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Edict on the Transfer of the Capital (, vi, Thiên đô chiếu or Chiếu dời đô) is the edict written by the asking of emperor
Lý Thái Tổ Lý Thái Tổ ( vi-hantu, , 8 March 974 – 31 March 1028), Vietnamese name, personal name Lý Công Uẩn, temple name Thái Tổ, was a Vietnamese people, Vietnamese emperor, the founder of the Lý dynasty of Vietnam and the 6th ruler of ...
and was issued in the fall of 1010 to transfer the capital of Đại Cồ Việt from
Hoa Lư Hoa Lư was the capital of Vietnam from 968 to 1009. It lies in Trường Yên Thượng village, Hoa Lư District, Ninh Bình Province. The area is one of ricefields broken by limestone mountains, and is approximately 90 km south of Hano ...
to
Đại La Đại La (), means ''the Citadel of the Great Dike'', or La Thành (羅城, means ''the Citadel of the Dike'') was an ancient fortified city in present-day Hanoi during the third Chinese domination of the 7th and 8th centuries, and again in the 11t ...
.


History

In 968, Vietnam was unified by emperor Đinh Bộ Lĩnh, ended the
Anarchy of the 12 Warlords The Anarchy of the 12 Warlords ( vi, Loạn 12 sứ quân, Chữ Nôm: 亂𨑮𠄩使君; Sino-Vietnamese: ''Thập nhị sứ quân chi loạn'', Chữ Hán: 十二使君之亂), also the Period of the 12 Warlords, was a period of chaos and civi ...
period. He placed the imperial capital in the mountainous
Hoa Lư Hoa Lư was the capital of Vietnam from 968 to 1009. It lies in Trường Yên Thượng village, Hoa Lư District, Ninh Bình Province. The area is one of ricefields broken by limestone mountains, and is approximately 90 km south of Hano ...
, located in modern-day Ninh Bình province of Vietnam, and Hoa Lư stayed being the capital for about 42 years and developed into a major cultural centre of Vietnam. In 1005, ruling emperor
Lê Hoàn Lê Hoàn (10 August 941 – 18 March 1005), posthumously title Lê Đại Hành, was a Vietnamese emperor and the third ruler of Dai Viet kingdom, ruling from 981 to 1005. He first served as the generalissimo commanding a ten-thousand man arm ...
of the
Early Lê dynasty The Early Lê dynasty or the Former Lê dynasty ( vi, Nhà Tiền Lê; Hán Nôm: ; ) was a dynasty of Vietnam that existed from 980 to 1009. It followed the Đinh dynasty and was succeeded by the Lý dynasty. It comprised the reigns of thr ...
died, resulting in a succession dispute between the princes, Lê Long Đĩnh, Lê Long Tích, Lê Long Kính and crown prince Lê Long Việt, preventing a government to take control over the entire country for eight months. Eventually, Lê Long Đĩnh won control of the throne, became the new emperor. As a result of the emperor's poor health, according to some sources, most power was actually controlled by one of the members of the Lý family
Lý Công Uẩn LY or ly may refer to: Government and politics * Libya (ISO 3166-1 country code LY) * Lý dynasty, a Vietnamese dynasty * Labour Youth of Ireland * Legislative Yuan, the unicameral legislature of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Science and tech ...
. Lê Long Đĩnh's reign only lasted for four years and he died in 1009. After Lê Long Đĩnh died, the court agreed to enthrone the high-rank mandarin and aristocrat Lý Công Uẩn as the new emperor under pressure from the public and from the Buddhist monks, thus ending the
Early Lê dynasty The Early Lê dynasty or the Former Lê dynasty ( vi, Nhà Tiền Lê; Hán Nôm: ; ) was a dynasty of Vietnam that existed from 980 to 1009. It followed the Đinh dynasty and was succeeded by the Lý dynasty. It comprised the reigns of thr ...
. Realising the difficulty of having the capital in a mountainous region, Lý Thái Tổ (Lý Công Uẩn) and the royal court decided to relocate from
Hoa Lư Hoa Lư was the capital of Vietnam from 968 to 1009. It lies in Trường Yên Thượng village, Hoa Lư District, Ninh Bình Province. The area is one of ricefields broken by limestone mountains, and is approximately 90 km south of Hano ...
to the site of Đại La (modern-day
Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...
) in the next year, 1010. Đại La was known as the city that the Tang general Gao Pian had built in the 860s after the ravages of the Nanzhao War. In 1010, Lý Công Uẩn published the edict explaining why he move his capital to Dai La. Lý Công Uẩn chose the site because it had been an earlier capital in the rich
Red River Delta The Red River Delta or Hong River Delta ( vi, Châu thổ sông Hồng) is the flat low-lying plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries merging with the Thái Bình River in northern Vietnam. ''Hồng'' (紅) is a Sino-Vietnamese wor ...
. He saw Đại La as a place "between Heaven and Earth where the coiling dragon and the crouching tiger lie, and his capital would last 10,000 years". When Lý Công Uẩn's boat docked at the new capital, a dragon, symbol of sovereign authority, reportedly soared above his head; he accordingly renamed the place Thăng Long, the "ascending dragon".


