Lê Long Đĩnh

After news of the death of Emperor Lê Đại Hành in China, Song dynasty mandarins urged the Song emperor Taizong to dispatch forces to invade Đại Cồ Việt. However, Taizong chose to respect the tributary status that Đại Cồ Việt had paid with respect to the Song empire, and he left Vietnam alone. Some trading activities were even allowed to occur between the borders of both nations.

In spring 1007, Lê Long Đĩnh ordered his brother to gift a white pangolin (or white rhinoceros) as a gift to the Song dynasty in exchange for Buddhist sutras to be sent to Vietnam. In Vietnamese Buddhism, records of Zen Buddhist Thích Mật Thể, the 14th year of Ứng Thiên era (1008), Vietnam sent the envoy to Song to pay tribute and asked for taking nine classics and sutra to Vietnam. The Song emperor approved the request and gave the requested works to the Vietnamese ambassador. The nine classics included I Ching, Classic of Poetry, Book of Documents, Book of Rites, Spring and Autumn Annals, Classic of Filial Piety, Analects, and Mencius. These were the nine classics of Chinese civilization that first came to Vietnam under the reign of Lê Long Đĩnh.

According to the Complete annals of Đại Việt, Lê Long Đĩnh was one of the most brutal and sadistic rulers during Vietnam's dynastic era. His reign was considered a reign of terror at the time. He is comparable to the Roman emperors Caligula and Commodus in their traits of excess cruelty and paranoia. Some of the acts of cruelty that he committed were:

• He often executed innocent people who were condemned to death for entertaining purposes by some frightful ways such as tying them with hay to burn to death or ordering an executioner called Liêu Thủ Tâm (廖守心) from Great Song to gradually mutilate victims to death slowly using dull bladed swords and axes. When the victims cried out in agony, this executioner would manipulate the victims into thinking they were not dying. The emperor was said to have delighted in the deaths of his victims.
• After capturing prisoners of war, he ordered his soldiers to march the prisoners along the riversides and crammed them into cages that were tied along the riverbanks. When the high tides came in at dusk, he would watch them drown slowly.
• The emperor himself often stuck livestock such as pigs or cows to death before he allowed servants to prepare them for feasts. At court banquets, he killed cats and served them to his guests and court officials and made them eat the cats. Afterwards, he would play around with their severed heads in front of the court audience, frightening them and reducing their chances of questioning his audacity.