Dai Viet under Ly Cao Tong

Who rules

Name

Ly Cao Tong (Lý Cao Tông, born Ly Long Trat, also written Long Can; Chinese 李高宗)

Title

Emperor (de) of Dai Viet, called king of Annam (Annan guowang) by the Song

Since

1175 (English Wikipedia infobox: 14 August 1175; its succession table: 1176)

Born

1173 (25 May in the article text, 6 July in its infobox)

Family

Ly house of Co Phap (Thien Duc). Sixth son of Ly Anh Tong. Mother Do Thuy Chau (later Empress Dowager Do). Wife: Empress An Toan. Sons: Hao Sam (born 10 July 1194, the heir) and Tham.

Confidence

high for the person, medium for the exact dates

English, French and Chinese Wikipedia on Ly Cao Tong and Ly Hue Tong. The annal (Toan thu) itself was not opened.

What the realm holds

• Thăng Long (Hanoi): the Forbidden City inside the Imperial citadel, inside the outer Đại La rampart, on the right bank of the Red River; the royal tombs and ancestral village at Cổ Pháp (Thiên Đức)
• The Red River delta and its dykes (the Cổ Xá dyke of 1108 is the one dated work): the rice plains of Ứng Thiên, Quốc Oai, Khoái châu, Hồng châu and the Thái Bình and Nam Định coast (Hải Ấp, Tức Mạc)
• The Hải Đông coast: Vân Đồn, the licensed foreign trade port founded 1149, the Bạch Đằng mouth and Vĩnh An (Mong Cai)
• Thanh Hóa (the Ma plain) and Nghệ An with Hà Tĩnh (the Ca plain, Hoan châu and Diễn châu), the second and third rice countries of the kingdom
• The apex of the delta and the upper Red River (Bạch Hạc, Quy Hóa) through local chiefs who hold Ly titles
• Tribute and marriage ties with the Nung and Tay chiefs of Lạng châu, Quảng Nguyên, Vị Long and Thái Nguyên, and with the Tai and Muong lords of the north-west (drawn as their own records)
• Claims, drawn as a contested march: Bố Chính, Địa Lý (Lâm Bình) and Ma Linh (Minh Linh), ceded by Champa in 1069 and surveyed in 1075
• Rights: the salt, ivory and mountain-goods taxes, labour levies for dykes and palaces, the appointment of prefects, and the licence to trade at Vân Đồn

How it was acquired

The Ly took the throne with Lý Công Uẩn (Thái Tổ) in 1009 or 1010 and moved the capital to Thăng Long in 1010. Cao Tông inherited from Anh Tông in 1175 as a child of about two, after Anh Tông set aside the elder prince Long Xưởng. The regent Tô Hiến Thành (to his death in 1179) was followed by Đỗ An Di, chosen by the empress dowager (English Wikipedia).

Allies and rivals

Song: nominal overlord, calls him king of Annam (the campaign board and the brief date it from 1164). Lý embassies to the Song are listed in the Chinese Wikipedia in 1156, 1164, 1173, 1178, 1182 and 1190; we know of none after 1190. Champa: Suryavarmadeva holds the coast; the campaign board says the Ly court recognised him in 1199, which we could not check. Khmer: Jayavarman VII is at war with Champa, not with Dai Viet; no dated Ly-Khmer clash in the 1190s is known to me.

Dali: the Red River road at Lao Cai is the caravan door; no dated 1190s contact is known to me. Lao (Ai Lao, Bon Man): they use the Mu Gia and Keo Nua passes into Nghệ An.

The realm that morning

The court is at Thăng Long. Cao Tông is in his twenty-seventh year by Vietnamese count, the heir Sảm is five, and the empress dowager Chiêu Linh, widow of Anh Tông, is alive (the English Wikipedia's note on her death is under the likely course). What the English Wikipedia reports for the 1190s: a tour of the realm and shrine-building from March 1189; the Nghênh Thiềm palace built over nine years from 1189; riots at Cổ Hoằng in Thanh Hóa in 1192; a 'three teachings' examination in 1195; rebellions led by Câu Diễn and Đinh Khả in 1198, who claimed descent from the Đinh emperor; and nothing at all for 1199.

The campaign board's flood, famine and armed bands of 1198-1199, and its minister who unfrocks monks, are not confirmed by anything we could read. The real pressures are the cost of the palaces, the dykes and a court that sells office.

Wealth

Delta rice behind the dykes; salt; iron from Thái Nguyên; gold and silver from Quảng Nguyên; cinnamon, aloeswood, ivory and lacquer from the hills; the licensed trade at Vân Đồn; kilns at Kim Lan (excavation). Taxed goods per the English Wikipedia: land, salt, ivory and mountain products; the poll tax rides on the military registers.

