The royal ground round Thăng Long: the capital's own district, the Ly ancestral prefecture of Thiên Đức (Cổ Pháp) and the Vũ Ninh plain of Bắc Ninh with Luy Lâu.
It is the densest, best-dyked and best-watched country in the kingdom. The Co Loa ramparts, the royal tombs at Đình Bảng, the Phật Tích pagoda, the Dâu pagoda and the Kim Lan kilns all lie in it, and the Đuống carries the boats east. Villages are the unit: each has its headmen and pays rice and labour. 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
- Ly Cao Tong (Lý Cao Tông)
- Title
- The king at Thăng Long, through a prefect (tri phủ or tri châu) whose name is not known
- Since
- 1175
- Born
- 1173
- Confidence
- high for the king, low for the prefect
English Wikipedia (Ly Cao Tong); see Ly Cao Tong
Overlord
The king; no other lord is above this ground.
Allies and rivals
The ground has no lord of its own; the court, the dowagers and the favourites quarrel over its offices.
How things stand that morning
Quiet as far as we can show; the court's finances and the dykes are the pressure points. The campaign board says the annals give flood, famine and armed bands in the provinces for 1198 and 1199; we could not check that.
Wealth
Rice, mulberry and cloth, pottery, boats; the tax rice for the capital.
Military
The royal guard and the levy of the capital districts; no numbers.
Threats
- Flood: a breach at Thanh Trì or Cơ Xá
- The levy and building bills
Places of note
- Thang Long: Capital
- Luy Lau: Old seat
- Co Phap: Ly home village
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: The capital and the dykes are well attested; the circuit boundaries are our modern-district stand-in.
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
Sources and studies
- Lý dynasty, English Wikipedia (read)
- Lý Cao Tông, English Wikipedia (read for this run)
- Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long, English Wikipedia (read)
- 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.