Dai Viet, formerly Annam (’Pacified South’) to the Chinese, is flourishing under the Ly dynasty.

Vietnamese general Ly Thurong Kiet was born into an Ngo family in Thang Long, the capital of Dai Viet.

His original name was Ngo Tuấn.

His father had been a low-ranking general.

In 1036, he had served the Emperor as a captain in cavalry and later led the imperial guard force.

Because of his bravery, intelligence and loyalty, he had been granted a royal name, Ly Thurong Kiet, and given an important position in the Court.

Wang Anshi, the Song Dynasty prime minister, had told Emperor Shenzong in 1075 that Dai Viet was being destroyed by Champa, with less than ten thousand soldiers surviving, hence it would be a good occasion to annex Dai Viet.

The Song emperor had mobilized troops and passed decrees to forbid all the provinces to trade with Dai Viet.

Upon hearing the news, the Ly ruler had sent Ly Thurong Kiet and Nung Ton Dan with more than one hundred thousand troops to China to carry out a preemptive attack against the Song Dynasty troops.

In the ensuing forty-day battle near modern-day Nanning, the Dai Viet troops had been victorious, capturing the generals of three Song armies.

Ly Thurong Kiet had fought a war with the Cham in 1069, and in 1076 the Song dynasty calls on the Khmer Empire and Champa to go to war again in 1076.

At the same time, the Song commander Guo Kui leads the combined Song force of approximately one hundred thousand men against Ly.

The Song quickly regains Quang Nguyen prefecture and in the process captures the resistance leader Lưu Ky.