Thang Long

Who holds it

Name

Ly Cao Tong (Lý Cao Tông)

Title

Emperor of Dai Viet in his capital; the officer who runs the city for him is not named

Since

1175 as king; capital since 1010

Born

1173

Family

See Ly Cao Tong

Confidence

high that the king is here, low for any other officer

English Wikipedia (Imperial Citadel of Thang Long; Ly Cao Tong); the Toan thu not opened

Lord in 1200

Ly Cao Tông in person. The regent Đỗ An Di (from 1179) is not placed in 1200.

What the town holds

• The Forbidden City and Imperial City with the palaces of the Ly kings
• The outer capital's wards, craft villages, markets and river landings
• The tax rice landed at the wharf of Đông Bộ Đầu and the capital's dyke gangs
• The royal shrines inside the walls: Diên Hựu, Báo Thiên, Khai Quốc, Bạch Mã
• The Temple of Literature and the school for the sons of officials
• The water gate of the Tô Lịch at Hà Khẩu

How it was acquired

Founded as the capital by Ly Thai To in 1010 on the ground of the Tang fort of Đại La (built by Cao Biền in 866).

Allies and rivals

The court is split among the two dowagers, the empress An Toàn and her kin, and the officials and favourites the annal names later (see Pham Binh Di, Pham Du, Quach Boc and others). The provinces owe it rice and men but obey as they please.

How things stand that morning

The king is at court on the morning of 1 January, the 14th day of the last month of the year by the Vietnamese count (see the calendar note). The campaign board says the entries for 1198 and 1199 show flood, famine and armed bands in the provinces and the monk-laicising of Đàm Dĩ Mông; we could not check either. 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

Tax rice and cloth from the delta, tribute from the hill chiefs, the royal workshops and the dues on boats at the landings.

Military

The royal guard and the capital's levy; men serve in rotation and go home to farm (the Ly system as the campaign board describes it). No numbers.

Threats

• Flood: the river runs above the fields on both banks at Thanh Trì
• The court's building bills and the unpaid labour behind them
• Palace faction

Charter

None. The capital is the king's seat; it has no charter, commune or town council. Its wards (phường) answer to the court's officers.

Council

The court itself: the king, the dowagers, the empress's kin and the senior officials. Thiền abbots and the national preceptor sit near the king. No city council.

Communities

Buddhist monks of the Thiền sects at the royal monasteries; Confucian students at the Quốc Tử Giám; Chinese traders and craftsmen (not documented for this year); descendants of the Cham captives settled since the campaigns of 1044 and 1069 (from memory, not checked); envoys from the hill chiefs and the Song.

Fairs and markets

The spring festival at Diên Hựu where the king washes the Buddha (board); rain rites at the Dâu pagoda and the Tản Viên mountain when the river or the drought threatens. No dated fair.

Militia

The royal guard (cấm binh) and the levy of the capital districts; no numbers in any source we could read.

Walls and castle

Three enclosures. The outer rampart is the Tang Đại La wall, an earth bank kept in repair by the Ly, and it works as a flood bank and customs line as much as a fortification (board). Inside it the Imperial City and the Forbidden City stand on the excavated palace ground. The Tô Lịch and the Kim Ngưu meet the Red at the site (board).

Trade and crafts

Rice, cloth and forest goods landed at Đông Bộ Đầu; pottery from the Kim Lan kilns downstream; building stone from An Hoạch; iron from Thái Nguyên; foreign trade is meant to go through Vân Đồn so that ships do not come up the river (board). Whether the court casts its own coin in the 1190s we could not find; Chinese cash was in wide use.

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. 1209Quách Bốc, an officer of the palace guard, storms the capital after Phạm Bỉnh Di is killed; the king flees up the river and the heir Sảm down it to the Trần; the Trần retake the city by force.Depends on: The guard turns against the court. Stopped by: A settlement between the king and the favourites.
2. Late January 1258The Tran drive the Mongols from the wharf of Đông Bộ Đầu (the campaign board's date).Depends on: The Tran hold the throne. Stopped by: A different dynasty.

Places of note

• Hoang Dieu palace ground: Excavated Ly palace ground (18 Hoàng Diệu)
• Dong Bo Dau: Wharf on the Red River
• Ha Khau water gate: Where the Tô Lịch leaves the Red
• Bach Ma temple: City god's temple
• Bao Thien tower: Twelve-storey tower of 1057
• Dien Huu: One Pillar pagoda, 1049
• Van Mieu: Temple of Confucius, 1070
• Khai Quoc: Oldest monastery of the delta, on the river bank

Where the sources disagree

• Board: the Dai La wall is thrown up by Cao Bien in 866: agreed (a Tang governor, not a Ly work). Board: 'Ly Cao Tong has spent his reign building palaces and the money is gone': this is the Tran-era annalists' judgement, not an account of the treasury in 1200.
• Board: Dam Di Mong has just had monks laicised in large numbers (1199): not confirmed in any text we could read.

Evidence: The foundation and the excavation are in English Wikipedia; the 1200 daily life is inferred from the campaign board and from the general Ly pattern.

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

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.