Đinh Bộ Lĩnh proclaims himself emperor of Đại Cồ Việt

After Ngô Quyền’s death in 944 Dương Tam Kha, the brother of his queen, seized power; Ngô’s sons later regained the throne, but after the death of Ngô Xương Văn in the mid-960s the country broke up among rival chiefs — the ‘twelve warlords’ (sứ quân) of Vietnamese tradition. According to the Song shi, Đinh Bộ Lĩnh was the son of Đinh Công Trứ, whom Dương Đình Nghệ had made prefect of Hoan châu; together with his son Đinh Liễn he defeated the contenders, and the people made him ruler with the title ‘Great Victorious King’ (in Vietnamese tradition Vạn Thắng vương, ‘King of Ten Thousand Victories’). In 968, according to the Vietnamese accounts, he ascended the throne as emperor with the title Đại Thắng Minh Hoàng Đế, called the country Đại Cồ Việt and made his home district of Hoa Lư his capital; in 970 he adopted the era name Thái Bình.

The imperial title declared independence from Chinese overlordship, but Đinh Bộ Lĩnh dealt cautiously with the new Song dynasty: after the Song conquered the Southern Han in 971, Đinh Liễn sent tribute and received the titles of military governor of Jinghai and protector-general of Annam, and in 975, according to the Song shi (the Vietnamese annals date this to 973), the Song court enfeoffed Đinh Bộ Lĩnh himself as Prince of Jiaozhi Commandery. He set up a court with civil and military officials, and according to tradition he kept a great cauldron and a caged tiger to punish offenders. In 979 he and Đinh Liễn were murdered by a palace official, and in 980 the general Lê Hoàn deposed his young son Đinh Toàn and founded the Early Lê dynasty. The state kept the name Đại Cồ Việt until 1054, when it was renamed Đại Việt.