Le Van Thinh

Lê Văn Thịnh (Chữ Hán: 黎文盛, 1038 – 1096), courtesy name Mậu Phu (茂夫), was an official in the royal court of the Lý dynasty. Ranking first in the first imperial examination of the Lý dynasty, Lê Văn Thịnh was appointed tutor for Lý Nhân Tông and was gradually promoted to the position of chancellor of the Lý dynasty due to his achievements, especially in the negotiation with the Song dynasty about the return of occupied land by the Song army to Annam in 1086.

Lê Văn Thịnh was charged with high treason in 1096 and was banished to the mountainous area. Today the fact about the 1096 event is still a matter of debate.

Biography Lê Văn Thịnh he was born in 1038 at the Đông Cứu village, Gia Định district. In the second month of 1075, the emperor Lý Nhân Tông ordered the organization of the first imperial examination of the Lý dynasty, which was also the first contest based on Confucianist education in the history of Vietnam. Lê Văn Thịnh who ranked first in the examination and thus became the first first-rank laureate in history of imperial examination in Vietnam; therefore, he was sometimes dubbed "Tiến sĩ khai khoa" (The first doctorate) or "Trạng nguyên đầu tiên" (The first exemplar of the state) of Vietnam. Lê Văn Thịnh's success came from his laboriousness in learning Confucian classics while others often relied on Buddhist knowledge. After the examination, Lê Văn Thịnh was appointed to the position of tutor for the young emperor. Because of Lê Văn Thịnh's diplomatic skill, the Song dynasty finally agreed to give back six districts and three mountainous regions (động) which corresponded to the region of Quảng Nguyên. For this feat, Lê Văn Thịnh was promoted to the position of chancellor of the Lý dynasty (Thái sư). This was the second-highest position in the royal court and was only behind the emperor.

— At that time the emperor took a small boat to watch fishing in the Dâm Đàm Lake. Suddenly there was fog in which the emperor heard the sound of an approaching boat and the noise of rowing oars, then the emperor threw spear. After a few moments, the mist dissolved, there was a tiger in the boat that made people scared, they said: "It is disastrous!". The fisherman Mục Thận cast a net into the tiger, it turned out it was the chancellor Lê Văn Thịnh. The chancellor was immediately captured and charged with high treason while Mục Thận was granted a position of mandarin and an area near Dâm Đàm Lake for fief. In explaining the strange context of the crime, Ngô Sĩ Liên revealed that Lê Văn Thịnh learned the sorcery from his Dali servant with the purpose of overthrowing Lý Nhân Tông. The decision of Lý Nhân Tông was criticized by Ngô Sĩ Liên who reasoned that the graciousness of the emperor might spring from his devotion to Buddhism. this event was recited almost identically as Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư except for the odd element of Lê Văn Thịnh transforming into a tiger. This element was also excluded from the Từ điển bách khoa toàn thư Việt Nam, which noted that Lê Văn Thịnh was exiled to Thao Giang because the emperor suspected that his chancellor might have a conspiracy to overthrow him. A more striking hypothesis proposed that the case of Lê Văn Thịnh was the result of the struggle between supporters of Buddhism led by the imperial consort Ỷ Lan and supporters of Confucianism represented by Lê Văn Thịnh. To repress the influence of Confucianism in the royal court, Ỷ Lan made a plot of slandering the chancellor with the crime of treason. This hypothesis was based on the fact that the Imperial Consort Ỷ Lan was a devotee of Buddhism and had used ruthless methods to eliminate her rival in the royal family, the Empress Consort Thượng Dương. On the other hand, Lê Văn Thịnh was proved to be a loyal official with many achievements and did not have any sign of forming party or hatred towards the emperor before the 1096 event. Also asserting that Lê Văn Thịnh was the victim of a struggle in the royal court, another hypothesis speculated that he was harmed because of his ideas about reforming the royal court and the country. According to this hypothesis, Lê Văn Thịnh's innovative thought made him an obstacle for the conservative side in the royal court and thus he was unjustly treated like the chancellor Wang Anshi of the Song dynasty who lived at the same time as Lê Văn Thịnh and also wanted to reform his country.

Legacy Inspired from the early period of the Lý dynasty, the writer Tào Mạt created the chèo play The ballad of defending the country (Bài ca giữ nước) in which Lê Văn Thịnh became the main villain of the third part with many crimes. The play was highly appreciated for its artistic value, but the negative characterization of Lê Văn Thịnh was sometimes challenged for its precision.