But those titles were not given out easily. Quite often examiners, most of whom were doctors of the third class and therefore did not like to see others graduate at a higher rank, tried their best not to award them. They checked the papers again and again for any small mistake and resorted to various rules and regulations to disqualify candidates. Other factors intervened: nepotism, coteries among mandarins, personal dislikes. Many times, it had happened that scholars renowned for their literary talents were not given the highest honors because they were opposed by jealous and powerful mandarins. Nguyen Hoang’s papers were found to contain a bach tu mistake and, instead of the first class, he was downgraded to the second class. Bach tu means that he either miswrote a character or mixed up two characters which were pronounced in the same way but had different meanings. However, it was unlikely that a scholar good enough to obtain a doctorate would make such simple mistakes. Nguyen Hoang was probably a victim of a special interpretation of the bach tu rule. As a mark of respect for the reigning dynasty, the names of the king and those of his ancestors were not to be mentioned in public by anyone. Candidates at the civil service examinations had to constantly bear in mind a long list of huy, or royal names to be avoided. To write one such taboo word in their papers would mean failure and, in addition, punishment at the hands of the law for what was considered a crime of lèse-majesté. When such a word was to be used, it had to be avoided and a homophone substituted in its place. Vietnamese language, which until the last century was written with Chinese characters, was full of homophonic words. For instance, there were three characters written differently and having different meanings, but pronounced in the same way as thanh. One thanh, the one in Thanh Oai, the name of our prefecture, means the blue or green color. The second thanh was an adjective meaning pure and the third thanh was a noun meaning sound. Nguyen Hoang may have used a homophone to replace a royal name, which was not violating any official taboo, but examiners may have disapproved of his choice. In those days, examiners made their own rules. It could very well be that either Nguyen Hoang or his father Academician Uyen had enemies among mandarins of the panel. People may have been jealous of our family, which had already produced three doctors in the space of two generations. We cannot know for sure. Clearly, the mistake was slight, for Nguyen Hoang was still ranked at the head of the second class; in other words, he was made the fourth highest doctor in the country. Doctors of the second class still carried great prestige among the population. In the popular language, they were called Ong Hoang or the Golden Ones. But to have come so close to the top, only to fail to reach it! Fate had its own ways with people’s lives, some would say. Others would, recalling these lines in the concluding verses of the Story of Kieu, express the belief that the Lord in Heaven treated humanity with an even hand, for He:
Would not favour any particular person,
By giving him both talent and good luck in full measure.
Nguyen Hoang, from what we know of his doctorate experience, his having to serve two dynasties and his tragic death, certainly was not blessed with good luck. His career with the Mac had probably started before he obtained his doctorate. But taking from 1571, the year he obtained that diploma, to the fall of the dynasty in 1593, more than two decades had elapsed. As a doctor of the second class, he would have received the lower seventh grade and could be appointed to positions such as reviser at the Academy or head of a small prefecture. From there, a highly-ranked doctor like him could be expected to reach very important government positions twenty years later; yet, history books which I had consulted carried no mention of him. It is true that all history books are notoriously deficient about the Mac dynasty, being written by later historians to whom the Mac were “usurpers” and, therefore, not worthy of much attention. Nguyen Hoang’s time was the last part of the Mac period and this was the most cursorily treated, with practically no information given about the government, its policies and the mandarins who served it. The Mirror of Vietnam’s History did not even allude to the great diplomatic mission of 1580 to China. Like so many other high mandarins of the Mac, Nguyen Hoang may have been simply ignored by historians. But I wonder whether he had a very smooth and successful career. The downgrading at the doctorate session may have marked him as an unlucky man, one on whom shone an inauspicious star, as people would say. A mandarin with a reputation of being “unlucky” often missed out on good appointments because it was feared that his own misfortune would flow on to the people he administered. Moreover, public service in those times was not the stable and secure profession it has become today. Mandarins wielded great authority and power. They were called “father and mother of the common people,” but were themselves highly vulnerable to the autocratic judgment of their superiors and the dreaded control of government inspectors and censors. Mistakes were heavily penalized. Not only could one be deprived of promotion or sent to a faraway and insalubrious place; demotion and even dismissal were often meted out. Demotion, in particular, was a