Lý Công Uẩn was born in Cổ Pháp village, Đình Bảng, Từ Sơn, Bắc Ninh Province in 974.

[1] According to the Vietnamese chronicle Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, his mother gave him up for adoption to a Buddhist monk named Lý Khánh Vân at the age of three.

[citation needed] Công Uẩn was educated by monk Vạn Hạnh, the most eminent Buddhist patriarch of the time, in the village of Đình Bảng, a short distance across the Red River from Hanoi to the northeast.

[2] He was gradually promoted from a minor official to a prominent post of the government and was ultimately bestowed with the title Tả Thân Vệ Điện Tiền Chỉ Huy Sứ (The Commander of the Palace's Left Flank), which was one of the most important positions within the royal guards.

[3] Lý Công Uẩn began serving at the royal court, eventually rising to a high position of trust at the side of the designated heir to the throne.

[5] Incapacitated by declining health, Long Đĩnh watched helplessly as the monks of Giao launched a propaganda campaign that nurtured belief in the inevitability of Lý Công Uẩn becoming king.

Đào Cam Mộc, an royal official, and Patriarch Vạn Hạnh seized the opportunity and imposed their power and political influence to enthrone their trusted disciple Lý Công Uẩn without much resistance, thus ended the reign of the Lê dynasty.

[5] Two days after Long Đĩnh's death, advised and assisted by his patron, the monk Vạn Hạnh, and by the efforts of the entire Buddhist establishment, Lý Công Uẩn was proclaimed emperor by general acclamation.

[7] The earthworks which were ramparts of the new capital still stand to the west of the modern city of Hanoi, forming a vast quadrilateral by the side of the road to Sơn Tây.

Lý Thái Tổ abandoned a scheme of dividing the plain into "ten circuits" that had been devised by Đinh Bộ Lĩnh (r. 968–979) and replaced it with 24 routes; these were not administrative jurisdictions but rather itineraries designating various localities.

While returning by sea in late 1012, a great storm threatened to sink his boat, which he understood as a divine judgment upon him for the violence he had brought upon so many people.

[14] For three years, 1013–1015, Lý Thái Tổ sent soldiers into the northern mountains of modern Hà Giang Province to pacify Hani people who allied with the Dali Kingdom in Yunnan.

In 1010, Lý Thái Tổ attacked and caught thirteen persons of Địch Lão (bandit) ethnicity and presented the captives to the Chinese court.

[16][21] In 1024, a temple was built for Lý Thái Tổ to use for reading and reciting the Buddhist scriptures, a copy of which he had requested and received from the Song court a few years earlier.