Two Tran princesses.

The recent king, a king of Tran dynasty, had given birth to five princesses. Two of them were beautiful

princesses whose names Bao Nuong and Ngoc Nuong and both of them were old enough to marry. The king planned to find husbands for them but they refused. They like traveling. One day, they came and asked the king: “Dad, My king, I and my sister are people who love our country. So, we want to travel and enjoy scenery before we marry with others”.

The king couldn’t prevent them and he had to agree. The princesses disguised as two men and brought with them some servants. They set off and came to places in the country. They had landed on many places which were known as beautiful places.

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Meanwhile, the country was fighting with enemies, a country in the north of the country, Nguyen. The enemies were cruel. Wherever they had crossed, all remaining things were ruins though those were temples or houses. The recent king had many time ordered generals to fight against them but they couldn’t stopped their’s steeps. Later, the enemies captured a large area which was in a side of Thuong river. They camped in the place and did cruel things, killing, rape and destroying.

Now, the princesses were in the other side of the river. Because the area had beautiful scenery, they ordered servants to build a house to stay there few days. The house was placed by the shore. The sight of killing, rape and destroying, of course, went into the eyes. They were enraged. They discussed with the other and sent a letter to their father and asked him to let them risk their lives with them.

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The great general of enemies came from Bac Giang. He had two pioneering generals who were going to cross the river. The princesses discussed with people who had high position in the area they were staying to help them do their plan. The people agreed to help them.

They made-up beautifully then pretended as hawkers. They showed themselves to enemies on purpose. Of course, the pioneering generals loved them when they had seen them. They sent a letter to the village immediately. They requested that the village had to give them the girls, the princesses or all of them would diedas they had crossed the river. The princesses answered their letter.

“We are waiting for you. But we are offsping of king. So, we can not marry with others in any way. If you spend us love, you have to choose a good day and row boats coming and bringing us with you. All things have to follow customs. If any one of you has a little thought that you only want to rape us, we will drop ourselves in water immediately”.

The pioneering generals prepared presents, treasures and two boats. They asked some servants and maids to row cross the river and bring the things to the place where the princesses were to ask them to become their wifes. The princesses treated them, the servants and maids, very well. They had prepared a great feast to serve all of them. While they were enjoying the feast, some people had gotten princesses’ orders brought the boats to wild place and started drilling. After thet, they inserted stoppers in the holes then brought to the place where they were left and some people had gotten orders to ride to Ke Cho, informed to soldiers that they prepared to fight. Besides, pricesses gave the people a farewell letter to send to soldiers and ask them to bring the letter to their father and mother. After all things were in their ways, the princesses said to servants of the pioneering generals:

“Talk to your masters that we have chosen good day. At 6:00 pm that day, we will follow them. But, you have to say with your masters that we don’t want to have your wedding between thousands swords, we want had their wedding in the boats”.

When the date came, the princesses went on boats with the servants and maids. They rowed crossed the river. When the boats nearly came to the other side, they asked servants to stop. Of course, the pioneering generals couldn’t wait any more. They made their way to went in the boats which was in middle of river. As the pioneering generals see their beauty, they lusted. They asked others to go away. The princesses served them wine as much as they could. While they were enjoying wine and beauty, divers dived into the river and started drawing out the stoppers. Water went in boats violently. Short time later, boats and people staying in them had been sunk into water.

Soldiers had gone to the place in secret. They were people who lived by the shore helped to cross the river. That time, they attacked enemies in surprise. The enemies lost their leaders, became confused and were destroyed at one. Because of the win, the king and his family, mandarins had more time to move out of the capital and prepared for the next fighting.

Later, enemies were chased out of the country. People remembered to the great thing the princesses, Bao Nuong and Ngọc Nuong, had done. They built a temple at Da Moi to respect them.

THE END

"Translated by Hung Nguyen"

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