Ly Thuong Kiet

Ly Thuong Kiet

 

Born 1019 in Thang Lung; died 1105 in Thanh Hoa Province. Vietnamese general.

Ly Thuong Kiet led victorious campaigns against Champa in 1069 and Sung China in 1075–77, which resulted in the annexation by the Vietnamese state of large territories in the north and south. Governor of southern Dai Viet from 1082 to 1105, Ly Thuong Kiet suppressed the rebellion of the feudal separatist Ly Giac in 1103. In 1104 he led a new successful campaign against Champa.

Vietnamese feudal historiography considered Ly Thuong Kiet the ideal of a general, and he was venerated as the god of war (from 1138). The first stone stelae—including the earliest monuments of Vietnamese epigraphy (1100) that have been preserved—were devoted to his memory.