the northerners never can completely dominate them. At the end of 19th century, beginning the 20th century, the European colonials represented by the French, with many advantages over the Viet, with strong weapons produced by modern technology, well organized system, could only impose their domination about 80 years only.

Not paying attention to An Nam Chí Lược (1335) written by a traitor, the first written History Book that lasts till now is Đại Việt Sử Lược (1377 – 1388), the Vietnamese historians had been reading Chinese history, while deeping their feather pen into water to write about Mr. Thi. They even carelessly wrote the name of the first Trung Sister’s husband as “Thi Sách”! Time pasts, history books being published, and Trung Trac continued to be placed in a role of a widow, burdened with many concepts not belong to her time. The way of thinking with subjective reasoning, being slave to Chinese books, and bibles, together with the tradition of prejudice and systematically not respecting the truth, unintentionally had put wrong color of make up on the bare feet mother who was described by Shuijingzhu as “A person with great courage”. The result was that their great mother did not look any better. It only made people felt sad for her immature and clumsy children.

The piece of land which resembles an S with the name Vietnam today has about 200 temples created to worship the Trưng Sisters. That is a very loud and clear declaration of their significant role in this country. All theories and studies old or new have to confirm their heroic spirit and ther invincibility of the Trưng’s Sisters, the first King Hung and also was the last on the land of Vietnam, the respectable mother of Vietnam history and of the Viet people.

This post has been edited by Zhang_Taiyou: 13 July 2005 - 10:24 AM

[Zhang_Taiyou]

D. Some cultural aspects:

1. From Yijing (Book of Changes) to the ancient Vietnamese way of writing:

In the past, quite a few Vietnamese historians recognized that the Book of Changes contained many factors borrowed from Shennong Civilization. Recently, a newsletter article in Vietnam proudly proclaimed that the Book of Changes actually was a creation of the ancient Vietnamese. I have studied these debates carefully and asked myself: “Today electronic languages based only on 2 codes: YES and NO, on paper it equals to number 1 and 0. The computer brain can easily read all texts written only with 0 and 1, in series, since they have a very high ability to decode. The first principle in “Book of Changes” is Positive (Yang) and Negative (Yin) create Two extremes, Two extremes create Four Symbols. Four Symbols create Eight Objects. After Eight objects, we even have 64 variations. Positive is noted by a connected line. Negative is marked by a disconnected line. It is very possible that China had borrowed this notation from Shennong civilization and developed into the Book of Changes. Why not assume that the notation system based on Negative sign and Positive sign were actually alphabets of a secret language in Shennong civilization?”

At this point I think we need to examine an “important disadvantage” of Shennong civilization is not having written language, as previously discussed. The two factors Negative and Positive obviously was used alternatingly, in series. The fact that they could be used as number (based of 2), alphabets or writing letters, depended not on the communicative effects of this two signs, but of the ability to decode notations of the people during that period. I have therefore excluded the “impossibility” in my assumption.

I have come to the History Museum of Ho Chi Minh City to observe a Đong Son bronze drum. Bronze drum is a precious heritage of the Vietnamese people. Many scientists agreed that the bronze drum preserved the image of people worshiped the sun, during the dawn of history. In the center of the drum is the radiating Sun. The outer half has 2 sets of circles with the same center contained multi lines next to each other. Based on the language in “Book of Changes”, one line is positive (in Two extremes), two lines is the sun (in four symbols), three lines is Qian (in eight variations), six lines is Qian wei tian (one of 64 variations). All of them were the images of the sun or God. If we presume the series of lines next to each other are the word: Qian – Qian – Qian … or God – God – God …continually, ? Or Sun – Sun – Sun …? It is very strange if this is only coincident. There were so many lines, I could not count exactly how many. If the sum of these lines is divisible into 6, regardless of which drum that is, then my assumption is quite logical. Besides, there was also another circle with same center with flowering lines such as ~ , and connecting these signs ~ are small circles with a dot at center. This may also be a word mean “Sun” similar to the word “the sun” from many other primitive civilization.

