Duong Trung Quoc
Throughout its 4,000-year history of national construction and defense with numerous setbacks, Vietnam has chosen different locations for its capital to serve political, economic and military purposes.
When the Hung Kings set up the first Vietnamese state called “Van Lang”, they took as capital Phong Chau, a highland area lying in a northern border province at the confluence of rivers that flowed into the Hong (Red) River basin.
Later, with the emergence of “Au Lac” after the merger of Au Viet and Lac Viet, King An Duong moved the capital to Co Loa (now in the suburban Hanoi district of Dong Anh), a delta area on the left bank of the Red River.
Subsequently, Vietnam’s capital city no longer existed, as northern feudalists who conquered and ruled the country for more than a thousand years, rated Vietnam as only a district of feudal China. Kao Bien, a Chinese ruler, chose Long Do as the place for construction of Dai La citadel as the headquarters of various northern feudal dynasties. Also a geomancer, Kao Bien believed that Long Do (meaning the dragon’s navel), the navel of the Vietnamese nation, was an important and correct place to exercise evil spirits with a spell assuring the long-lasting domination of the Chinese feudalists.
However, their ambitious dream was unrealized once the Trung Sisters took Me Linh (in the former Vinh Phuc province), an area also lying on the left bank of Red river, as the capital of a newly independent Vietnam, after their successful uprising to oust the foreign invaders.
Me Linh was, nevertheless, not the last name of Vietnam’s capital as Ngo Vuong Quyen, who defeated the Nam Han invaders in 938 on Bach Dang River and regained independence and sovereignty for Vietnam, then called “Dai Viet” (Great Viet), chose Co Loa for the seat of the Dai Viet state, restoring the prosperous “tien Bac thuoc” (pre-northern domination) era of King An Duong.
Vietnam’s newly regained independence and sovereignty was challenged by the northern feudalists’ repeated invasions, which also prompted various Vietnamese uprisings and resistance wars. After their victories over invading troops, particularly over the Tung army on the Bach Dang River, Dinh Tien Hoang and Le Dai Hanh decided to move the capital city further south, to a properly located area, Hoa Lu (in Ninh Binh province, some 100 km south of Hanoi) became the seat of Dinh and early-Le dynasties.
Having conceived of the nation’s growth, King Ly Thai To determined in 1010 to move the capital not back to Co Loa but to the area of the Dai La citadel, the former headquarters of the northern feudal rulers. In his royal proclamation to move the capital, he confirmed: “Lying in wide open air on the earth under the heaven, with the right direction and the position of a sitting tiger and a curling up dragon, looking to a river and leaning against a mountain, Dai La is worthy to be selected as the capital forever… Throughout Vietnam, it is found to be a scenic place and an urban center of the first grade and truly a business hub for people from all over the world to gather together.”
His decision was later evaluated by historian Ngo Thi Si in Dai Viet Su Ky (The History of Great Viet): “After coming to the throne, Ly Thai To was not in a hurry to do other things but first to think of a place to locate the capital. This was truly a resolute, clever and heroic decision which ordinary kings would not make.”
Even more important in King Ly Thai To’s selection of Dai La as the nation’s capital was the message he wished to convey when changing the name of Dai La to Thang Long (Soaring Dragon). With the posture of a soaring dragon instead of a curling-up dragon, he wanted to reiterate the Vietnamese people’s sense of liberation and advance for all time the the freedom and prosperity of the sovereign Dai Viet (Great Viet) nation. This was the pride of the Ly dynasty and also the eternal aspiration of the nation.
It is in this place, with Hoan Kiem (Restored Sword) Lake in the center, that the legend holds that, as King Ly Thai To leisurely sailed in a royal boat on the lake before going into battle against the Ming invaders, a tortoise emerged from the water, presenting him with a sword. After defeating the foreign invaders, the King again sailed out on the lake, returning the sword to the holy tortoise as a symbol of the peace-loving nature of the Vietnamese people, who always wished to live in peace and harmony with others and only take up arms when their country was invaded.
It is also in Thang Long, the heart of Dai Viet, where “Binh Ngo Dai Cao” (The Report on the Defeat of the Ming) was proclaimed in the early 15th century, conveying to foreigners the idea of “Nam Quoc Son Ha Nam De Cu” (literally, the southern nation has its own king).
In Thang Long, Ly Thai To retained the citadel built by foreign rulers and started building Co Xa dyke, Dien Huu (one-pillar) pagoda, Van Mieu (the Temple of Literature), Quoc Tu Giam (the National College) and many other public works, but not high citadels, deep moats or magnificent royal palaces. Whenever foreign invaders came, the royal courts abandoned the city and moved to the countryside, launching prolonged resistance wars to regain the national independence and sovereignty and liberate the capital.
Regrettably, the Nguyen dynasty, beefed up by French colonialists who conquered Vietnam in the 18th century, decided to move the capital to Hue in 1795, yielding Thang Long, part of then Hanoi province, as ceded territory, together with Hai Phong and Da Nang, to the French colonialists under a royal proclamation issued by King Dong Khanh.
From then on, the former capital, with its various craft guilds and villages in service of the royal courts and its inhabitants, was turned into an urban center with infrastructure, French-style residential quarters, churches and other architectural works, and the introduction of a new mode of production. All these put a new face on the city, and such colonial traces can still be seen in French architecture, especially in the Old Quarter.
After the victorious August 1945 Revolution, which toppled both the Vietnamese monarchy after its thousand year-long existence and the colonial regime, Hanoi was again chosen as the nation’s capital, with President Ho Chi Minh reading the Declaration of Independence at Ba Dinh Square, giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
The French colonialists returned to reconquer the country after World War Two. After fierce battles against the French invaders which lasted for 60 days in late 1946 and early 1947, President Ho Chi Minh and the revolutionary government moved to the northern border region for a nine-year resistance war. Only when Hanoi was liberated on October 10, 1954, with the return of President Ho Chi Minh and the government of the new Vietnam, could the Vietnamese have the conditions to rebuild the capital from a consumer city during the colonial period into a political, economic and cultural center for the entire nation.
However, under the circumstances in which the country remained temporarily divided under the Geneva Agreement between the North, under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the South, under the puppet administration established and beefed up by the French colonialists who were later replaced by US imperialists, northern Vietnam, including Hanoi, became a rear guard for the struggle to reunify the country. Millions of Hanoi citizens went South, fighting side by side with southern compatriots against foreign invaders.
In face of their heavy defeats on the southern battle front, the US imperialists launched air and naval wars of destruction against northern Vietnam in an attempt to stop the flow of human and material resources from the North to the South in support of the southern people’s struggle for national reunification.
Hanoi was again tested and tempered in the flame of war and Hanoians’ patriotism was clearly manifest in the anti-US aircraft fight which culminated in the “aerial Dien Bien Phu” battle within 12 days and nights in December 1972 when American B52s aircraft carpet-bombed the city in a vain hope to subdue the heroic Vietnamese nation.
A thousand years have elapsed since King Ly Thai To issued the historic royal proclamation to move the capital from Hoa Lu to Thang Long. Hanoi, the heart of the whole country, has strongly developed with great achievements in all aspects. Thang Long-Hanoi’s millennium comes at a time when the entire nation in general and Hanoi in particular, which, by this time, has been expanded three times under National Assembly resolution, have embarked upon a period of modernization, industrialization and international integration.-