The process of power transfer and authority building by the Khuc family in the 10th century

Abstract

The Khuc family is a large family in Hong Chau (currently reside in Cuc Bo village, Kien Quoc commune, Ninh Giang district, Hải Dương province). The person often attributed as the founder of Khuc family independence power seizure process is Khuc Thua Du, who was from a wealthy family and held the position of a lenient local leader loved by the local people. At the end of the Tang dynasty, when the head government was breaking down, local governments were in chaos like "a snake losing its head", a local leader of Hong Chau known as Khuc Thua Du, backed by the popular support of the people in the year 905, moved forces to take over the city of Tong Binh (or Hanoi in today time), self-proclaimed as Tiet do su, gained the country independence, removed the old government system and ended the one thousand years dominance rule by the Northern forces. Therefore, Khuc Thua Du was a well-known figure in many historical texts and was considered the first successor in the long process of independence rebellion of the people. Followed Khuc Thua Du death in the year 907, Khuc Hao took over his father's position of Tiet do su, and continued building the independent government with many important revisions first time seen in history. Khuc Hao enacted a variety of economic, political, and societal reforms and brought the country into a new path, not dependent on the old enslavement government with the exception of the title Tiet do su. He changed the heavy tax and labour policies from the Tang to new reforms such as: “equal land tax, slave labor abolishment, create household registration, full list of names addresses entrusted to Giap Truong". Simultaneously, he changed the land unit system by replacing the old system of Huong, District of the Tang, with a new unit of Lo, Phu, Chau, Xa and switched Huong into Giap, with a total of 314 giap of both old and new created. New local leaders to each area were also assigned by Khuc Hao. These revisional changes by the Khuc family government were a great deal for the time since they opened a new age of development for our country after a long period of dependency, and they were the core foundation for the following independent Vietnamese dynasties.