If my assumption is correct, it will lead to a reconsideration: Language used in Book of Changes is language of Shennong Civilization. Based on the assumption: “Fuxi created Eight variations”, Confucius built the statues for Wenwang and Zhougong to promote his theory, by asserting that they have written “Cuanci” and “Haoci”. It is very possible that Confucius himself have edited “Haoci” and “Story of Changes”. Up until now, I think, we should only ask if the “Book of Changes” is a legacy of the Vietnamese ancestor? We do not yet have many convincing proofs, not able to compare the first language used in the Book of Changes with the later. Chinese History still preserved the main source of Book of Changes for the last two thousand years. The Vietnamese people now having much more realistic faith to start the search for copyrights of Book of Changes. This “humanistic gold mine” promises an endless mental energy for the children of the Fairy and Dragon parents.

In short, I temporarily stop my work here. Readers who support my imagination, please study the archeology artifacts. The most convincing answer is still fleeting and we may not ever be able to reach. However, to be able to communicate with the ancestors’ mystical legacy is never boring. Although no one can prove that I am right, to prove I am wrong is even more difficult. In the end, my way of decoding the writing on the bronze drums should still be used as reference, since no praise is too much for the bronze drums and the ancient Vietnameses who created them.

2. The humanistic messages:

Besides the history factors, Vietnamese legends have many humanistic messages to be studied by Vietnameses at any time period.

“Land – Water” [Đất Nước] and Nation [Tổ Quốc]: In chapter “Confucious”, Simaqian’s Shiji recorded Confucius’s saying as: “ I heard … monsters born in the water were dragons.” Thus, we can understand that the father Lạc Long Quân was a symbol for “Water”, or “Ocean”. Home of “water” must have been in the Ocean, the basic meaning of the word “Lạc” is “Water”. Mother “Âu Cơ” represents “Land”. The word “Âu” was used by Trần Thánh Tông: “Xã tắc lưỡng hồi lao thạch mã – Sơn hà thiên cổ điện kim âu”. Hồ Quý Ly also changed name of the mountain Đại Lại (Vĩnh Lộc, Thanh Hóa) to Kim Âu (Gold Mountain). The saying “an inch of land is an inch of gold” is quite similar to that idea of “Gold Mountain”. A stone horse standing on golden land, no wonder the nation of Vietnam is strong for a long time (Vạn Xuân: ten thousands Spring).

The Rice Farming Civilization was built from “Land” and “Water” are facts that no one can denied. The Vietnameses also called their country “Land and Water” has its reason. This logic can lead to the explanation that “Âu Lạc” mean “Đất Nước.” If the readers replace the words “Âu” by “Đất” [land] and “Lạc” by “Nước” [water] in this essay, I believed it will enlighten the ideas I would like to convey. Who knows if the separation between the dragon father and the fairy mother in the legend may actually marked a terrible drough in the Changjiang river’s delta.

The lesson about being united:: Âu Cơ and Lạc Long Quân had separated, weakened Shennong civilization. The two branches Lạc Việt and Tây Âu, one moved to the ocean, the other went up the mountains, both lost their main living areas, began their uncertain destination. Thousands of year later, they found each other again in the primitive government Âu (Cơ) - Lạc (Long Quân), new and weak. The “Xiang”[mutual] field near Xiang River that run into Lake Động Đình was where Long Quân and Âu Cơ promised to meet. The word “Xiang” [mutual] is the lesson to unite.

The lesson about War: Mỵ Châu represented the people of Tây Âu Lạc, Trọng Thủy represented the people of Nam Việt. They were the first and last victims of the war. The pain of their people produced a pearl [Mỵ Châu], when being rinsed with the water from the deep anguish well [Trọng Thủy], the pearl will shine a forever beauty of peace and harmony.

