Co Loa Citadel

With a view to protecting the new Imperial City of Au Lac, king An Duong Vuong instructed the construction of a big and unique earthen citadel.

The edict was given by the king and the inhabitants of Co Loa had to move away to give the land to the king for the building of a citadel. Thousands of skilful workers were sent to Co Loa from all parts of the country. Tens of thousand people in turn had to provide their services. The Co Loa construction site was busy all day and night. The citadel got higher each day and was surrounded by wide and deep trenches. But when each spring came, the citadel was eroded and damaged by flooding. After numerous failures, big rocks were used to build the basement of the citadel where it was deep and the water current was strong. Earthen walls were supported by baked earthen ramparts in some places which helped keep firm the citadel. Old history writes: "The citadel is thousands of truong (approx. 4m each) wide in the form of a spiral." Legends keep telling that the Au Lac people built the citadel for 18 years on end. But the more they built, the more the citadel collapsed. Thanks to the help of the Golden Tortoise genie, the king was successful in building the citadel finally.

The remains of Co Loa citadel consists of three rings with total length of more than 16 kilometres. The innermost is a rectangle. The middle and the outer rings follow swamps and lakes and link with the existing hills and slopes, bearing the curves of natural terrain. At the mercy of weather, the citadel still retains its height from 8 to 12 metres in some places. However, it is flattened in many other places.

In accordance with archaeological studies, Co Loa citadel had an average height of five metres with the width of the surface from 6-12 metres and the width of the basement from 20-30 metres. The citadel was stiff outside and slanting inside. On the surface of each ring, high earthen structures were built up at regular distance to serve as watchtowers. The innermost ring alone had 18 such watchtowers. Outside each ring was surrounded by deep trenches. The trenches connected one with another and made way to the Hoang river and Ca swamp (where hundreds of boats could gather). The roads inside the citadel were interwoven. Army barricades were built outside the middle ring and between the innermost and the middle rings was the place for dignitaries. Inside the innermost ring was for the king and the royal family. The Forbidden Palace was built at the highest place in the citadel. the left was the Royal Hall (where Co Loa communal house is located at present).

With millions of cubic metres of earth and rock and a unique construction style, Co Loa citadel constitutes a major creative project of the Lac Viet people.

Besides the strong Co Loa citadel, Au Lac also had a big army consisting tens of thousands of infantry and marines. The troops were equipped with bronze weapons such as axes, spears, broadswords, daggers, etc. Particularly, there was a type of crossbow which could shoot many arrowheads at the same time. Besides bamboo arrows, three-pointed bronze arrowheads were also produced by the Au Lac people.

Do you know at first AnDuong Vuong couldn't build Co Loa . And only when someone helped, he completed it.

Yes I'm aware of the legend:




According to legend, the king was assisted by a golden turtle in his rise to power and building of the citadel. Every day the work of laborers on the walls of the fortress was undone at night by spirits allied to the son of a previous king. They were led by a thousand-year-old white chicken from a nearby mountain peak. The golden turtle defeated the white chicken and remained an ally with King An-Duong.




After completion of the citadel, the turtle left, leaving behind one of his claws. The claw was to become the trigger of the king's crossbow, making him invincible. The king assigned the task of building the crossbow to a man named Cao Lo. It was then christened "Saintly Crossbow of the Supernaturally Luminous Golden Claw." The Chinese had earlier adopted the crossbow from other Asiatic peoples. Its trigger could take great pressure and would release arrows with greater force than other types of bows.




This legend associated with this early political state in Vietnam helps scholars today in their understanding of the king, his kingdom, and Co-Loa. It identifies this center of power as military in nature, reinforces the record of conquest in its formation, and suggests maintenance of power was based on the threat of force. Co-Loa is today still an important archaeological site in northern Vietnam, and among remains found there have been pottery and bronze arrowheads.

Professor Taylor writes that the chicken is the one thousand-year-old symbol of power for China and that the turtle is a symbol of the Chinese god of war, Chen Wu. For King An-Duong Vuong, the golden turtle was symbolic of his own military supremacy over other rivals at the time. In light of later Vietnamese history, namely the one thousand years of China's domination of Vietnam, Co-Loa represented a better and greater era when Vietnam had stronger kings. Today the site still evokes pride and memories of happier times for most Vietnamese who know the history and the legends associated with it. During the broad sweep of Vietnamese history, Vietnam has had several capitals. Co-Loa was among the first but was abandoned because of its close proximity to China and the fact it was hard to defend in the plains region where it was located.

Yeah, right . I even dont know as much as you .

I've ever visitted Co Loa , but I dont like much. IT's very boring and not nice much .

^ Does it still look likes how it described?

Its ruins now, but you can still see the layout of the old citadel. Must say it's pretty big.

^ ừm, tiết ghê ha

the architecture looks really good, i think its the best architecture style in vietnam, ( old monuments ), the curves look good, and the way they make them two stories and the designs, etc look very well made, nice look.

This story should be made into a movie. If Troy can be made into a movie, this story is a piece of cake.

Just think of the story line, and the cast and crew, and there, you got yourself a movie that is comparable to Troy.

now where can we get Orlando + Brad ?

Hehehhe... well, if Vietnam's film making technology is as good as the U.S., I am sure they can make this into a movie.

Trọng Châu, Mỵ Nương, An Dương Vương, A Lỗ, and a bunch of other characters. That would be a good movie huh?

actually, i prefer Mỵ Nương not 2 b in it

The position of My Nuong is our history is to remind us not to fall head over heals and reveal the secrets of our kingdom - especially with some suped up dude from the Hans who on the first date wants to see your fathers ultimate weapon of national defense. With love you need wisdom, or else it's bound to be unjoyable!