Documents

The Edict on the Transfer of the Capital is of great meaning in many respects. The work has been researched in terms of history, politics, literature, geography, philosophy and so on. The edict was first compiled into the book " the Complete Annals of Đại Việt" (Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư) by historian
Ngô Sĩ Liên Ngô Sĩ Liên (吳士連) was a Vietnamese historian of the Lê dynasty. He was the principal compiler of the ''Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư'', a comprehensive chronicle of the history of Vietnam and the oldest official historical record of ...
in the 15th century.


Classical Chinese original

昔商家至盤庚五遷。周室迨成王三徙。豈三代之數君徇于己私。妄自遷徙。以其圖大宅中。爲億万世子孫之計。上謹天命。下因民志。苟有便輒改。故國祚延長。風俗富阜。而丁黎二家。乃徇己私。忽天命。罔蹈商周之迹。常安厥邑于茲。致世代弗長。算數短促。百姓耗損。万物失宜。朕甚痛之。不得不徙。 况高王故都大羅城。宅天地區域之中。得龍蟠虎踞之勢。正南北東西之位。便江山向背之宜。其地廣而坦平。厥土高而爽塏。民居蔑昏墊之困。万物極繁阜之丰。遍覽越邦。斯爲勝地。誠四方輻輳之要会。爲万世帝王之上都。 朕欲因此地利以定厥居。卿等如何。


Sino-Vietnamese transliteration

''Tích Thương gia chí Bàn Canh ngũ thiên, Châu thất đãi Thành vương tam tỉ. Khởi Tam Đại chi sổ quân tuẫn vu kỷ tư, vọng tự thiên tỉ. Dĩ kỳ đồ đại trạch trung, vi ức vạn thế tử tôn chi kế; thượng cẩn thiên mệnh, hạ nhân dân chí, cẩu hữu tiện triếp cải. Cố quốc tộ diên trường, phong tục phú phụ. Nhi Đinh Lê nhị gia, nãi tuẫn kỷ tư, hốt thiên mệnh, võng đạo Thương Châu chi tích, thường an quyết ấp vu tư, trí thế đại phất trường, toán số đoản xúc, bách tính hao tổn, vạn vật thất nghi. Trẫm thậm thống chi, bất đắc bất tỉ.'' ''Huống Cao vương cố đô Đại La thành, trạch thiên địa khu vực chi trung; đắc long bàn hổ cứ chi thế. Chính Nam Bắc Đông Tây chi vị; tiện giang sơn hướng bối chi nghi. Kỳ địa quảng nhi thản bình, quyết thổ cao nhi sảng khải. Dân cư miệt hôn điếm chi khốn; vạn vật cực phồn phụ chi phong. Biến lãm Việt bang, tư vi thắng địa. Thành tứ phương bức thấu chi yếu hội; vi vạn thế đế vương chi thượng đô.'' ''Trẫm dục nhân thử địa lợi dĩ định quyết cư, khanh đẳng như hà?''


