Emperor Ly Thai To

Oars dip into the water in a steady rhythm. A long line of boats drifts slowly down a river in the clear light of autumn, more than a thousand years ago. On the lead boat, an emperor stands quietly, looking toward a new land at the edge of sight. He is Lý Thái Tổ, the man who is about to lay the foundation of a capital that still stands today.

Before he was emperor, his real name was Lý Công Uẩn. His home was the village of Cổ Pháp, in what is now Đình Bảng. Today that is part of Bắc Ninh province, in the quiet countryside of the Kinh Bắc region. From a village like that, an ordinary man stepped out and did something great for the whole country.

In 1009, the court officials together raised him to the throne as emperor. He founded a new dynasty, the Lý dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1009 to 1225. He chose Thuận Thiên as the name of his reign. Thuận Thiên means following the will of heaven. The name already showed the heart of the new emperor. He wanted to do what suited the people and what was right, so that they could live in peace.

When he took the throne, the capital stood at Hoa Lư, a land of rocky mountains. Hoa Lư was hard to reach and easy to defend, but it was cramped. Emperor Lý Thái Tổ looked further ahead. He wanted a wider place and a flatter place, with a great river running through it. Boats could come and go there, people could trade and earn a living, and the generations to come would have room to rise.

He chose the citadel of Đại La. The land was wide. The river was big. The sky opened on every side. It lay at the center of the plain, held in the curve of a great river, with rich fields and open roads in every direction. The emperor believed it would stand firm for all the generations of his descendants.

In 1010, he made a major decision. He moved the capital from Hoa Lư to Đại La. A whole fleet of boats carried the court, the treasures, and the hopes of the kingdom. It left the land of rocky mountains to look for a new beginning on the plain.

That autumn, the royal fleet reached the citadel of Đại La. Legend says that just as the boat touched the bank, a bright cloud in the shape of a golden dragon appeared in the sky and soared high. The emperor took it as a good omen. He smiled, and gave the new capital a beautiful name: Thăng Long, which means a dragon rising into the sky.

The name Thăng Long carried a dream. A rising dragon is the image of a country climbing higher, and of a people moving toward good things. From that day, the land beside the river became the center of the whole country. It was a gathering place for generations of people, for countless homes and countless stories. Thăng Long is the city now called Hanoi.

Emperor Lý Thái Tổ reigned for 19 years. In 1028 he died, leaving a capital and a dynasty that would carry on through many generations. On the bank of the Red River in Hanoi, it is still easy to picture the fleet of long ago drifting past. In his home area of Đình Bảng, people still remember with gratitude the emperor born in their village.

A gentle emperor from the village of Cổ Pháp named this land the dragon rising. The boats of that autumn have gone far. The cloud in the shape of a dragon, in the old tale, has melted into the sky. But more than a thousand years on, that dragon is still flying, in every beat of life in the city.