Person
Ly Tu Tien
The man whose name comes first in the familiar label for the 687 rising; but according to every history that records his name, he was killed by Luu Dien Huu before the seat of Annam was besieged, and did not lead the siege.
At a glance
- Also known as
- The Complete Annals writes the Tien in his name with a different character; the Cuong muc calls this wrong and corrects it following the Tang histories1
Life
The old chronicles say
Ly Tu Tien appears in the histories at the moment Luu Dien Huu's order went out, forcing the Ly households of Linh Nam to pay the tax in full instead of half as before. The Old Book of Tang records that those under him all resented it and plotted to rebel; Dien Huu struck first, killing their ringleader, Ly Tu Tien. The New Book of Tang tells almost the same story, calling him the ringleader. The Complete Annals calls him the one who laid the plans, also killed by Dien Huu. All three versions agree on one point: he died before the siege of the seat ever began.234
The Tu tri thong giam tells the affair along a different line and does not name the man killed first by Dien Huu, calling him only the ringleader. There is one thing easy to confuse: the word Ly in the phrase Ly households, as the Old Book of Tang records it, is the name of a group of people in Linh Nam, written with a character entirely different from the Ly that is the family name of Ly Tu Tien or Ly Tu Than. Ly Tu Tien and Ly Tu Than, who according to the Old Book of Tang led the siege afterward, are two different men despite the similar-looking names.52
Mentioned in
Sources for this page
Every row of the profile and every passage below points to one of these documents. How we choose and check sources