Oh yeah, I guess you guys are right. But if My Nuong is not mentioned, then the readers/viewers will think that Vietnam doesn't have respect for women like the north people.

Whoops - I forgot to say in my last post that what I meant was My Nuong should be in the "movies to be".

anyways what do you mean by:

"readers/viewers will think that Vietnam doesn't have respect for women like the north people"

Well, you said "The position of My Nuong is our history is to remind us not to fall head over heals and reveal the secrets of our kingdom - especially with some suped up dude from the Hans who on the first date wants to see your fathers ultimate weapon of national defense."

And I interpret as women in our society betrays our national identity, so I replied back what I wrote. But now that you've asked that question, I don't think you meant what you wrote, so I am sorry.

Again, women in Vietnamese society are more repected as compared to the people in the north.

No no - I didn't mean women were the traitors - dude the Trung Sisters reign as some of my top heroines - just that history was played like that and is told like that - I don't think that is sexist, just facts that's all.

Anyways about the north (VN) - I dunno, generalizing to big like that may trigger war in here (not with me if that's what you're thinking). I agree that women were looked down upon in many societies, but it's not rooted in our peoples to put down a gender. Take a look at our legend of Lac Long Quan and Au Co - total equality in the creation of our peoples. The Trung Sisters. Ba Trieu. I think the north may have the traits of gender imbalance from "Kho^?ng Tu+?" if ya know what i mean.

Someone can say that the south is wierd too! We were supposed to be allied with the Champa kingdom if all went well. King Tran Nhan Tong allowed his daughter to mary the prince of Champa during a time when the Hans were an itchy issue. So Champa was supposed to be here happy and all, but the Champa Prince died and according to custom his concubines and wife were to die along with him. At this point King Tran Nhan Tong relieve his throne to his son and became a Monk. So his son couldn't let this happen and sqwuashed the Champa's. I'm not saying let the princess die, but the fact is in Viet culture you can't just bury you wife because your royal.

I believe our people at root are superbly civilized on the spiritual and moral side. Sometimes forced ideologies mess things up. Hey - after all who can say women stink when the Trung Sisters were totally dope @ss warriors/rulers/elephant riders/martial artists/love mates/fashionably cool ladies (check out my picture on their dress - its like what some girls would wear today)

Not to mention all the other women who have contributed to our history and will contribute to our future.

Also I fell in love with the Lac Long Quan and Au Co legend when a Novice from a Pagoda told me this. So you know that Lac Long Quan battle a lot of beasts right? If Au Co was the damsel in destress then we would have a classic western fairy tale who places the females as objects. But in this one battle Lac Long Quan had his hands full and since Au Co head crest made form Hac feathers was magical (she is a "tien" princess after all) she thrust one of her feathers to Lac Long Quan and as it was flying towards him it morphed into a spear! Bam! that is the grooviest imagery ever (I like motion graphics and post production) and Au Co is not a damsel in distress - she was on site at the battle and morphed in and out of bird form to help out Lac Long Quan.

Anyways here's a pic of the Trung Sisters.
Notice how their clothing with some color adjustments and fabric pattern tweaks would resemble some fashionable clothing today.

OF COURSE YOU MEAN NORTH AS IN NORTH VN RIGHT? other wise if you mean north as in really north and across the border then that's a different story.

Oh no! When I meant the "north people," I meant the people north of Vietnam, not người Bắc.

Hehehhe... I have that book of Hai Bà Trưng, my brother bought it last year.

sweet!!!

I have numbers 1 - 40, missing a few though. It's easy to read (i was born in Canada and learnt how to read at the age of 18)

To really look at Viet History closesly - and I mean real closesly -you gotta try the books by Mr. Le Manh That - like "Lich Su Viet Nam Tu Thoi Khoi Nguyen Den Vua Hung Vuong". Mr. Thich Tue Sy and Mr. Le Manh That are considered definitive historians of VN. The went through and reanalized "Lich Su VN Toan Thu" and they wander old villages to find abandon artifacts dating thousands of years back. I treid to read this book but barely got past 5 pages. My parents and their friends say if you want to know Viet history then you've gotta read though these - gonna take another shot at it sometimes - I've got alot of Mr. Le Manh That's books, like his one on the history of Viet Music and one on Viet Literature. In the mean time Lich Su Bang Tranh will do nicely.

Heheeheh...

My Viet history bible is Việt Nam Sử Lược by Trần Trọng Kim.

We all know Vietnamese were ruled by Chinese over 1000 years during which period forced assimilation and strict policies were enforced on the native population. In the 10th century Viets won their independence from the Middle Kingdom but by that time they were already too sinicized to revive any fragment of their ancestors' forgotten culture. They practiced Chinese customs, followed the 3 religions adopted from China, Mahayana Buddhism-Taoism-Confucianism, and they wrote in Chinese. For a long time, virtually everyone believed that the Lac Viet and Au Viet - ancestors of Vietnamese - never had any writing of their own, that Han people introduced a writing system to the Vietnamese which they adopted until the 20th century when Latin alphabet was found to be more practical and replaced the Chinese writing.

But now digging up the thick layers of soils and dusts that have been burying a lost culture deep beneath earth surface, archaeologists find something may shed lights on an obscure distant history - traces of writings that are believed to belong to the ancestors of Vietnamese. This might be the most important discovery on ancient Vietnamese culture since the finding of Dongson drums and other bronze artifacts.

Talking about good history books of Vietnam, I recommend The Birth of Vietnam by Keith Weller Taylor. I even saw our clan's ancestor's name mentioned in there toward the end of the book.......

Lol
It's not My Nuong. I believe it is My Chau - Trong Thuy.
My Nuong is the general name of the daughters of Vua Hung