The valleys of the Kỳ Cùng and the Chi Lăng defile on the road from Thăng Long to the Song border at Pha Lũy.
Tai-speaking hill folk (the later Tày and Nùng) farm the valleys under chiefs of the Thân family and others who hold Ly titles; the Song hold the market across the line. Since the border settlement of 1082 to 1084 the line has barely moved (English Wikipedia). We found no raid or war here in the 1190s, so we draw it as a settled march of dual allegiance, not a raiding belt.
Who holds it
- Name
- not known for 1200
- Title
- Thân chiefs of Lạng châu
- Confidence
- low
Chinese Wikipedia; board
Overlord
The king gives titles and princesses; the Song give border titles and a market.
How things stand that morning
Quiet; not pinned.
Wealth
Road tolls, rice floors, forest goods.
Threats
- A Song or Ly squeeze on the road
Places of note
- Lang chau: Seat
- Pha Luy: Frontier post
- Chi Lang: Defile
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: The campaign board entry description and a polygon built from modern districts; nothing in our sources dates the unit to 1200.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: A union of modern districts standing for the country; the real edge was not a line (a raiding belt or a day's walk of hills).
Primary sources for Chiefs of the south-west
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- History of the Song, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345, from the Song veritable records, state histories and the Huiyao). The official history of the Southern Song, which ruled from Lin'an (Hangzhou) in 1200. Read online
- History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
- Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
- Miscellaneous Notes on Court and Country since the Jianyan Era, Li Xinchuan (李心傳) (first series 1202, second series 1216). A contemporary handbook of the Southern Song state, written in Sichuan by the historian Li Xinchuan and finished in its first part in 1202, two years after the start of 1200. Read online
- Notes in Answer to Questions about the Lands beyond the Passes, Zhou Qufei (周去非) (1178, after service in Guangxi). A Guangxi official's notes, written twenty years before 1200, on the south-western frontier of the Song and the countries beyond. Read online
Sources and studies
- Nùng people, English Wikipedia (read)
- Lý-Song War, English Wikipedia (read)
- 李朝 (越南), Chinese Wikipedia (read; it cites Zhou Qufei's Lingwai daida and the Toan thu)
- OMNIA board notes for the Vietnam and Champa area (a lead, not a source)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.