Hai Bà Trưng, the Two Ladies Trưng

Also Known As: the sisters Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị; Chinese Zheng Ce and Zheng Er; in English usually the Trưng Sisters
Region/Culture: Southeast Asia
Mythos: Vietnamese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Heroes and Mortals
Mythical Attributes: Two real noblewomen of the first century who, after their deaths in battle, became guardian spirits said to answer prayers for rain and protection in times of disaster.
Role in Mythos: They are the founding heroines of Vietnamese resistance to Chinese rule, the sisters who drove out a Han governor in 40 CE and ruled for three years before Ma Yuan’s army destroyed them.
Relation to Humans: Vietnamese communities have worshipped the sisters in temples for more than eight centuries, bringing offerings and asking for help when drought or danger comes. They are also national heroines, honoured each year with festivals, processions and images of two women riding war elephants.

On the sixth day of the third lunar month, in Hát Môn on the bank of the Hát River west of Hanoi, the village makes a hundred little balls of sticky rice for two women who have been dead for almost two thousand years. The cakes go into the temple warm and sweet. Afterwards forty-nine of them are set on a lotus and pushed out onto the water, to drift toward the sea. Nobody in the village eats that kind of cake before the ceremony day. The story they tell is simple: the two sisters came back to this place hungry once, and a small shop gave them rice cakes, and the village has been feeding them ever since.

The sisters are Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị, and Vietnamese people call them Hai Bà Trưng, the Two Ladies Trưng. They were real. That matters, because almost everything else about them has grown in the long space between their deaths and the temple smoke.

The oldest account was written by their enemies. The *Book of the Later Han*, compiled by the Chinese historian Fan Ye in the fifth century, records that in the sixteenth year of the Jianwu era, 40 CE, a woman of Jiaozhi named Zheng Ce rose in revolt with her younger sister Zheng Er. Ce was the daughter of a Lạc lord of Mê Linh, a hereditary chief of the people the Han had brought under their commanderies in the Red River valley, and she was married to a man of Chu Diên named Thi Sách. The Chinese text calls her bold and fierce. The governor, Su Ding, tried to bind her with Han law. She was angry, and so she rebelled. Sixty-five towns went over to her, and she made herself ruler.

Vietnamese historians told it with a sharper edge. The *Complete Annals of Đại Việt*, finished by Ngô Sĩ Liên in 1479, says Su Ding was greedy and cruel, and that he killed Thi Sách. Trưng Trắc’s anger in that telling is a widow’s anger as well as a noblewoman’s. She and her sister took the seat of the commandery, Su Ding ran, and the towns of the south rose with them. For three years Trưng Trắc ruled as queen, and the annals call her the Trưng Queen. The Chinese records say nothing about a murdered husband; one early Chinese source, quoted by the geographer Li Daoyuan, even has the queen and her husband fleeing together at the end. The two traditions disagree, and they disagree about exactly the point that turns a rebellion into a story.

The Han court was slow but thorough. In 42 CE the emperor Guangwu sent the general Ma Yuan south with more than ten thousand men, with boats, roads and supplies prepared through the southern commanderies. The Vietnamese annals follow the campaign closely. Ma Yuan pushed along the coast and through the hills to Lãng Bạc. The queen judged that her army was disordered and could not hold there, and pulled back to Cấm Khê. Her followers began to melt away. The historian Keith Taylor, in *The Birth of Vietnam* (1983), connects the collapse to the desertion of men who did not believe a woman could lead them to victory. In 43 CE the sisters fought their last battle, deserted and outnumbered, and died.

How they died depends on who is speaking. The *Book of the Later Han* says Ma Yuan beheaded them both, and his own biography in the same work says he sent their heads to the capital at Luoyang. The Vietnamese annals say only that the sisters perished. At Hát Môn the village keeps a third ending: that after the defeat the two women went into the cold brown current of the Hát River and took their own lives rather than be taken. The temple stands on the bank where the people say it happened.

What happened next is the part that makes them mythology as well as history. In 1158, during a drought, the Lý emperor Anh Tông had a monk pray for rain at the sisters’ shrine. The rain came the next day, a hard grey rain hammering on tiled roofs and dry fields. That night the emperor dreamed of the two sisters riding an iron horse. He honoured them with new temples, and one of those foundations is the temple of Hai Bà Trưng at Đồng Nhân in Hanoi, still standing and still full of incense. Ngô Sĩ Liên, writing three centuries later, noted that whenever disaster came the people prayed to the Trưng Queen, and she answered.

That is the shape of their power in the tradition. Alive, the sisters had what a Lạc noble family had: rank, a name that sixty-five towns would follow, and a grievance large enough to light a province. Dead, they became protectors of the land they had briefly ruled, bringers of rain and defenders against danger, called on by emperors and villagers alike. In art they ride war elephants, huge grey animals whose tread shakes the ground, and in 1957 and 1961 real elephants paraded through the streets of Saigon in their honour.

Their limits are the limits of the historical record. Their revolt lasted three years against an empire that could afford to wait. Their army broke when its men lost faith. No source tells how old they were, what they looked like, or what Trưng Nhị did in her own right beyond fighting at her sister’s side. Even their deaths split three ways. What survives without dispute is the year, the governor who fled, the general who came back, and the river where the village still sends rice cakes out on a lotus every spring.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who were Hai Bà Trưng?

Hai Bà Trưng, the Trưng Sisters, were Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị, two noblewomen of a Lạc lord’s family in Mê Linh in northern Vietnam. In 40 CE they led a revolt against the Han Chinese governor Su Ding, and Trưng Trắc ruled as queen for three years. They are remembered as Vietnam’s first national heroines and are worshipped in temples.

Why did the Trưng Sisters rebel?

The Chinese Book of the Later Han says Trưng Trắc rebelled because the governor Su Ding tried to restrain her with Han law. The Vietnamese Complete Annals of Đại Việt, from 1479, adds that Su Ding was greedy and cruel and that he killed her husband, Thi Sách. The Chinese records do not mention the husband’s killing.

How did the Trưng Sisters die?

The Trưng Sisters died in 43 CE after the Han general Ma Yuan defeated their army. The Book of the Later Han says Ma Yuan beheaded them and sent their heads to Luoyang. The Vietnamese annals say only that they perished, and the village of Hát Môn holds that they took their own lives in the Hát River.

Are the Trưng Sisters worshipped as gods?

Yes, the Trưng Sisters are venerated as protective spirits. In 1158 the emperor Lý Anh Tông had a monk pray for rain at their shrine during a drought, and after rain fell he built new temples for them, including the temple at Đồng Nhân in Hanoi. The fifteenth-century historian Ngô Sĩ Liên wrote that people prayed to the Trưng Queen in times of disaster.

Why are the Trưng Sisters shown riding elephants?

Temple art and modern celebrations show the Trưng Sisters riding war elephants into battle. No early chronicle describes their appearance, so the elephant image belongs to later tradition. Elephant parades were held in their honour in Saigon in 1957 and 1961.