Luxury and Debauchery
During the reign of King Ly Cao Tong, the court was seriously weakened, and chaos arose everywhere due to the extravagance and debauchery of the court leaders. Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu recorded that "the king indulged in debauchery, the administration was unclear, bandits arose like bees, and famine lasted for years."
The book "Brief History of Vietnam" recorded that the king "was very greedy for wealth and profit, and made selling officials and prisons his main business". Whenever there was a lawsuit, the king often took advantage of it, so "the state's treasury was piled up like a mountain, while the people complained and resented. Bandits rose up like bees".
King Ly Cao Tong was fond of playing, traveling, and drinking. “The king often went out to the Hai Thanh palace. Every night, he ordered musicians to play the Ba Lo lute and sing songs in the style of Champa. The sound was mournful and sad, and the people around him were moved to tears. Deputy monk Nguyen Thuong told the king, “I see that the poem in the Book of Songs says: The music of a chaotic country sounds like longing and longing, because the people of that country are miserable. Now the king is playing around excessively, the government and education are wrong and scattered, and the common people are extremely sad and miserable. And today, hearing mournful music, isn’t that a sign of chaos and loss of the country?”
In 1203, Cao Tong also built a series of palaces and terraces in front of the capital. Even in the most chaotic years, when the roads were blocked, the king still liked to wander around, but could not go anywhere, so he ordered the construction of Ung Phong and Hai Thanh palaces, and every day brought his courtiers, palace maids, and troupes of actors rowing small boats as guards as if the king were going somewhere. Then he ordered that silk and various sea creatures be wrapped in beeswax and dropped into the pond, then ordered people to wade down and retrieve them, pretending to be objects from the dragon palace, and offer them as offerings...
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