The Lý and Trần dynasties and the defeat of the Mongols
The Lý found Thăng Long (Hanoi) and a Buddhist-Confucian kingdom, Đại Việt; the Trần beat back three Mongol invasions.
- A History of the Vietnamese — K. W. Taylor, Cambridge University Press (2013)
- Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present — Ben Kiernan, Oxford University Press (2017)
In 1009 Lý Công Uẩn founded the Lý dynasty, and the next year he moved the capital to a site he named Thăng Long, “ascending dragon”, today’s Hanoi. The Lý kingdom, called Đại Việt from 1054, was strongly Buddhist, but also built a Confucian Temple of Literature (1070) and held its first examinations in 1075. Its general Lý Thường Kiệt fought off a Song Chinese invasion in 1075–77.
- A History of the Vietnamese — K. W. Taylor, Cambridge University Press (2013)
- Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present — Ben Kiernan, Oxford University Press (2017)
The Trần dynasty (1225–1400) faced the Mongols, who had conquered China. Mongol armies invaded in 1258, 1285 and 1287–88. Under the general Trần Hưng Đạo, the Vietnamese abandoned the capital, waged guerrilla war and in 1288 destroyed a Mongol fleet at the Bạch Đằng River using the same stake trap as Ngô Quyền. Đại Việt was one of the few states to defeat the Mongols repeatedly.
- A History of the Vietnamese — K. W. Taylor, Cambridge University Press (2013)
- Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present — Ben Kiernan, Oxford University Press (2017)
Why it matters today
Hanoi's thousand-year history begins here, and the Temple of Literature, founded in 1070, is where students still go to pray before exams. Trần Hưng Đạo, who defeated the Mongols, is a national hero and a deified spirit, worshipped at temples across the north.