Trieu Thi Trinh
- Triê.u Thi. Trinh -

The Triê.u family had lived comfortably for a few generations at Nu*a mountain (Cu*?u Chân district, Thanh Hóa province). The wife of Triê.u Quô'c Thái gave birth to a son named Triê.u Quô'c Dat. Two years later (229), while Sir Triê.u and his servants went hunting and caught a precious panther, at home his wife gave birth to a pretty girl named Triê.u Thi Vinh. Everyone considered it a good sign.

Unlike the other babies who often cried, the little girl smiled and ate a lot, grew up very fast, and was healthy. At the age of 8, she was as tall as the other twelve or thirteen-year-old girls. She was fond of running, jumping and playing like a boy. Every day, Triê.u Thi Trinh used to play games of sticks, shuttlecock, flying a kite together with other brother Triê.u Quô'c Dat.

Her mother, Triê.u Ba, would like her daughter Triê.u Thi Trinh to learn sewing and embroidery, but she was not interested. She used to follow her father to the back yard to pratice using a sword, riding a horseback, or shooting with a bow. Triê.u Quô'c Thái invited a tutor to teach them literature in the morning and martial arts in the afternoon. Triê.u Thi Trinh and Triê.u Quô'c Dat worked hard so they made great progress

At that time, the district of Cu*?u Chân (part of our country nowadays) was ruled by the Ngô (The Three Nation period in China). All the Ngô mandarins were cruel and corrupted. They forced people living by the sea to dive down the ocean to search for pearls. Some divers were cut off one leg or pierced into the intestines by sharks.

People living in mountainous regions must hunt elephants for their tusks, tigers for hides, rhinoceos for horns to submit to the Ngô mandarins. These mountaineers were unfortunately maimed or killed by wild animals while entering the jungle. Sometimes, they were choked to death and swallowed by big pythons. Some families lost their husbands and fathers.

People toiled and labored all the year round at the plains. However, the Ngô mandarins exploited them by collecting almost all the paddy after havrvesting. Young men were obliged to build fortresses and citadels or barracks for them. These Ngô soldiers often terrorized and murdered innocent people everywhere.

Triê.u Thi Vinh was shocked and angry at those miseries caused by the Ngô mandarins. She planned with her brother of ways to save the people and the country. Triê.u Quô'c Dat said to his sister, "Now that our parents have passed away, you should come back to our mother's village for some time. In that desolate and remote land, you should form a strong reserved force to fight with the Ngô troops. As for me, I will stay outside to organize patriotic movements."

Listening to her brother, Triê.u Thi Trinh returned to her homeland located near the foot of mount Tùng at Hau Loc (Thanh Hóa province). Here, she formed a group of hunters to hunt for wild animals in the forest. However, when reaching the middle of the forest, they turned to exercise fighting skill. Those who knew ironwork forged bars of iron into lances and sharp swords.

From time to time, Triê.u Thi Trinh ordered her fellows to carry a deer or a stag that they had hunted to offer to the Ngô mandarins nearby. Her aim was to let them not suspect about her organization. Therefore, she could move freely from one place to another and recruit more and more brave patriots.

To have plenty of provisions, young men belonging to the hunting group cleared the forest for cultivation, planted rice and corns, raised cattle and poultry. Harvested supplies were hidden in the caves. Therefore, when more and more people came to join Lady Triê.u everyday, they were never short of provisions.

Triê.u Thi Trinh also recruited the three Ly' brothers named Ly' Hoàng, Ly' My~ and Ly' Thän of the neighboring village. These three men were well-known for their martial arts and wealth. They were greatly admired by the people because they often helped the poor by giving them rice and money. Thus, they attracted a lot of followers.

During that time, Triê.u Quô'c Dat went upstream Ma river to reach Hoa Binh. In this mountainous region, Triê.u Quô'c Dat made friend with Quách So*n, a chief leading the Muong community. After knowing Triê.u Quô'c Dat's goal of uprising to drive out the Ngô, Quách So*n enthusiastically agree to support him.

One day, Triê.u Thi Trinh's rice fields were devastated by a herd of wild elephants. They destroyed the newly-planted beds of corns. The trees all around were uprooted and thrown about in disorder. Seeing the destructions, Triê.u Thi Trinh held a meeting among the hunting group to deal with these elephants.

Someone suggested to use poisonous arrows to kill the elephants one by one. Others proposed to trap the wild animals, catching them alive. Finally, everybody agreed to catch the elephants alive for use in the war with the Ngô later on. Then, the plan to catch the elephants was assigned to elder Ba?y.

Elder Ba?y was then almost seventy. In his youth, he used to live in Laos. Laos is a country having a lot of elephants raised for the transportation of wood and others. Therefore, Mr.Ba?y knew all the elephants' habit. Many time, he had been accompanied by the Laotian hunters to trap elephants. Now joining Lady Trieu's force, he was glad to be assigned to the duty of trapping the elephants.