scourge which few mandarins could escape in their careers. One may even lose all one’s grades if given the radical penalty of cach tuot, or demotion right down to the bottom line. The soldier-poet Nguyen Cong Tru, who lived in the first half of the nineteenth century, was perhaps the most celebrated example of the ups and downs in public service. A scholar turned military commander he led many armies and won many battles, but also could not avoid being the victim of frequent demotions. He always came back. Towards the end of his career, he reached the office of minister for the Army only to be demoted, this time to a foot soldier. He climbed back again, but could only come up to the fifth grade when he retired at the age of seventy-one. Nguyen Hoang, the unlucky scholar, may very well have had a checkered career. His highest rank, as stated in the registers of high graduates, was that of second deputy minister under the restored Le dynasty. At the end of the Mac regime, he might or might not have reached that rank. Although that would put him among the very high officials at the court, one could expect to see him even further up, considering his diploma and length of service. As a comparison, among those who graduated in the same year as he was one Hoa Huu Mo, who only obtained the doctorate third class to Hoang’s second class. Yet, history books mentioned that when taken prisoner by the Trinh army in 1593, Mo was already a first deputy minister. Like his father Nguyen Uyen, Hoang was probably an independent mandarin who kept away from court factions and their maneuvers. Consequently, rapid promotions might not have been for him. Certainly, he was not close to the Mac family; otherwise, the Le king would not have accepted his submission and given him rank and title.
“He rallied and became a second deputy minister . . ..” This sentence in the Dai Viet Register of High Graduates led me to think, at first, that Nguyen Hoang was not our third ancestor. I had thought that our family had suffered at the hands of the Le following the defeat of the Mac. But if Hoang had rallied, then reached a high office under the Le dynasty, why were his descendants so traumatized that they could not even remember his real name? I was also puzzled that my grandfather, who found the links with our first ancestor Nguyen Tue in the Dai Viet Register of High Graduates, did not say anything about Nguyen Hoang. Could he have missed what the book contained about the latter? Or did he think that Nguyen Hoang, although hailing from Kim Bai, was not a member of our family?
However, these doubts were dispelled when I found in the Southern Sky Register of High Graduates that after rallying to the Le, Nguyen Hoang was killed by “rebel troops,” in other words followers of the Mac whom he had once served. What an unfortunate fate! The family trauma could now be understood. My grandfather never saw that second register and never knew, for instance, that our second ancestor went to China or that our first ancestor took the name of a village in our prefecture, Hung Giao, for his title. Had he known of Nguyen Hoang’s ill-fated life, would he recognize in it the tragedy of our third generation? As for me, the matter had become clear. The manner of Hoang’s death had provided the last piece of the puzzle.
In 1583,
just a year after their diplomatic success in China, the tide of the war began to turn against the Mac. Trinh Tung, the overlord in the south, seized the initiative. Every year, he sent his troops north to attack the Red River delta and capture food provisions. The threat moved nearer and nearer each year to the capital Thang Long. In terms of population and territory, the Mac still held a distinct advantage over the south. They were in possession of the delta, the country’s granary and its main source of wealth. But since the death of Mac Kinh Dien, the Mac army lacked a leader capable of measuring himself up to Trinh Tung. Mac Hau Hop, the king, had been in power since 1562. He was not a bad king and even historians of the Le could find little to criticize him for, but he was unable to arrest the slide downwards. More and more, his side was forced into the defensive. In 1587, it built a long and continuous defense line consisting of “earthen walls planted with bamboo,” to protect the western and southern flanks of the capital. Our village became one of the outposts on that line, which ran along the Hat River. In 1589, the Mac mustered their strength to launch a large attack against the south. They failed in what proved to be their last chance to win the war. Three years later, Trinh Tung started a big offensive aimed at the capital. Heading an army of 50,000, but clamoring that it was 120,000 strong, he moved north through the western mountains. Bypassing our home region to the west, the Trinh forces went further up north before turning east and descending on the delta. They clashed with the main body of the Mac forces in the province of Son Tay, about thirty kilometers to the north of Kim Bai. They won that decisive battle and crossed the Hat. It was then that our village fell into their hands for the first time. The Trinh reached the capital’s outskirts on the eve of the most important festival in our calendar, the Tet. The population fled in panic. As recorded in the History of Dai Viet: “That night, men and women, young and old, fought to get into boats to cross the Red River in order to escape. Over one thousand people drowned.”
