Lê Lợi

Ten years of guerrilla war led by Lê Lợi ended two decades of Ming Chinese occupation of Vietnam in 1427. A landowner from Thanh Hóa in the north of the country, he then took the throne in 1428 as founder of the Later Lê dynasty, which revived the kingdom of Đại Việt. Vietnamese tradition counts him among the nation's greatest heroes, and he is remembered under his temple name, Lê Thái Tổ.

Vietnam had been weakened through the late fourteenth century by internal crises and by raids from Champa, whose armies sacked the capital, Thăng Long, several times. In 1399 the official Hồ Quý Ly pushed aside the Trần royal family and took power. The Ming dynasty used this as a pretext to intervene, and in 1406 a large Chinese army crossed the border, overthrew the Hồ and annexed the country as the province of Jiaozhi. The occupiers tried to impose Chinese dress, schooling and administration, and revolts broke out across the countryside.

Lê Lợi was born in 1385 at Lam Sơn, in Thanh Hóa province, the youngest of three sons of a wealthy local family. Some historians have suggested a Mường origin for the family, though genealogical studies point to ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh) ancestors. He took part in the failed revolts of two Trần princes, was imprisoned by the Chinese from 1413 to 1415, and afterwards served the Ming administration for a time before being denounced as a rebel and forced back home.

Early in 1418 he raised a revolt at Lam Sơn and proclaimed himself Bình Định vương, the "Prince of Pacification". Leading families of Thanh Hóa, among them the Trịnh and the Nguyễn, backed him. His bands relied on ambush and constant movement, and copied Ming firearms in their own workshops. The early years went badly: in 1421 and 1422 a Ming army, joined by troops from the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang, trapped him, and in 1423 he agreed a short-lived truce.

When the Ming court eased its policy after the death of the Yongle Emperor, Lê Lợi struck south into Nghệ An in 1424, recruiting highland peoples and winning over the lowlands. By the end of 1425 his forces held the land from Thanh Hóa southwards. In 1426 his generals advanced into the Red River delta, and late that year a small rebel force routed a much larger Ming army at Tốt Động, south of modern Hanoi. The scholar Nguyễn Trãi became his chief adviser and propagandist.

In 1427 the Ming sent large reinforcements from Yunnan and Guangxi. One column was destroyed at Chi Lăng and its commander, Liu Sheng, was killed; the other retreated. After a siege of about six months, the citadel of Xương Giang fell, and the Xuande Emperor agreed to withdraw. According to the Vietnamese record, more than 86,000 Ming prisoners were sent home. The historian Ben Kiernan has described the defeat as the worst policy failure of the early Ming.

Lê Lợi was enthroned in 1428 with the era name Thuận Thiên, "obeying Heaven", and renamed the capital Đông Kinh. In 1431 the Ming formally recognised him as ruler, in exchange for tribute and nominal vassal status. He rewarded veterans with land, repaired roads and canals, restored the civil-service examinations and resettled demobilised soldiers on thinly populated land. He fought campaigns in the western hills between 1430 and 1432, fell ill in 1433 and died that year, leaving the throne to his second son, Lê Thái Tông. Several of his closest companions, including Nguyễn Trãi, were later executed in court purges.

Popular tradition credits his victory to a magic sword inscribed "Thuận Thiên", lent by the Dragon King. After the war, the story goes, a golden turtle rose from a lake in the capital and took it back, and the lake became known as Hoàn Kiếm, the "Lake of the Returned Sword", in present-day Hanoi.

Our 1400 map shows Vietnam on the eve of the Ming invasion; the 1492 map shows Đại Việt restored as an independent kingdom under the dynasty he founded.