The exact dates of their deaths are also unknown but both died around 43 AD after battling against the punitive expedition force led by Eastern Han general Ma Yuan.

[8] The Trưng sisters were daughters of a wealthy aristocratic family of Lạc ethnicity (The Lac were sorts of a confederation of multi-ethnic peoples).

Trưng Trắc's husband was Thi Sách (Shi Suo), was also the Lạc lord of Chu Diên (modern-day Khoái Châu District, Hưng Yên Province).

[11] According to the Book of the Later Han, Thi Sách was "of a fierce temperament", and Su Ding attempted to restrain him with legal procedures, literally to behead him without trial.

[10] It began at the Red River Delta, but soon spread to other Lạc and non-Han peoples from an area stretching from Hepu Commandery to Rinan.

[20] The Song dynasty poet and calligrapher Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) compared the Trưng sisters to Lü Jia, the prime minister of Nanyue who resisted Emperor Wu's army in 112 BCE: Lü Jia refused treasonous bribe;Trưng Trắc raised her shield to resist oppression[21] The primary historical source for the sisters is the 5th century Book of the Later Han compiled by historian Fan Ye, which covers the history of the Eastern Han dynasty from 6 to CE 189.

Chapter eighty-six of the Book of the Later Han, entitled Biographies of the Southern and the Southwestern Barbarians,[Note 1] has this short passage:[22][23] In the 16th year of the Jianwu era (40 AD), Jiaozhi (交阯; WD: Chiao-chih) woman Zheng Ce (徵側; SV: Trưng Trắc) and her younger sister Zheng Er (徵貳; SV: Trưng Nhị) rebelled and attacked the commandery['s strongholds].

(Emperor) Guangwu thus decreed that Changsha (長沙; WD: Ch'ang-sha), Hepu, and Jiaozhi, all must furnish chariots and boats, repair roads and bridges, dredge obstructed waterways, and store foods and provisions.

In the 18th year (42 CE), he dispatched Wave-Subduing General Ma Yuan (馬援; WD: Ma Yüan), Tower-ship General Duan Zhi (段志; WD: Tuan Chih) [and Household General Liu Long (劉隆; WD: Liu Long)],[Note 2] who led over 10,000 troops from Ch'ang-sha, Guiyang (桂陽; SV: Quế Dương); Lingling (零陵; SV: Linh Lăng); Cangwu (蒼梧; SV: Thương Ngô) on a punitive expedition.

He advanced and attacked the Jiuzhen's rebel Du Yang (都陽; SV: Đô Dương) and others, routing and subduing them.

Yuan chased Zheng Ce to the Forbidden Gorge (禁谿; SV: Cấm Khê); defeated many times, the rebels then scattered and fled.

Yuan immediately seized the momentum, established commanderies and prefectures, repaired the strongholds and ramparts, dredged the irrigation canals, and benefited the people.

Yuan was bestowed a military carriage; in court-meetings, [he] ranked among the Nine Ministers.An older, yet less-known account, from the now-lost Records of Jiao Province's Outer Territories (交州外域記) was quoted in the 6th-century word Commentary on the Water Classic (水經注) by Northern Wei geographer Li Daoyuan:[25] Later, the son of Zhouyuan's Luo general, named Shi (詩; SV: Thi), asked[Note 3] the daughter of Ming[Note 4] ling's Luo general, named Zheng Ce (徵側; SV: Trưng Trắc), to be his wife.

Alongsides Shi, she uprose and rebelled, attacking and devastating Jiao Province, as well as reducing the Luo generals into subordination.

Now [from] Western Shu [there were] also troops dispatched on punitive expedition against Ce and Shi and others and all those commanderies and prefectures were pacified; then magistrates were instituted there.In the 9th month of 19th year of the Jianwu era [43 CE], Ma Yuan reported to the Emperor that: 'I prudently added 12,000 crack-troops in Jiaozhi to the main army for a total of 20,000 men; as well as 2,000 vessels and vehicles, ever since entering Jiaozhi; now [our army] has become [even] stronger.'

In the 10th month, Yuan [went] southwards and entered Jiuzhen; when he reached Vô Thiết prefecture (無切縣), the rebels' leader surrendered.

Chinese sources also contradicted accounts in Vietnamese folk history that the Trưng sisters' retainers followed their examples and also committed suicide.

The third book of Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư (Complete Annals of Dai Viet),[27][28] published in editions between 1272 and 1697, has the following to say about the Trưng Sisters: In the year Kỉ Hợi [Ji Hai, 39 AD] (It was the 15th year of the era of Emperor Guang Wu of Han, Liu Xiu), the administrator of Jiaozhi, Su Ding, governed with greed and violence.

[Note 5] She was the daughter of a Lạc general from Mê Linh from Phong Châu, and she was the wife of Thi Sách from Chu Diên County.

([Wang Youxue's] Collected Overview of the Outlines and Details (of the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance) ([資治通鑒]綱目集覽) erroneously indicated that his family name was Lạc.)

In the spring, the second month, the queen was bitter because the governor, Su Ding, used the law to restrain her and also harbored a grudge against him for having killed her husband.

The Han court, witnessing that as Lady Trưng had declared herself queen, captured cities, caused much distress in the border commanderies, thus ordered Trường Sa, Hợp Phố, and Giao Châu ([now] ours) to prepare wagons and boats, repair the bridges and the roads, dredge the waterways, and store foods and provisions, and also commissioned Wave-Subduing General Ma Yuan and Fule marquis Liu Long as his assistant in order to invade.

In the spring, the first moth, Queen Trưng and her younger sister warred against Han army; they were abandoned and both were defeated and perished.

Regrettably, since after the Triệu dynasty until before Ngô Quyền, in the span of more than one thousand years, the men themselves merely hung their heads, wrung their hands, and became vassals and servants to Northerners (Chinese).

Her heroic mettle during her lifetime not only prompted her nation-building and proclamation of queenship but also, even after she perished, hamper disaster and hinder peril.

For she, a woman, possessed the gentleman's virtue, and her heroic and courageous spirit, between heaven and earth, does not deteriorate even though her body alrealdy perished.

Couldn't men have nourished that upright and honest spirit?The Trưng Sisters are highly revered in Vietnam, as they led the first resistance movement against the occupying Chinese after 247 years of domination.

In 1962 during the Vietnam War, Trần Lệ Xuân (aka Madame Nhu), sister-in-law of South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm had a costly statue erected in the capital of Saigon in memory of the Trưng sisters, with the facial features modeled on herself, and also established the Women's Solidarity Movement, a female paramilitary organization,[32] using the sisters as a rallying symbol.

According to tradition, in that year a devastating drought occurred in the Red River Delta, and the king ordered a Buddhist monk named Cam Thin to conduct a sacrifices rite and pray for rain at the Trung sisters temple.

[39] The fact that women were in charge was blamed as a reason for the defeat by historical Vietnamese texts in which the historians ridiculed and mocked men because they did nothing while "mere girls", whom they viewed with revulsion, took up the banner of revolt.