Winter nights in the north were extremely cold and those who fell into the freezing water of the river had little chance to come out alive. Trinh Tung stopped for three days to let his troops celebrate the festival, then gave the order for the assault. On the sixth day of the new year, Thang Long was occupied. The Mac forces retreated towards Hai Duong, the home base of the dynasty, situated farther east in the delta.
There followed an unexpected twist. Having taken Thang Long and having his opponent on the run, Trinh Tung called off his campaign and brought his troops home to the south. Many historians considered his decision as surprising, but the fact was that, although they lost a crucial battle, the Mac were still in a strong position. They still possessed large forces, while Trinh Tung’s army had been extended far away from its bases. Probably, Trinh Tung himself was surprised by the magnitude of his victory. His original plan may have been to make just a deep foray in the north to weaken the enemy. Thus, the Mac came back to Thang Long. Again, they were masters of the capital and of the rest of the delta.
However the loss of Thang Long, even if only temporary, had dealt a crushing blow to the Mac morale. The capital was the traditional seat of power. For centuries, whoever owned Thang Long had been regarded as the ruler of the country. Mac Hau Hop returned there a broken man. Instead of seizing the opportunity provided by Trinh Tung’s withdrawal to rally his people, he neglected his duties, became more involved in women and alcohol and alienated his commanders and soldiers by treating them badly. To the eyes of many, the sign was clear: the king was going to his ruin, Fate had decided against the Mac. Mac Hau Hop hastened his end by plotting to kill Bui Van Khue, one of his best generals, in order to appropriate his wife. The general defected to the south. Trinh Tung saw his chance. Saying that “Van Khue has come over to our side, Heaven wants me to succeed,” he promptly launched his final offensive. The respite for the Mac had lasted for only eight months. The Trinh forces quickly took over our home region. Their main army camped on the beach of Tinh Than on the Hat River, in our prefecture of Thanh Oai. The last battle of the war was fought at the confluence of the Hat and the Red River, both on land and on the river. The victorious Trinh reoccupied Thang Long. The Mac king fled but was captured a short time later and executed. The Mac dynasty had ended.
History books recorded many instances of surrender by high officials, or of their capture, at the fall of the Mac. Often, their fate was told. For many, it was swift justice: “They were beheaded, all of them,” wrote the historian of a group. Others were accorded clemency, even given new mandarinal positions. Some stories were related in detail to show the victor’s magnanimity and the consideration he gave to a gallant warrior. When Nguyen Quyen, a duke of the Mac holding the title of Great Protector and commanding their southern army, was captured and brought before him, Trinh Tung untied his ropes and greeted him as a guest.
Nguyen Quyen was the scion of one of the foremost scholarly families in our prefecture Thanh Oai. His father and his maternal uncle both won the title of First Laureate. A minister of the Mac, his father rallied to the Le in 1550. As a young man, Quyen showed great aptitude in martial arts and the overlord Trinh Kiem, Trinh Tung’s father, was very fond of him. He helped prepare him for a career in the army. But after his father died, Quyen left the Le to go back to the Mac. He fought countless battles against the Trinh. Now Trinh Tung, recalling the affection that his family had for Quyen, indicated that he would not like to have to kill him but would welcome his submission. Quyen, however, was ready to accept his fate. His head down, he said: “A vanquished commander cannot speak out strongly. Heaven has forsaken the Mac, even heroes would find it difficult to show their talents.” Trinh Tung, the historian noted, praised these words. He sent Nguyen Quyen to end his days in captivity.
