Emperor Ly Thai Tong

Early one morning, with dew still on the young rice, the whole field was packed with people, and every face was turned toward one muddy plot. Then a man in fine clothes, solemn in bearing, stepped down into the field, rolled up his trousers, and laid his hand on the handle of the plow. The grown-ups whispered to one another, surprised and moved at once. Behind a field bank, a boy from a village by the river watched with his eyes wide open. He had never seen anything like it in his life. The man in the field was the emperor.

The man wading through the mud was Emperor Lý Thái Tông, whose given name was Lý Phật Mã. He was the second emperor of the Lý dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1009 to 1225. He was born in the year 1000. He held the throne for a long stretch, from 1028 to 1054.

An emperor was the most exalted person in the land, and he might have stayed inside his palace. Instead he went down into the mud and held a plow like a real farmer. He was the first emperor of the Lý dynasty to bring back the ceremony called tịch điền. In it, the emperor plows a field himself, to set an example and encourage his people in their work on the land.

He did not do it just once for show. He went in person to the delta to watch the harvest and to plow, again and again, in the years 1032, 1038, and 1042. Each time, the villagers saw the emperor wade through the mud beside them.

Beside the field, the boy heard an old man say, in a voice as warm as the new sun, that if the emperor himself would go down to the field, then they could rest easy and tend their rice. The boy did not understand it all, but he saw everyone around him nodding. When the ruler of the whole country bends down to cherish a grain of rice, the people who grow it know that their work is precious. The crops will flourish, and every home will have enough to eat.

His care for his people did not stop at the furrow. In years of poor harvest or hunger, the emperor would reduce taxes, or excuse them altogether, for two to three years. In the hardest years, that eased the burden on people's shoulders, so they could get back on their feet and look after their children.

The same care led to another great work, this one not in the fields but at the doors of the officials. Before this emperor, judging cases among the people was often tangled. A gentle farmer in a village like the boy's could be caught in it. Sometimes officials held to the law so rigidly that even an honest person was wronged. The emperor pitied his people, so he had the rules rewritten to be clear, easy to understand, and in keeping with common sense.

In 1042, he issued a code of law called the Hình thư, in three volumes. It was the first written code of law in the country's history. From then on, its provisions were set out clearly, and people could tell what to do and what to avoid. The old chronicles record that when the book was finished and handed down, the people found it convenient.

The boy at the edge of the field that morning could not yet grasp such a great book. But when he grew up, he would find his family less afraid of the magistrate's door, because the law of the land was now clear and shielded honest people.

A code of law may sound dry. Yet its root was compassion. The emperor did not want anyone to be judged unjustly, or to live in fear because they did not understand the law. He wanted everything done openly, so that gentle people could live in peace.

There were times when the country was not at peace, and the emperor had to work to keep it safe. But that is not what later generations remember most about Lý Thái Tông. They remember an emperor who rolled up his trousers and waded into a field. They remember an emperor who had laws drawn up to protect his people, and one who eased the taxes in years of hunger.

That misty morning comes back once more. A muddy plot. An emperor stepping down into it, laying his hand on the plow, and turning up furrows of earth that smelled of fresh mud. And a boy at the edge of the field, standing still and watching him. That furrow was cut almost a thousand years ago. Even now it warms the heart, as if the scent of that turned earth still lingered over the fields of the Vietnamese countryside.