The lesson of Awareness: Being cautious, first, is with oneself, being cautious with the enemy is second. The government of Tây Âu Lạc was bribed by wealth and compromised their well being by a political marriage. Depended on strong fortress, secret weapon, An Dương Vương was careless, mistreated the good man Cao Lỗ, therefore he had lost his country and family.

Ocean and Freedom: Lạc Long Quân was the King of Dragons in the Sea. He told his children to face the Ocean and call: Father!, whenever they need help. Defeated, An Dương Vương came to the shore, coldly excecuted Mỵ Châu then used a Rhino’s horn to part the warter and left. The message “go to the sea” had become part of the Vietnamese subconscious mind ever since. After that, the Vietnameses have more than once sailed out to the ocean in search for freedom: the troop of Mê Linh Heroines retreated to Cư Phong, then sailed to Malacca, they are now the Minangkabau in Malaysia and Indonesia; the Lý’s desendants sailed to Korea; Hồ Quý Ly might not be caught if he did not stop at the North Central Vietnam’s shore… Message “Go to the Sea” in 21th century must mean for Vietnam to open arms to welcome friendship with all five continents, stop the conservative thinking, and stop all forms of firewalls, stop boycotting global’s exchange.

3. Quyuan (Khuat Nguyen) cried for Shennong Civilization

Quyuan was born in 343 BCE, died 278 BCE. He became a high-ranking officer at age 21, during the time of Chuhuaiwang. Since Quyuan’s political point of view was not respected and he was being criticized, Chuhuaiwang demoted him. Listen to the ones who only gave wrong advice, Huaiwang lost to the Qin’s army. His first son, Qingxiangwang, became King and continued to believe false stories, he deported Quyuan to Jiangnan (area of Lake Động Đình). Quyuan reasoned: “The whole world is dirty and cloudy, I only am clean ! The whole world is drunk, I am the only sober! Therefore I was sent away.”

Simaqian wrote in Shiji: “Lisao is the sorrow of separation … Guofeng’s poetry honors beauty but not sex, Xiaoya ‘s poetry is regretful but not rebellious. Lisao has both virtues. His (Quyuan) writing is short and concise, subtle. His ideas are idealistic, his characters are admirable. He mentioned small events but referred to immensed effects; he talked about what happened nearby but with profound meanings … He really lived near mud but always kept himself respectable.

One worries not about his own self get hurt
His great concern is the consequences of loosing ( the nation!)

Lisao is the height, the inspiration, and the beginning of Chuci. Based on the new concept that Chinese culture has multiple roots, the influence of Jingshi on Chuci was the actual cultural exchange. Jingshi (Book of Poems) started with poems written with two words scripted on the turtle shell during the Shang’s period. In the Warring States, these poems mixed with Chuci, flowing through the five-word-poems of Jianan (Houhan) then traveled with time into the exquisite poetry river of Tang. Those poem from Chuci that could be sung gradually were adapted into Music (the beginning of Han). Those poems with less harmony became the origination of Fusong [ praise] for generations to come. In general, Chuci has the unique characteristic of Chu (the son of Huaxia and Shennong civilization.) Placing Chuci into the roots of Shennong (Mother of Lạc Việt), we can appreciate the greatness and everlasting of Lisao and its author Quyuan.

Reading “Stories about Quyuan” in Shiji, I realized Simaqian sympathized highly with Quyuan. However, beyond personal appreciation, Quyuan’s works represent the voice of an independent civilization, painfully witnessing itself being tortured in waves of rude transformation due to war. Chuci, the essence of Chu culture, has contributed immensely to the Chinese civilization. If we study Chuci carefully, extract other mixed effects and influences, I believe the Vietnamese today will surprisingly realize the brilliant light from the undefeatable Văn Lang civilization in the ancient time.