Following Mr. Ba?y order, the young men dug many deep holes near the surviving beds of corn. On the hole surfaces, they laid bamboo frames on which was spread a layer of green grass. At first sight, no one would know that there were deep trenches below.

One evening, the herd of elephants came out from the jungle again, the leader was a huge elephant with his long and curved tusks. He was followed by seven or eight other elephants, big and small. They kept moving and screaming, sending out clouds of dust. The elephants proceeded toward the surviving beds of corn.

All of a sudden, three loud thumping noise were heard. Three big elephants fell into the deep trenches. The remaining animals were scared, so they ran back to the jungle. They young men in the hunting group came running out to see the trapped elephants. The wild animals were thrashing their trunks and stamping their legs desperately for a way out.

Elder Ba?y said, "Leave them alone in the trenches until they are tired, hungry, and less cruel!" After six or seven days, the elephant being trapped looked sad because they were both hungry and weary. It was not until then that Mr. Ba?y ordered his fellows to throw down some sugar canes to them. Having something to eat, though little, the elephants became stronger. Then, Mr. Ba?y himself gave the elephants more sugar canes.

After being fed daily by Mr. Ba?y, the elephants became familiar with human. Whenever they saw Mr. Ba?y carrying the sugar canes to them, they nooded their heads as if they wanted to thanks him. Using a long broom, Mr. Ba?y stood on the edge of the trench to chase a way flies and mosquitoes for the elephants. Gruadually, he jumped down the hole and patted the animals in a friendly manner. They let him tie their legs with iron chains.

Knowing that the elephants had become tame, Mr. Ba?y ordered his men to dig a slope from the surface to the bottom of the trench. Then he led the trapped animals to follow the sloppy pathway up to the surface. From then on, Lady Trieu's hunting group had three more elephants as helpers. Triê.u Thi Trinh used to ride on the head of the biggest elephant to exercise the battle fight.

Rumors that Triê.u Thi Trinh went hunting and caught elephants soon spread far and wide. Heroes from everywhere crowded toward Tùng mountain to volunteer as soldiers to fight with the Ngô. Hearing of this news, Triê.u Quô'c Dat's wife named Chu Thi Lan was very anxious. She advised her husband not to frequent visit his sister's house anymore. She was afraid of responsible if the Ngô mandarins knew about the matter.

Failing to persuade her husband, Chu Thi Lan secretly contacted the subordinates of the prefect of Dông Ngô to reveal all the actions of her husband's sister Triê.u Thi Trinh. The prefect of Dông-Ngô and his subordinates planned to summon Triê.u Quô'c Dat to the barrack. Then, they would take this opportunity to break up Triê.u Thi Trinh's plan of uprising.

Reaching the barrack, Triê.u Quô'c Dat was escorted by the guards to see the prefect of Dông-Ngô. The latter got mad, pounded on the desk and menaced him, "I have known the plan of revolting of you and your sister. How dare you act against the Chinese Emperor. You deserve your death indeed! If you want to stay alive, let Triê.u Thi Trinh be my concubine and desperse right away the so-called hunting group. If you act against my order, I will bring my soldiers to kill all!"

Triê.u Quô'c Dat was annoyed. He went straight to Tùng mountain to see Triê.u Thi Trinh. He related in detail to her what had happened in the barrack. Triê.u Thi Trinh frowned and said obstinately, "I want to ride the strong wind, to tread on the rough wave, to hunt the whale in the Eastern Sea, to drive the enemy out of our nation. There is no reason why I should humble myself before that Dông-Ngô chief by being his concubine!"

Triê.u Quô'c Dat agreed with his sister that under these circumstances, they could not do otherwise. On one hand, he sent someone to comfort the Ngô leader that he was making arrangements in favor of him. On the other hand, Lady Triê.u and her brother urgently prepared to rebel. Everyone in the camp gathered to hear Triê.u Thi Trinh and Triê.u Quô'c Dat talk about the uprising to drive away the Dông-Ngô.

After the meeting, everyone raised his swords, lance, bow and arrows high to show his resolution to fight. Being energetic, everybody wanted to go straight into the barrack to kill all the nasty Ngô mandarins.
Triê.u Thi Trinh continued: "We greatly admire your patriotism. But let us go and take hold of the strategic positions first. Do not fight until you receive our order."

After Triê.u Thi Trinh's proclamation, everyone followed her order to scatter in all directions. Right then, Chu Thi Lan and some of her attendants turned up. Triê.u Thi Trinh warmly invited her sister in law to enter the house to chat. At first, she thought Chu Thi Lan came to help her. Actually, Chu Thi Lan took the order of the prefect of Dông Ngô to see her husband's sister with the aim to persuade her to surrender to the Ngô.