I looked carefully in the History of Dai Viet to find when and in what circumstances Nguyen Hoang gave himself up. After Thang Long fell for the second time to the Trinh, seventeen Mac mandarins led by Do Uong, the minister for Public Service, and Nhu Tong, the minister for the Rites, came to Trinh Tung’s command post to surrender. The dukes, ministers, deputy ministers, royal delegates and other officials who formed that group rallied early to the victors, in fact, even before the last Mac king was captured. Trinh Tung treated them kindly. He had for them words of consolation and sent a message to the Le king proposing that they be allowed to retain their ranks and titles. Both Do Uong and Nhu Tong were no strangers to our family. They took part in the same mission to China as our second ancestor Nguyen Uyen, although belonging to a younger generation. Nguyen Hoang must have known them well. He would have joined them, had he wanted to change camp at that time. But he was not in the group. The Southern Sky Register made clear that he only rallied to the Le, “after the Mac rule had ended.”
Following Mac Hau Hop’s death, a son of the legendary general Mac Kinh Dien took over the mantle of the fallen dynasty. Mac Kinh Chi proclaimed himself king and immediately rallied the people of Hai Duong around him. “Members of the Mac family, former mandarins and commanders of the Mac,” wrote the author of the History of Dai Viet, “called on each other to join Kinh Chi. He set up his headquarters and issued proclamations calling on the population to enlist. The prefectures responded and, in no time, his army swelled to be seventy thousand strong.” Mac Kinh Chi defeated the generals sent by Trinh Tung to fight him. His control soon extended over the eastern half of the Delta. But when Trinh Tung’s main army arrived, his newly-recruited troops proved to be no match for it. Kinh Chi’s reign lasted for no more than a few months. He and fifteen princes, dukes, marquesses and other members of the Mac family were captured and beheaded. More than fifty mandarins were made prisoners, from the top ministers and head of the Censorate, to academicians and officials of other ranks. The History of Dai Viet listed all their names. Nguyen Hoang’s was not there.
What happened then to Nguyen Hoang, since he neither surrendered nor was captured at the end of the Mac dynasty? Our chronicle says that he “had to move from place to place,” clearly to escape from falli
ng into the hands of the new regime. Not being a follower of a Mac prince, or a member of a faction, he was left on his own when the regime collapsed. He and his family must have fled from the capital. The first place that a Vietnamese would go to, in times of danger, was his village. But Kim Bai had already come under Trinh control, even before the capital did. Trinh troops were present in great strength in our region to secure their main road link between Thang Long and their home base in the south. They may be stationed in Kim Bai itself, for ours was a large village lying next to the highway. When the Le king moved his court to Thang Long a few months after the victory over the Mac, his party passed through Kim Bai and camped some kilometers farther north, at the seat of Thanh Oai prefecture. There, the overlord Trinh Tung greeted the king and escorted the royal party into the capital. Since Kim Bai was a village of scholars and many families had relatives working in the Mac administration, most people had something to fear from the wrath of the victors. Descendants of the second branch of our family that of ancestor Nguyen Huyen, would have left at that time too. Most villagers took refuge in the foothills of the western mountains, not too far away, there to wait for the situation to settle down. But Nguyen Hoang, as a mandarin of the Mac, would have to find a more distant and safer place of refuge. In the confused situation prevailing after the Mac defeat, it was not difficult to stay out of reach of the new rulers. Numerous Mac princes and army commanders held sway over many areas in the highlands and mountains, as well as in the delta. Thai Nguyen, for instance, where our second ancestor stayed as a royal delegate and where our family must still have had many ties, remained out of government control for years. Apparently, Nguyen Hoang did not rally to the Le before several years. The war between the north and the south had lasted for half a century. Attitudes were hardened by the long conflict, during which each side claimed sole legitimacy and treated the other as rebel. Ours was a family of conservative and rather rigid Confucian scholars, who had served the Mac dynasty for three generations. Time must elapse before Nguyen Hoang could bring himself to take such a difficult decision as to renounce his loyalty. There must also have been compelling reasons, or some extraordinary combination of circumstances, for he was already in his early sixties. At that age, a scholar had started thinking of the cottage and garden in his native village, where he would retire to await the end of his days. Ambitions for high offices did not drive him so much anymore, nor did the dreams of “making one’s name known to the rivers and mountains,” which a poet once said lay deep in the heart of every Vietnamese. For Nguyen Hoang, such dreams had already been shattered by the defeat of the Mac.
A Vietnamese Family Chronicle Page 32