Military

A royal guard in left and right wings and a standing army whose men alternate service and farming and feed themselves; local militias listed in the Yellow Registers (Hoàng sách), which also fix the poll tax (English Wikipedia on the Ly). A river fleet on the Red River and the Bạch Đằng. Defence of the north is by passes and lines (Chi Lăng, the Như Nguyệt line on the Cầu, where the Song were stopped in 1077). We give no numbers because none of our sources gives one for 1200.

Threats

• Flood, famine and the cost of the dykes (the annal's picture, written under the Trần)
• Palace building and the sale of offices feeding discontent; local strongmen in Hồng châu and Thanh Hóa
• A Khmer or Cham war spilling onto the Nghệ An coast
• Palace factions of the dowagers' kin and the favourites (Đỗ, Đàm, Phạm)
• The coastal Trần clan and the Doàn of Hồng châu, not yet a danger

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.

In 1200

1. about 18 January 1200 (Julian), 25 January Gregorian, by our computed new moonThe lunar new year: Canh Than, Thien Tu Gia Thuy 15 (Song Qingyuan 6, Jin Cheng'an 5).Depends on: Nothing: it is the calendar. Stopped by: Nothing.
2. during 1200 (month not given)Empress Dowager Chiêu Linh dies (English Wikipedia on Cao Tong).Depends on: She is alive on 1 January. Stopped by: Nothing stops it; it only changes who sits beside the young heir.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1201 or 1202The era changes from Thiên Tư Gia Thụy to Thiên Gia Bảo Hựu (1202 in the English Wikipedia; the MSA brief gives 1202 to 1205).Depends on: The court keeps its ritual calendar. Stopped by: A new omen or accession.
2. August 1203The Cham king Vidyanandana arrives off Cửa Lò with a fleet, is not received, kills the Nghệ An governor Phạm Gieng and vanishes (Vietnamese annal, English Wikipedia).Depends on: The Khmer-backed Cham attack on Vijaya succeeds. Stopped by: Suryavarmadeva holds Vijaya.
3. 1207 to 1208Đoàn Thượng and Đoàn Chủ rise in Hồng châu; a hill rising at Tản Viên; famines in 1208.Depends on: The tax and levy load stays as it is. Stopped by: A relief of the levies or a good harvest.
4. 1209Phạm Bỉnh Di is jailed and killed; Quách Bốc seizes the citadel and enthrones Lý Thầm; Cao Tông flees; the heir Sảm flees to the Trần at Hải Ấp and marries Trần Thị Dung; Trần Lý and Tô Trung Từ retake the capital late in the year.Depends on: The palace guard splits. Stopped by: A loyal guard or an earlier settlement with the provincial strongmen.
5. 28 October or 15 November 1210Cao Tông dies at Thánh Thọ palace; Sảm (Huệ Tông) succeeds; Đỗ Kính Tu is regent.Depends on: He lives to 1210. Stopped by: An earlier death would make Sảm king at five.
6. 1224 to 1226Trần Thủ Độ puts the girl Chiêu Hoàng on the throne and gives it to Trần Cảnh: the Trần replace the Ly.Depends on: The Trần hold the court after 1209. Stopped by: A strong Ly king or a rival warlord.

Places of note

• Thang Long: The capital: palace city, citadel and the Đại La rampart
• Co Phap (Dinh Bang): Ly ancestral village and royal tombs
• Van Don: Licensed foreign trade port, founded 1149
• Chi Lang pass: The defile on the Song road to the delta

Where the sources disagree

• Board 'Dai Viet' blurb says Cao Tong has ruled in his own name since the regent To Hien Thanh died in 1179. Wrong: Đỗ An Di took the regency (English Wikipedia; MSA brief trap 6).
• The campaign board entry says the Ly court recognised Vidyanandana as king of Champa in 1199. We could not check it (the Toan thu was not reachable); it is treated as unverified.
• The campaign board entry says Van Don is 'the only lawful door' for foreign merchants: not checked; the English Wikipedia says only that the island authority was formed in 1149 and the port hosted foreign ships.
• Board's flood, famine and armed bands of 1198-1199 and 'Dam Di Mong laicised the monks': unverified. English Wikipedia lists the 1198 rebellions of Cau Dien and Dinh Kha and no event for 1199.
• The core brief gives Thien Tu Gia Thuy as 'about 1197 to 1201': the English Wikipedia and the MSA brief give 1186 to 1201.
• The core brief says Qingyuan 6 begins around the end of January or early February 1200. Our computed new moon puts the first day at about 18 January 1200 Julian (25 January Gregorian). 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.

Evidence: The Ly state is documented by dated steles and by the later annal, but we could read only second-hand summaries: English, French and Chinese Wikipedia. The year-by-year entries for the 1190s (vi.wikisource, zh.wikisource, vi.wikipedia were refused) are therefore not seen at first hand.

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

On the map: The polygons are unions of modern districts chosen to follow the old circuits (lo) and prefectures; the Ly circuits were not these districts. The northern march, the Tai and Muong hills and the Bo Chinh march are separate records.

Primary sources for this realm

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
• Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 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