Vietnamese translation

''Xưa nhà Thương đến đời Bàn Canh năm lần dời đô, nhà Chu đến đời Thành vương ba lần dời đô, há phải các vua thời Tam Đại ; ấy theo ý riêng tự tiện dời đô. Làm như thế cốt để mưu nghiệp lớn, chọn ở chỗ giữa, làm kế cho con cháu muôn vạn đời, trên kính mệnh trời, dưới theo ý dân, nếu có chỗ tiện thì dời đổi, cho nên vận nước lâu dài, phong tục giàu thịnh. Thế mà hai nhà Đinh, nhà Lê lại theo ý riêng, coi thường mệnh trời, không noi theo việc cũ Thương Châu, cứ chịu yên đóng đô nơi đây, đến nỗi thế đại không dài, vận số ngắn ngủi, trăm họ tổn hao, muôn vật không hợp. Trẫm thậm đau lòng, không thể không dời.''
In the old times, under
Pan Geng Pán Gēng (), personal name Zi Xun, was a Shang dynasty King of China. He is best known for having moved the capital of the Shang dynasty to its final location at Yīn. Records In the ''Records of the Grand Historian'' he was listed by Sima Q ...
of the
Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and ...
, the capital had been transferred for five times; under
King Cheng of Zhou King Cheng of Zhou (), personal name Ji Song (姬誦), was the second king of the Chinese Zhou dynasty. The dates of his reign are 1042–1021 BCE or 1042/35–1006 BCE. His parents were King Wu of Zhou and Queen Yi Jiang (邑姜). King Cheng w ...
, the capital had been transferred for three times. It was not for personal benefits that the kings moved the capital. They did so in order to pursue great causes, choosing the central place, making it favourable for future generations to thrive, that was in respect to the
Mandate of Heaven The Mandate of Heaven () is a Chinese political philosophy that was used in ancient and imperial China to legitimize the rule of the King or Emperor of China. According to this doctrine, heaven (天, ''Tian'') – which embodies the natural ...
and in accordance with the commons, moving to a place to ensure the eternal existence of the nation and the richness of customs. But now the Đinh and the
Le is a romanization of several rare East Asian surnames and a common Vietnamese surname. It is a fairly common surname in the United States, ranked 975th during the 1990 census and 368th during the 2000 census. In 2000, it was the eighth-most-co ...
disregarded the heavenly mandate and did not follow the examples of the Shang and Zhou, just fixing the capital here which causes the shortness of the nation, the people's depletion and the discord of the universe. We are very painful and now thinking of transferring the capital.
''Huống hồ thành
Đại La Đại La (), means ''the Citadel of the Great Dike'', or La Thành (羅城, means ''the Citadel of the Dike'') was an ancient fortified city in present-day Hanoi during the third Chinese domination of the 7th and 8th centuries, and again in the 11t ...
là đô cũ của Cao vương, ở giữa khu vực trời đất, được thế rồng chầu hổ phục, chính giữa Nam Bắc Đông Tây, tiện nghi núi sông sau trước. Vùng này mặt đất rộng mà bằng phẳng, thế đất cao mà sáng, dân ở không khổ thấp trũng tối tăm, muôn vật hết sức tươi tốt phồn thịnh. Xem khắp xứ
Việt The Vietnamese people ( vi, người Việt, lit=Viet people) or Kinh people ( vi, người Kinh) are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day Northern Vietnam and Southern China (Jing Islands, Dongxing, Guangxi). The native lang ...
đó là nơi thắng địa, thực là chỗ tụ hội quan yếu của bốn phương, đúng là nơi thượng đô kinh sư mãi muôn đời.''
Moreover,
Đại La Đại La (), means ''the Citadel of the Great Dike'', or La Thành (羅城, means ''the Citadel of the Dike'') was an ancient fortified city in present-day Hanoi during the third Chinese domination of the 7th and 8th centuries, and again in the 11t ...
citadel, the former capital of king Gao, is in the very heart of the universe. The position evoketh that of soaring dragon and stalking tiger, in the centre of the four directions, convenient for the development of the nation. This area is large and flat, high and bright, the population are not suffering from floods and darkness, everything is in full prosperity. After investigating all lands of Việt, this place is actually the gathering venue of people from across the nation, the most appropriate place for eternal capital positioning.
''Trẫm muốn nhân địa lợi ấy mà định nơi ở, các khanh thấy sao ?''Translation of the Vietnamese Institute of Social Sciences, printed in ''
A Complete History of the Great Viet A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...
'', Social Sciences Publishing House, Hanoi, 1993.
We want to take the most advantage from placing the capital here. What think ye, the court mandarins ?


See also

*
Lý dynasty The Lý dynasty ( vi, Nhà Lý, , chữ Nôm: 茹李, chữ Hán: 李朝, Hán Việt: ''Lý triều'') was a Vietnamese dynasty that existed from 1009 to 1225. It was established by Lý Công Uẩn when he overthrew the Early Lê dynasty an ...
*
Lý Công Uẩn LY or ly may refer to: Government and politics * Libya (ISO 3166-1 country code LY) * Lý dynasty, a Vietnamese dynasty * Labour Youth of Ireland * Legislative Yuan, the unicameral legislature of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Science and tech ...
*
Hoa Lư Hoa Lư was the capital of Vietnam from 968 to 1009. It lies in Trường Yên Thượng village, Hoa Lư District, Ninh Bình Province. The area is one of ricefields broken by limestone mountains, and is approximately 90 km south of Hano ...
*
Thăng Long Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...


References


Capital Transferring Edict in ceramic relief
{{DEFAULTSORT:Edict on the Transfer of the Capital Lý dynasty texts Chinese-language literature of Vietnam 11th-century documents