Country, circuit or people · Dai Viet under Ly Cao Tong · as at first light, 1 January 1200

The Ca plain

The rice ground along the lower Ca and the La, narrower and poorer than the Ma plain and the last real farmland before the southern march (board).

The Nghệ An circuit was made in 1030 and given to the prince Lý Nhật Quang in 1041 (board). The Ca ferry at Bến Thủy is the lowest crossing, and the court keeps troops on it whenever Champa is restive. The state takes a tax on rice and salt (board), labour on the dykes and the palaces, and men in rotation for the levy. The campaign board says the annals give flood, famine and armed bands in the provinces for 1198 and 1199; we could not check that.

Who holds it

Name
not known for 1200
Title
A Ly prefect of Nghệ An
Confidence
low

English Wikipedia (Ly Cao Tong); board

Overlord

The king.

Wealth

Rice, fish, salt, forest goods from the hills.

Military

The prefect's levy; no numbers.

Threats

  • A Cham or Khmer fleet
  • Bands in the hills

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. August 1203Pham Gieng, governor of Nghe An, is killed by the Cham king arriving at Cua Lo (English Wikipedia).Depends on: A Khmer-backed uncle takes Vijaya and the king flees north. Stopped by: Suryavarmadeva holds Vijaya.

Places of note

  • Bach Duong: Board's circuit seat
  • Ben Thuy: Ca ferry
  • Cua Sot: Anchorage

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 Dai Viet (Ly)

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.

  • The Abridged History of Viet, Anonymous (attributed by some to Su Hy Nhan) (about 1377, probably as an abridgement of Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272). The oldest surviving Vietnamese history, a century older than the Complete Annals and in places fuller for the Ly dynasty, which fills its second and third books.
  • The Complete Annals of Dai Viet, Ngo Si Lien, drawing on Le Van Huu's Dai Viet su ky (1272) and Phan Phu Tien; continued by Pham Cong Tru and Le Hi (1479; printed 1697 in the standard Chinh Hoa edition). The main narrative source for Dai Viet in 1200, compiled in 1479 from Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272. Read online
  • History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
  • The Unofficial History of Nanzhao, Yang Shen; revised by Hu Wei (16th century, revised 1775, from Dali and Yunnan traditions and lost local histories). The kingdom of Dali has no surviving text of 1200: its own records were destroyed in the Mongol conquest and after, and the Song shi's Dali entry ends in 1175. 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
  • Corpus of the Inscriptions of Campa (EFEO and ISAW), Various (the Cham kings and their officers), edited by Arlo Griffiths, Amandine Lepoutre, William Southworth and Thanh Phan (inscriptions of the 4th to 15th centuries; the online corpus from 2012). The online edition of the Cham inscriptions, with photographs, texts and translations, keyed to the C. numbers. Read online
  • The Inscriptions of Cambodia, Various (the Khmer kings and their officers), edited by George Coedes (inscriptions of the 6th to 14th centuries; edited 1937 to 1966). The Khmer empire of 1200 is known almost entirely from the great foundation stelae of Jayavarman VII (reigning from 1181), which Coedes edited: the Ta Prohm stele of 1186 (K. Read online

2 more in the sources library for Mainland Southeast Asia.

Sources and studies

  1. Lý Cao Tông, English Wikipedia (read for this run)
  2. 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.