Ly Cao Tong

Who he is

Name

Ly Cao Tong (Lý Cao Tông, Ly Long Trat or Long Can)

Title

Emperor of Dai Viet

Since

1175

Born

1173

Family

Sixth son of Ly Anh Tong; mother Do Thuy Chau; wife Empress An Toan; sons Hao Sam (b. 10 July 1194) and Tham

Confidence

high

English, French and Chinese Wikipedia; the Toan thu not opened

What it holds

• Thăng Long: the Forbidden City, the Imperial citadel and the Đại La rampart, with the palaces of Cao Tông's building
• The royal ancestral ground at Cổ Pháp (Thiên Đức), with the Ly tombs and the monastery at Tiêu Sơn
• The tax rice landed at the wharf of Đông Bộ Đầu and the corvée of the dyke gangs
• The royal monasteries: Diên Hựu (the One Pillar), Báo Thiên, Long Đọi Sơn, Phật Tích
• The patronage of the Thiền abbots and the appointment of the national preceptor (quốc sư)
• The right to appoint prefects, to grant titles to hill chiefs and to marry princesses to them

How it was acquired

By inheritance in 1175 after Anh Tong set aside the elder prince Long Xuong; the regents ruled until he came of age (the date is not pinned).

Allies and rivals

Beside him: the two dowagers (Do and Chieu Linh), the empress An Toan, the officials Do An Di, Dam Di Mong, Pham Binh Di and Pham Du. Rivals: none is dated to 1200; the annal names the Doan of Hong chau, Quach Boc and the Tran only as actors of the later reign (see the likely course). The elder brother Long Xuong mutinied and looted the capital in 1181.

How things stand that morning

At Thăng Long, in the 12th month of Ky Mui by the Vietnamese count. Nothing in our sources dates an act of his to 1 January 1200. Calendar: we computed the new moons (Meeus) for UT+8. The 12th month of Qingyuan 5 (Ky Mui, the Vietnamese Thien Tu Gia Thuy 14) began about 19 December 1199 (Julian), so 1 January 1200 is about its 14th day, and the first month of Canh Than (Qingyuan 6, Thien Tu Gia Thuy 15) begins about 18 January 1200 (25 January Gregorian).

The Song and Vietnamese calendars of the day may differ from this by a day.

Wealth

The royal demesne, the tax rice, the tribute of the hill chiefs, gifts from foreign ships at Van Don.

Military

The royal guard and the capital's rotating levy; the king has not led an army in the field in anything we could read.

Threats

• His own building bills and the unpaid corvée
• The favourites and the dowagers' kin
• Provincial strongmen in Hong chau and Thanh Hoa

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. 1209He flees the capital when Quach Boc storms it; Quach Boc enthrones his son Tham; he is restored late in 1209 by the Tran and To Trung Tu.Depends on: The palace guard turns. Stopped by: A settlement with Pham Binh Di and Pham Du.
2. 28 October or 15 November 1210He dies at Thanh Tho palace (the English Wikipedia text says 28 October, its infobox 15 November) aged 37 or 38.Depends on: He lives. Stopped by: An earlier death.

Places of note

• Thang Long palaces: Palace city of the Ly
• Co Phap: Ancestral village and tombs

Where the sources disagree

• English Wikipedia gives his birth as 25 May 1173 in the text and 6 July in the infobox, his accession as 14 August 1175 or 1176, and his death as 28 October or 15 November 1210. No sure day can be given.
• The campaign board entry and core: 'ruling in his own name since 1179' is wrong; the regency passed to Do An Di.

Evidence: English, French and Chinese Wikipedia summaries; the annal not opened.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: The polygon is the capital's plains, not the palace precinct; the palaces are points inside it.

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.