Bảo tàng lịch sử Quốc gia

Somewhere near Hanoi, in the population still move about names bearing traces of bushels of soldiers, such as the section of dam of the road La Thanh (at the crossroad of Lang Ha and La Thanh streets). At place there are no more any trace, but the population of the village of Giang vo, especially old people, still speak of bushels of soldiers. Everybody understands that it is a wall of earth, higher than a man. It is told that before, when recruiting an army, one fills the enclosure with soldiers and count the number of them. After, one has only to multiply this number with the number of times of filling the enclosure to have the total of soldiers that have been recruited.

Of course, it is only an anecdote of the population, because the soldiers can stand sparse or crowded, which will give different results. This anecdote is not scientifically based.

A bushel of soldiers still leaves traces. It is the section of the road of Lang, crossing the street of Doi Can, quite near the road leading to the river To Lich (which was the outer trench of La Thanh) to come to the Museum of Ethnology.

Here was the west door of La Thanh. In the other side is the territory of the commune of Doai Mon. The commune of Doai Mon exists no more as an administrative unit. Its population has been transferred elsewhere, leaving place to the construction of the city, but many people still remember their old commune of Doai Mon.

Outside of Doai Mon, is constructed a wall called Ung Thanh. It is a wall hiding the main door, opening a side door. To enter the citadel, one must pass through the side door, turn 90^o then go into the citadel. Thus, the main function of Ung Thanh is to prevent people to go directly into the citadel.

The disposition of Ung Thanh follows the chinese technics of construction of the Han dynasty. The book Viet su luoc says :” Bien (Cao Bien) reconstructs the wall La Thanh of 1980 truong 5 thuoc (6139m) of perimeter, 2 truong 5 thuoc (8,04m) of height, surrounded by a low wall of 5 thuoc 5 tac (1,70m) of height, with 55 custody towers, 5 doortop towers, 6 Ung mon (side little door), digs 5 water pits, constructs 34 roads…” Ung Mon is perhaps not exactly little side door, but this paragraph shows that Cao Bien has had the walls Ung Thanh constructed. One does not know where are the 6 Ung Thanh, except one, belonging before to the commune of Doai Mon which has a bridge through the river To Lich to go to the country Doai.

In 9–2002, the National Museum of Vietnamese History has studied and found that the actual dimensions of Ung Thanh are 52m×54m, nearly square, with a floor paved with massive bricks, a characteristic material of the dynasty of posterior Le (15-18^th centuries). It is possible that the wall of Ung Thanh is constructed with massive bricks outside, filled with earth inside and lasts until the posterior Le. In other words, the westside of Cao Bien’s La Thanh just belongs to the La Thanh of the Le’s Dong Do. The present road starting from Ung Thanh is the ancient road leading from Dong Do to the country Doai. It is only a hypothesis which leaves many points unclarified.

Lately, an alarming news reports that the Service of Construction of Hanoi is going to construct a solid bridge over the river To Lich and repair the road leading to the bridge. According to the installed landmarks, all the Ung Thanh wall will be levelled down.

Before this situation, the National Museum of Vietnamese History and the Service of Culture and Information have organized meetings to gather opinions of scientific people and administrators in order to preserve and raise the value of the site. All agree that it remains only one vestige Ung Thanh, which must be protected in time face to modern planifications. The site must be studied archaeologically to furnish objective and scientific estimations about the age, extent, function and relative historical questions.

Nguyen Van Doan