Chu Thi Lan showed Lady Triê.u a string of pearl beads and said: "Here's a small gift to you bestowed by the Ngô Leader and this is the very letter written to you by the mandarin himself." Surprised and angered at the attitude of her sister in law's being a servant of the pirates, Triê.u Thi Trinh pushed everything to the ground and shouted: "Get out of here! You are so shameful! I don't want to see you anymore!"

Walking out, Chu Thi Lan still turned to menace: "When the Chinese Emperor comes, you'll all die! I'll report the matter to the prefect!"
Being so angry, Triê.u Thi Trinh launched her sword that strike Chu Thi Lan's heart. Lan fell to the ground and out fall the letter written to her by the prefect of Ngô, expressing his thanks to Chu Thi Lan of reporting to him many of time about Triê.u Thi Trinh's gathering of troops.

It was not until then that Triê.u Thi Trinh realized that her sister in law had close relations with the enemies for a long time. Therefore, she did not regret at all for having killed her sister in law. Then, with her golden armor on, Triê.u Thi Trinh rode on the elephants' head and ordered her force to make for Cu*?u Cha^n citadel. Upon hearing this, the Chinese invaders at Cu?u Cha^n assembled their soldiers to protect the citadel.

When approaching the citadel, Triê.u Quô'c Dat rushed out and loudly accused the Chinese invaders for having oppressed and killed the Vietnamese people. Then Triê.u Quô'c Dat called the Ngô prefect to surrender to avoid the death penalty.
At that time, thousands of arrows were shot down from the citadel. Unfortunately, a few arrows hit Triê.u Quô'c Dat and he fell off and died right away.

Hearing of the bad news of her brother's death, Triê.u Thi Trinh was extremely revengeful. She ordered all soldiers to wear white pieces of cloth on their heads and to try their best to attack the citadel for revenge. They used shields and ladders to mount up Cu?u Cha^n citadel. One person fell down, the other rushed up, so the Ngô enemy could not defend themselves. The citadel collapsed, the perfect, his adjunct and subordinates were killed, a few fled back to China.

The popular force soldiers caught alive some Dông Ngô generals such as Lu*~ Thong, La Vien, Do^ng Ky., who failed to escaped on time.
General Nhu.y Kiê`u, Triê.u Thi Trinh's title in battle, then ordered to decapitate them to revenge our people who had sacrified themselves for the country. After that, she divided he troops to attack Giao Chi? and Nhâ.t Nam districts.

Lady Triêu's reputation spread over the four districts of Giao Chau. Many Dông-Ngô outposts were dispersed even though they had not been attacked by the popular forces. Her victory shook the whole Southern China region. The Dông-Ngô then sent troop to re-invade our land.

General Nhu.y Kiê`u established her barrack on the natural fortress, on the ninety nine mountain peaks at Hàm Rô`ng. Both sides fought many historic battles. General Quách So*n came all the way from Hoa Binh with Muong troops to unite with Lady Triê.u. Chinese general Lu.c Dâ.n cunningly ordered his men to scatter poisonous powder in the stream. Without knowing this, a majority of Lady Trieu's soldiers were poisoned to death after drinking the stream water.

Taking advantage of dark, Lu.c Dâ.n ordered some of his men to sneak into the back of the fortress in order to set fire to the barn storing provisions.
Seeing the flames rising high, Lady Trieu's troops rushed out to extinguish the fire, but they were ambused by Lu.c Dâ.n's army. Quách So*n died in the battlefield. Having lost their commander, the Muong troops were disbanded in the darkness.

Lady Triê.u withdrew her troops to Tùng mountain. Lu.c Dâ.n sent his army to besiege all directions. After many days of defense, due to the shortage of both provisions and drinking water, the popular forces became too sick to fight against the enemy. Knowing this is the end of her strategies, Lady Triê.u ordered all her fellows to take advantage of the dark weather to take leave of the army in order to reunite with their families.

The following morning, Lady Triê.u woke up early and stood on the summit of the mountain to observe the situation of Lu.c Dâ.n army. She did not want to be captured by the enemy. After having rendered thanks to Heaven and Earth, and the ancestors before the altar, she took out her sword to commit suicide. Having witnessed that scene, Mr. Ba?y jumped off the elephant's head to deep abyss down below to die with his chief. The three war elephants screamed out many times, then ran away into the jungle. It was the 24th of February, in the year 248 AD.

After the death of Lady Triê.u, our country fell into the yoke of Dông-Ngô again. Although the uprising of Lady Triê.u did not last long, her revolutionary spirit and patriotism have forever remained brilliantly in our history.
The people built an altar and tomb in her honor on the summit of Tùng mountain, and honored her with the title Lê. Ha?i Bà Vu*o*ng (Queen of Lê. Ha?i).