Riding on jewel horse that is as powerful as a dragon without horns,
Sitting in the car decorated with Phoenix feathers, safe from wind and dust, to fly away (out of this material life)

The car decorated with Phoenix feather must have related to the images scribbled on the bronze drums. It is also necessary to mention again that Yueshangguo (Việt Thường Quốc) had come to visit and gave Zhouchengwang the white Phoenix. The Chu people also was called “Jing - Kinh”, Viet’s race.

Shuowan, a book has translated “Yuerenge - Việt Nhân Ca” (written by the Chu, used language of Chu) as following:

“Tonight, what night, we dock our boat in the midstream of the river.
Today, what day, we sit in the same boat as the King.”

The people of Lạc Việt worship God and always called onto God. For example, the song “Climbing up the stair to ask God …” Quyuan’s writing carried many characteristics of Lạc Việt’s culture. That was the reason why he has written “Ask God [Tianwen]” includes 189 questions to ask God! In the conclusion, he wrote: “ I inform the seniors of Chu that the country is in distress, may not prevail.”

Quyuan’s writing was in Chu’s language, to appreciate its beauty completely, one must read in Hunan’s accent. This unique feature proves that Jingshi and Chuci do not share the same root. In fact, reading Jingshi using Chinese Vietnamese pronunciation is almost musical as Tang’s poetry. However, Chuci’s harmony cannot be preserved in Hanyue accent. According to Nguyen Tai Can [Nguồn gốc và quá trình hình thành cách đọc Hán Việt (Origin of Hanyue), Nguyễn Tài Cẩn, NXB KHXH 1979], the pronunciation of Hanyue essentially based on Han during the Tang’s period, therefore to exchange with Chuci demands a lot of work and a completely new path.

Confucius’ “Remarks of Music” stated: Voice and speeches originate from human’s emotion. Emotion when being touched will create voice, voice will create lyrics and songs. Listen to music, one will understand the social circumstannce. In the time of peace, music will be peaceful and gentle. During war times, music will be regretful and sad. A corrupted society has songs that cry for the lost of a nation, with sad remembrance to sing for the suffering of people.

In Đại Việt Sử Lược (1388): In the winter of 1202 (year of the dog/ Nhâm Tuất), King Lý Cao Tông traveled to Hai Thanh. Everynight, musicians there played Ba Lỗ instrument, sang music from the Chiêm, sounds full of sadness, regrets, pain, and hatre. The King’s troop all cried when they listened to the music. An officer named Nguyễn Thường advised: “I learned from Jingshi, that the sounds of a chaotic nation is regretful, showing hatre against erroneous politics, sounds of a lost nation is painful, showing sympathy for the people who suffer. This time Your Honor traveled with no restrictions, our political system and educational system are wrong, our people are very poor and sad. The distress is at its peak. Yet listening to the crying sounds of music is not the omen of conflicts, war, and a nation at lost? I advised the King to come back, not travel into those areas.” More than 20 years later, bad omen came true, Lý dynasty was replaced by Trần.

Based on the reasoning of Oriental classical music as above, conferring with the Hunan accent (not to a perfect standard) when singing Lisao, I observed that the music of Lisao was very tragic and depressed. More than half a century after Quyuan died, Chu was destroyed by Qin. The cry of Quyuan was an omen for the lost of Chu’s civilization, or more general, was an omen for the regression of Shennong civilization. When Qinshuihuang sent 500 thousands of people and soldiers crossing the Wukling (Ngũ Lĩnh)’s mountains to attack Baiyue (Bách Việt), the small groups of Shennong such as Minyue (Mân Việt, Fujian), Ouyue (Âu Việt, Zhejiang), Luoyue (Lạc Việt, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and North Việt Nam) gradually being added to China. Qinshuihuang was an emperor with an international scale. His biggest victory and his greatest war crimes was not eliminating the Six countries to unite China, not sending many people to build Lishan or the Great Wall, but was the fact that he had used force and power to invade most of the land, culture, and people of Shennong civilization. The song Yuji of Hangwu with the musical tune from Chu was a heartbreaking conclusion for the Chu people. Liubang also sang the same tune, but the song “Great Wind” had transformed. Shennong civilization had forever mixed with Huaxia civilization to create Han civilization. The people of Shennong since then became the people of Han, except the insurmountable North Viet Nam, lonely on its road to the future which is quite challenging.

