17. An Army of Badass Women
The execution of Trung Trac’s husband led his widow to rally Vietnamese nobles in an uprising against the Chinese. With the help of her sister Trung Nhi, Trung Trac launched a rebellion in the Red River Delta, near modern Hanoi. From there, the revolt quickly spread up and down the long Vietnamese coast. After generations of living under foreign domination, the Vietnamese were ready to rebel, and the uprising became wildly popular.
Unique among armed rebellions, the Trung sisters’ armies had huge contingents of women fighting in the front lines. With their heavily-female armies, the badass siblings seized numerous Chinese forts and citadels, chasing out or defeating their garrisons. Within a few months, Chinese authority in Vietnam was broken, the Chinese had been expelled from the country, and Trung Trac was proclaimed queen.