Hoang De Citadel

Five names for one stretch of hilly land. The land lies in the old province of Bình Định, now part of Gia Lai, and each name holds its own chapter of history. That is what sets Hoàng Đế Citadel apart from every other site in central Vietnam.

This is the land the people of Champa called Vijaya. Vietnamese chronicles wrote it as Chà Bàn, or Đồ Bàn. Champa was an ancient kingdom on the central and southern coast of what is now Vietnam. At the end of the 10th century, its royal house moved the capital south from Đồng Dương, and the kings chose these hills for their new seat. Mountains and rivers ring the site, giving it a natural line of defense. Vijaya remained a Cham capital for about five centuries, from the 10th century until 1471.

Then, near the end of the 18th century, a man from the land of Tây Sơn raised another dynasty on the old walls of Đồ Bàn. The Tây Sơn were three brothers who led an uprising from 1771 and for a time ruled Vietnam. In 1778, Nguyễn Nhạc took the throne as emperor under the reign name Thái Đức. He named his capital Thành Hoàng Đế, the Emperor's Citadel. He did not build it from nothing. Instead he repaired and raised the old Cham walls and set new layers of Tây Sơn architecture on top. So even in those days, Hoàng Đế Citadel was a layered place that belonged wholly to no single era.

When Nguyễn Ánh took the citadel in 1799, he renamed it Bình Định citadel. Then, in 1815, the new court tore down most of the old palaces and carried the laterite away to build a new citadel. This was the Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam's last royal dynasty, which reigned from 1802 to 1945. On the old palace grounds, the new dynasty built a memorial tomb complex for Võ Tánh and Ngô Tùng Châu. The space of one dynasty became a monument to a different chapter.

What remains today is the sum of all those upheavals.

Hoàng Đế Citadel was laid out as three rings of walls, one inside another. The outermost ring is Thành Ngoại, the Outer Citadel, about 7,400 meters around. The middle ring is Thành Nội, the Inner Citadel, about 1,600 meters around. At the heart lies Tử Cấm Thành, the Forbidden City, about 600 meters around. It is the most private ring of all. Inside the Forbidden City once stood the inner palace and the living and working quarters of the Tây Sơn court. Many stretches of wall still keep their laterite facing over packed earth, and they rise from 3 to 6 meters high.

Within the site stands a pair of stone elephants. They are among the most important objects on the whole site. They date from the second half of the 12th century. They were recognized as national treasures in the 11th round of designations. Though they sit in a Tây Sơn capital, these elephants are Cham sculpture, not a Tây Sơn emblem. They stand inside Hoàng Đế Citadel because the Cham city lies underneath. The Tây Sơn took over that space along with everything already on it.

Archaeology has brought one special feature to light, a half-moon lake. In test excavations of the Forbidden City from 2004 to 2005, archaeologists found traces of a crescent-shaped pond. In 2007, the digging went on and uncovered the foundations of the Nam Giao Altar. It lies more than 1 kilometer west of the center of the citadel, on a mound called Chùa Mound. At the Nam Giao Altar, the Tây Sơn court made offerings to Heaven and Earth and reported to the ancestors. Only a dynasty that truly saw itself as the Son of Heaven performed this rite. The altar shows that Hoàng Đế Citadel was a true capital, not only a military base.

The Octagonal Hall and the tomb of Võ Tánh are where the layers of history meet in the most tangled way. Beside the tomb complex built by the Nguyễn lie traces of the foundation of the Octagonal Hall. It is thought to be where the Tây Sơn court held audience. The tomb complex honors Võ Tánh and Ngô Tùng Châu. These two men served Nguyễn Ánh. They held this place to the death in the war between the Tây Sơn and the Nguyễn. Here two memories, from two sides of one war, share a single space.

The protected area takes in eight component sites across more than 81 hectares. Its boundary is marked by 230 posts. The first site is Bãi Tập Trận, the old drill ground. Then come two ponds, Bàu Bể and Bàu Vệ. The list goes on with the Nam Giao Altar and the Inner Citadel. It ends with the towers of Cánh Tiên and Mẫm, and the line of the old outer wall.

The most important thing at Hoàng Đế Citadel is not to look for a complete picture. Most of what stands here today is ruins, foundations and fragments of wall left behind after many centuries. But for that very reason, every block of laterite, every bank of wall and every open foundation carries more layers than any perfect building could. Champa was here. The Tây Sơn were here. The Nguyễn were here. And this ground still holds a great deal that has not yet been dug up or read.

This is a place that carried five names in turn, served as the capital of two royal houses, and still keeps countless layers of earth that have never been turned over. Somewhere beneath those laterite walls, Vijaya still lies quietly, waiting.