Quyuan carried in him the pain of a civilization thought to be dissolved, was looked down as barbarian for centuries, was taken away its very special place that cannot be denied in the history of China. The logic of changes, winning and loosing, in time, to Quyuan, must have been very relative. His greatness rose above all, extraordinarily proud, to set values for mankind who are still trapped in the circles of succeess or failure.

Reading Quyuan makes me think that other writing forms of Viet (story, poetry citing, and story singing) share the same roots with Chuci. The sentences with 6 words, 7 words, then 8 words in Lisao carried a musical tone that is very close to Vietnamese’ “Song thất lục bát” (7-7-6-8), “Lục bát” ( 6 – 8), and especially the form of “Story Singing” (Hát Nói). The term “hề” used in between phrases has been with folklores in the Hong River delta for a long time.

Công anh đắp nấm, trồng chanh I worked the soil, planted the lime
Chẳng được ăn quả, vin cành cho cam Not given the fruit, I must touch the branch
Xin đừng ra dạ bắc nam Please donot change your heart
Nhất nhật bất kiến như tam thu hề A day past without seeing you (hề)
Huống tam thu như bất kiến hề is like three years (hề) – three seasons not met.
Đường kia, nỗi nọ như chia mối sầu This way, that way, who shares my sadness!

My observation above is best illustrated in the Story Singing Song “Vịnh Tiền Xích Bích” [Essay about the time prior to the war on Chibi River – The three nations period] written by Nguyễn Công Trứ (quote part of the song)

Quế trạo hề lan tương
Kích không minh hề tố lưu quang
Diểu diểu hề dư hoài
Vọng mỹ nhân hề thiên nhất phương.

Is it not true that all great Vietnamese poetry written in Nôm as Truyện Kiều, Cung Oán Ngâm Khúc, …, still having subtle marks from Shennong civilization? The long poem Lisao and Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh actually are mirror images that reflecting each other over the time period of more than two thousand years, crossing the North and South banks of Lake Động Đình?

Quyuan might have chosen to die at the time of Hanshi (Hàn Thực) of Shennong civilization just to wake up the ignorant world. Gradually, the original simple idea of Đoan Ngọ was replaced with the funeral of the poet and the love that lay people kept for him. More than two thousand years later, Tú Mỡ, a Vietnamese poet (in an angle, he also is a cultural man), was tricked , and has written:

The old man Qu in China
He who died since the time of Three Lords
Did he have any connection with us?
Why do we celebrate his death?
On the 5 still strong and eat every thing
On the 6 became sick and complaining
If he died, wasting his time
All because of fate!

Recently, Vietnam has the talented Trịnh Công Sơn. Almost half a century, waves after waves of Vietnameses had forgotten conflicts, division, and the differences when listening to the songs of Trịnh. I believe the essence in Trịnh Công Sơn’s songs is not in simple musical notes, or in the beauty of language, but it is hidden in the musical rhythm which is very similar to Hát Nói. Legend also talked about the melancholic song Diễm Tình [The beauty of love] , with its endless quest from the Chu people, now is lost. May be Trịnh Công Sơn’s music when sympathized with modern scales has created sympathetic vibrations, waking up the most ancient blood in the heart of each Vietnamese, the voice of the national lullaby since Văn Lang at Lake Động Đình.

In the beginning of 21th century, Nguyễn Hữu Liêm has written with unsettling insomnia of self experience in “The musical sounds of self pity and depression.” [Talawas.org, 2003], incidently drilled into the emotional wound of the Vietnamese communities in exile all over the world. Reactions exploded loudly, while it should not have been, all because the subtle sadness was touched, by the pure logical observation of a philosopher, not a poetic soul: “From Kiều to Chàm music, to music of Huế, to Vọng Cổ, then Boléro,[the depressing sounds of music] had led the South to the pavement on the street, cover their faces and wiped their tears. This crying community was exiled to a new land and continued to drink suicidal coconut milk in music.”

