The sky over Hoa Lư that year poured down endless rain.
After the death of King Lê Đại Hành, the land, having barely cooled from the smoke of war, was once again filled with the clang of swords between brothers of the same blood.
Ten princes, ten flames of ambition, consumed each other to seize the throne left by their father. The rivers and mountains of the Early Lê were stained red with royal blood. In the chaos, Lê Long Việt, the third son, was enthroned, with the title Emperor Trung Tông.
He ascended the throne when the nation was exhausted, wishing only for a life of peace, free from further conflict.
"My father built the nation with blood, so I vow to preserve it with benevolence."
But before the dawn could break, on the third night after the enthronement ceremony, a shadow entered the palace, and blood stained the Dragon Robe.
Long Việt fell amidst the dim candlelight, his hand still clutching the hilt of his sword engraved with the two words Thái Bình (Great Peace). On the throne, only the sound of falling rain and the cold scent of incense remained.
The successor was Lê Long Đĩnh, the King's younger brother.
History calls him Ngọa Triều Hoàng Đế (The Emperor Who Governed While Reclining), the one who ruled from his sickbed. But few knew that within that frail body still resided a lucid soul a man who wanted to save a nation that had just escaped turmoil. In his early days on the throne, he commanded:
"Reduce taxes for three terms, open the granaries for the people in the flood-ravaged regions."
The one who once wielded a spear against his own kin now had to wield a plough to save the land. He was weak, but not ignorant. In every court discussion, he had to lie down to listen, yet his voice still resonated like a bronze bell. When he heard his officials discuss seeking peace with the Song dynasty, he laughed softly:
"To fight is to make the people suffer; to seek peace is humiliation. Thus, let us command their respect so that they dare not invade."
Late at night, the lamp before his desk flickered. He coughed up blood, but still asked his bodyguard:
"How are the people in the coastal regions now?"
The soldier knelt and whispered:
"Your Majesty, they are starving."
He murmured deeply:
"If the people starve, how can the King swallow his meal?"
Folklore recounts that he was a tyrant. Yet, the same folklore, a thousand years later, suggests:
"Perhaps, he was only a person overcome by the darkness."
When his illness worsened, he gasped for breath by the window looking out at the Hoàng Long River, the moonlight fracturing on the water like a mirror reflecting his soul. He whispered, as if sending a message to later generations:
"If future generations remember me, let them not remember me by rumors, but by the small service I rendered to the people."
In the year 1009, he died at the age of twenty-four. There were no drums, no grand funeral only gentle rain falling upon Long Lộc Palace.
The sky over Hoa Lư was silent, and in that silence, Lý Công Uẩn was placed on the throne. Later generations called Lê Long Đĩnh a cruel tyrant, but if history is a mirror, that mirror's face was blurred by the mist of the times.
For sometimes, the one criticized as ruthless is the one who saves the people, and the one celebrated steps out from that person's shadow.
Before the dazzling light of the Lý Dynasty shone, there was still a faint lamp illuminating the way.
That lamp bore the name Lê Long Đĩnh.