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Didn't pay attention in history class? HowStuffWorks has you covered.
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Announcer
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from howstuffworks.com.
Katie Lambert
Hello, and welcome to the Podcast. I’m Katie Lambert.
Sarah Dowdy
And I’m Sarah Dowdy.
Katie Lambert
And if you follow us on Twitter, at mistinhistory, or you’re a Facebook fan of ours, I put up an opinion poll the other day asking one, if you would marry a dragon lord, and two, if you would bear him 100 eggs. There was a reason for that.
Sarah Dowdy
People are very opinionated about it for one thing, weren’t they?
Katie Lambert
There were a lot of egg opinions, yes. Pro and anti-egg. But, you know, if your countries origin, mythology, includes dragon lords and dynasties that start with the hatching of 100 sons from 100 eggs, you have to do something pretty impressive to stand out in history, right?
Sarah Dowdy
Well, like, strap on your golden armor, rebel against your Chinese overlords and free your country, well, for a while at least.
Katie Lambert
For a while. So, our subjects today are the Trung Sisters and they’re first century Vietnamese heroines and according to women in history, which was this great brand new multi-volume set of encyclopedia’s I found at my local library -
Sarah Dowdy
Yeah, check it out.
Katie Lambert
- they are considered models and inspiration for centuries of Vietnamese resistance against foreign occupation. So, pretty tall order there, right?
Sarah Dowdy
So, why were they rebelling? And to understand that, we have to go way back, although not quite all the way back to those 100 eggs, and instead we’ll start with the last member of the egg-founded line of kings. The Hong Dynasty, which supposedly prevailed for centuries until the warlord Tok Fang, overthrew the Han King in either 258 or 257 B.C.
Katie Lambert
And Tok Fang forms a new kingdom and calls it Olok and it’s not that long before this kingdom becomes part of a larger kingdom called Nam Viet which is ruled by a former Chinese general. And it’s kind of interesting here but this is where mythology, the line that descends from those eggs, meets recorded history. So, despite being Chinese and despite ruling from [inaudible] the general adopts the native peoples’ customs so this isn’t quite Chinese rule yet. We’re going to get to that later. This is still an independent kingdom.
Sarah Dowdy
Until 111 B.C. when after 100 years of trouble with the Chinese, Nam Viet is finally conquered by the Han emperor. The Vietnamese remain under Chinese control for 10 centuries always trying to assert themselves and regain their independence.