Princess Green of Old Deli

Years ago, Princess Green and her brothers, Mambang Jazid and Mambang Khayali, ruled Kingdom of Aru. They lived at a city called Old Deli. The three of them were known with their mysticism. Mambang Jazid could disappear and transformed into dragon. Princess Green emitted green light from her body and smelt very fragrant. And Mambang Khayali could transform into cannon. People believed they were half gods.

The beauty and the mysticism of Princess Green were famous to neighbor kingdoms. King of Aceh was attracted to her. He wanted to marry the princess. So he sent his trusted man to Old Deli to propose the princess.

When the man arrived to the castle, he spoke his aim. He said that his King, King of Aceh, would like to ask the princess to be his wife and the queen of Aceh Kingdom. Unfortunately the princess has no feeling for the King. She refused his propose. Sultan’s man went home with sad news for his King.

Meanwhile the King waited his man with anxious feeling. When he saw his man entered the gate, he called him and asked him about the princess’s answer. The man told the King that the princess said no to his propose. When the King heard it, he became angry. He felt her rejection was an insult for him. The king was never got any rejection for anything he wanted. People always did what he wanted. No body ever denied him. Now this princess rejected him, his ego couldn’t accept it.

King could not let this go. He walked around his room, thinking what he would do. Aru Kingdom had a wide region so he thought if he invaded the Aru Kingdom, he would get the princess and expand his kingdom. It was like picking up two golden in one way.

Then the king started his plan. He gathered up his armies and attacked Aru Kingdom. The armies sailed from Deli River. The soldiers from Aru Kingdom already heard about the attacking and they were prepared for a war with Aceh Kingdom.

First attack from Aceh Kingdom could not paralyzed Aru Kingdom. The soldiers fought very bravely. The Aceh soldiers tried to attack again. But they still couldn’t win this war. The Aru fort was build based on natural and build in defense. It was located between two valleys and flowed by the river on the side. And the fort was surrounded by bamboo trees and that made difficult to get through. It was a genius strategic military system that time for facing the enemies. The enemies had to cross the river first before they planned to attack, and then climbed the hill to get in to the fort. And when they got into the fort, they were already exhausted and got defeated easily.

King of Aceh had lost many of his soldiers and still could defeated Aru soldiers. He and his commanders used another ways. They prepared cannons to breakdown the fort. The cannons were filled with gold coins, and then the coins were fired to the fort. The Aru soldiers were excited to see gold coins flew through the air. They left their guard posts and fought each other for the coins. The surveillances became weak. The soldiers of Aceh saw this as an opportunity to attack the fort. So they did. After a while, they could enter the fort but the soldiers inside still made a defense. They still fought for the fort.

See the situation in critical, Mambang Khayali transformed into cannon. He and his soldiers still fought bravely. But Mambang Khayali was exhausted since he had to fire canisters all the time. Suddenly he couldn’t hold out anymore, the cannon became very hot and exploded in half. The head of the cannon was thrown far away. Some people said it was thrown to Aceh, some said to Karo land. I don’t know. All I heard it was far away.

Mambang Jazid knew they were going to the wall. He transformed to be a dragon and ran away with Princess Green from drain through the river. But the enemies found out about the escaping. They chased them and got the princess but the dragon got away.

The princess became a prisoner of King Aceh. She was taken to Aceh Kingdom but before she left her kingdom, she asked a condition to the King. She wanted to be kept in a glasses chest and the King could not touch her before they were at Aceh. The King agreed.

When they arrived at Aceh land, princess green asked another condition to the King. If he wanted to marry her, he must hold a ceremony for her. His people must brought eggs and rice to the beach. Princess Green got out from her chest and led the ceremony. Suddenly the sky looked dark and the wind became faster. The lightning was stroking. The rain felt very heavy. Then, something was moving from the sea. First it was just a dot and further became something big and performed a silhouette of a dragon. The sound of it was very loud. It looked angry. People were running away taking cover themselves. Then the tale of the dragon crashed the ship. Princess Green took cover in to the chest. Then, the dragon took the chest and left to the sea. The King of Aceh was angry because her bride left him.

This story happened based on true story. Aru was a big Kingdom. The region started from Rokan River and Tamiang. Sadly this Kingdom had no cultural inheritances. You can see the ruins of Aru Kingdom at Deli, East Sumatra. The fighting between Kingdom of Aru and Aceh was happened in 15^th century. Before this, Aceh and Aru already had fights couple times and that made Aru had to move its Capital City. The last city was Old Deli. In here, they built fort for holding the enemy’s aggressions. The fort was surrounding by bamboo trees. The contour of the land, which was between two valleys, was chosen to build natural defense mechanism. That was why the Aceh soldier had some trouble to attack Aru. Then they decided to do a new trick, bribing the commanders of Aru so they would leave their guard posts. And sadly this trick was successful. The defenses became weak and the enemies got through to the fort. Meanwhile the queen and her people rescued to forests, the soldiers inside the fort still made resistances. They fired canisters from big cannon that they bought from a Portuguese fugitive. The continuously of firing made the cannon hot and exploded in half. The Aru was defeated.

Anggi Nini was trying to get the Kingdom back. She and her people performed guerrilla war. But this thing didn’t work well. So Anggi Sini escaped. She sailed to Malaka to get help. The ship was built with dragon carved.