E. Ending Ideas:

Despite the political factors, most of Vietnamese historians have always automatically think of the word Jiaozhi together with Jiaozhi District, as a name of a defined area in the Hồng River delta. They overlooked the time differences of Shangshu and forgot the poem: “Nam quốc sơn hà.” [ Mountains and Rivers of the country in the South ]. Many times, they even thought Việt Thường Quốc belonged to central Vietnam today. The confusion between the conceptual Jiaozhi district to the real Jiaozhi led to the half true half false in Viet’s History: All historical documents of the vast land Lạc Việt were suppressed into the Hồng River delta.

United – Disintegration, rising high – dipping low, shinning – fading, success – failure, gathering – scattering … these pairs of adjectives cling onto each others, because of many reasons, continue to change its area for a better future of any world wide civilization. Lạc Việt civilization is no exception, but the obvious energy to live of Lạc Việt cannot be denied since Lạc Việt was not destroyed or transformed by China, one of a great civilization of the world.

From the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century, Vietnamese people were separated from written pages of history, the history which was not perfect, but was written by the Vietnamese themselves for thousands of years. On March 17, 1879, the French imposed a French – Viet education system in order to erase completely the Han’s education in the South, afterward came the dates of April 27, 1904 in the North and October 30, 1906 in Central Vietnam [“Việt Nam những sự kiện lịch sử 1858-1918” – Dương Kinh Quốc – NXB Giáo Dục 1999]. Then they were severely shocked when the new education program affirmed: “Our ancestors were the Gauloir”! During this time, rewriting Viet Nam ‘s history was an urgent need, a very important weapon to wake up the Vietnamese people to stand up against colonialism. Most typical are: Vietnam Vong Quốc Sử, Vietnam Sử Khảo, Story about Lê Thái Tổ, Play Trưng Nữ Vương written by Phan Bội Châu; Đại Nam Quốc Sử Diễn Ca by Lê Ngô Cát, Phạm Đình Toái, Việt Nam Sử Lược by Trần Trọng Kim .v.v… The group of words: “four thousand years of history” started to root in the heart and soul of many Vietnamese and placed in their hands a very special task which is subtle and symbolic. For example, the two lines of Tản Đà poem:

“Among twenty five millions of people, who are the adults?
A nation with four thousand years of age is still like a child.”

Those history books were hastily written, but have generated an extraordinary energy in Vietnamese ‘s society, an undying patriotic fire to chase away those invaders and reunite the country. However, due to a rich imagination with a demand for instant results, they have left in today ‘s Vietnamese History many unexpected obstacles.

First, it has not answered the question: “Viet’s people, Viet’s nation, who are we?”

Second, it has many loop holes in the method of studying old writings. To present possible new meanings in words used aboutthe prehistoric time of Vietnam illustrated that there were points of view that are not yet studied or confer with.

Third, it leaves behind an unrealistic statement about “local maners” of the Đại Việt (Big Viet) culture and Viet Nam Civilization. In the long run, the issue of Jiaozhi still remains as a float to rescue the statement. Cultural and archeological items found spread out on a vast area, which cannot be restricted within the fine lines of political borders. That is the exact meaning of the word “Đại” in “Đại Việt”. The more one tries proove the unique features of Vietnamese ‘ culture locally, the more we reduced the beauty of Viet, and to a degree, indirectly down graded the Vietnamese people.

At the step of the 21st century, ancient Vietnamese History may need to have its first page rewritten. The Vietnamese people, more than ever, are in need of a past that came closest to the truth, to bring back precious experiences built on bone and blood which are being forgotten, the expensive lessons our ancestors had tragically bargained for. The Vietnameses desperatedly need to believe in the brave and strong past of Lạc Việt with myriad of priceless cultural values to stand tall as they march toward a brighter future.


