>>45915587Sometimes the victim's flesh was cut and sliced to draw blood to smear on the banner before beheading. The heads would be displayed hanging under or next to the blood stained banner.
The Trưng sisters and the thirty six Vietnamese women generals ruled an independent Vietnam for three years from 40-43 AD before the Chinese returned with an even larger army drawn of soldiers all across China, mobilizing supplies from all over China led by General Ma Yuan which outnumbered the Vietnamese army. According to the Vietnamese account, the Chinese had been humiliated with the scenes of Vietnamese women defeating, killing and beheading Chinese men and were determined to avenge the blow to restore their reputation, manhood and force those Vietnamese women into their harems.
The Trưng sisters at first defeated the numerically superior and better supplied Chinese army under Ma Yuan in his first attempt to reinvade Vietnam in 43 AD but Ma Yuan won the second battle when he tried again. This time the Chinese army was much too large and won the battles in their reconquest and after the defeat, the Trưng sisters committed suicide by drowning themselves in a river so they wouldn't be forced into harems. Some of the other 36 Vietnamese female generals like Phùng Thị Chính and Lê Chân escaped and hacked their way through Chinese soldiers with their swords and continued resisting killing more Chinese men for months and up to a year after the Trưng sisters deaths until they were cornered and also drowned themselves to avoid being forced into concubinage. Phùng Thị Chính gave birth to a baby (from her Vietnamese husband) and fought on the battlefield with the baby in one hand or strapped to her back and her sword in the other, hacking Chinese soldiers to death as she broke out.