Đa Thiện Valley,
Đà Lạt 2004 – 2005
Trương Thái Du

This post has been edited by General_Zhaoyun: 27 October 2005 - 12:35 PM

[Zhang_Taiyou]

I hope anyone who interested in ancient vietnamese history will help me to edit this first translation of my work.

You all could edit directly here or send me email.

Thanks in advance and wish you all a nice reading.

Zhang Taiyou

[General_Zhaoyun]

Nice article written by you..

[caocao74]

Zhang_Taiyou, on Jun 28 2005, 11:13 PM, said:

I hope anyone who interested in ancient vietnamese history will help me to edit this first translation of my work.
You all could edit directly here or send me email.
Thanks in advance and wish you all a nice reading.
Zhang Taiyou

By editing, do you want it editted for mistakes, or just proofread?? If you want it proofread I'd be happy to help. Looking for any inconsistencies would be out of my realm though due to rather lacking in terms of knowledge in Vietnamese history (although interested).

[Zhang_Taiyou]

Dear Caocao74,

You see, this translation is not so good. If your English better than the translater of mine, please take a look and edit gramma as well as sentences first...

I hope I will have a good version in English for publication.

Other way, you also could observe on my logic and have comments and advice. For instance do you agree with me about my view on the meaning of the word Jiaozhi.

Thank you very much,

[AhMan]

Maybe you should pinyinize some Vietnamese names so people will be able to relate things they already know.

[caocao74]

Zhang_Taiyou, on Jul 1 2005, 08:32 AM, said:

Dear Caocao74,
You see, this translation is not so good. If your English better than the translater of mine, please take a look and edit gramma as well as sentences first...
I hope I will have a good version in English for publication.
Thank you very much,

Sorry about the delay but this week has been a tad hectic. If you still want me to proofread it I'll kick-off on Sunday.

[Zhang_Taiyou]

Dear Caocao74

Thank you for your plan. Please kick-off any time you can. I am waiting for a good translation bacause I want to share this paper to a lot of English readers...

Please send me directly or post here.

Zhang

[caocao74]

Zhang_Taiyou, on Jul 9 2005, 10:26 PM, said:

Dear Caocao74
Thank you for your plan. Please kick-off any time you can. I am waiting for a good translation bacause I want to share this paper to a lot of English readers...
Please send me directly or post here.
Zhang

No worries, I'll start Monday (been unfortunately rather busy this weekend as as live in London and I'm currently working in security).

Can you send me an address to send it to when I'm finished?? (PM me when you've time).

CaoCao

[Zhang_Taiyou]

Dear Caocao74

How about your work? After some introductions to this post, Southeast Asian Studies Student Association, Explorations in Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i, Manoa just has agreed to have my paper for their publication.

I am waiting for your help in editting. Certainly, We will submit this paper under our name - CHINAHISTORYFORUM.COM.

Regards,
Zhang

[qrasy]

Dear Zhang Taiyou,

Your work is 'free' of Chinese Characters. Was it translated from a Vietnamese article or a Chinese one?
Other ordinary members can't edit your post here.
It's likely that an Administrator can change your post.

qrasy

This post has been edited by qrasy: 12 July 2005 - 11:28 PM

[Zhang_Taiyou]

Dear qrasy,

I can not undertand your idea with my poor English. This post is a translation from Vietnamese draft of mine. I call for help to edit English... What's wrong with you?

Zhang

[USC]

Zhang_Taiyou, on Jul 13 2005, 09:31 AM, said:

Dear qrasy,

I can not undertand your idea with my poor English. This post is a translation from Vietnamese draft of mine. I call for help to edit English... What's wrong with you?

Zhang

i think grasy meant that those Vietnamese words shud have some equivalent
Chinese character or pinyin.
I agreed with Hanzi to go with the Vietnamese terms.

USC