Lê Lợi

Did You Know?

• Lê Lợi was born on the sixth day of August, 1385, which corresponds to 10 September 1385 in the Gregorian calendar.
• Lê Lợi's Lam Son rebels copied firearms from Ming weapons that had been used against Hồ Quý Ly's army ten years earlier.

Early life

Lê Lợi was born on the sixth day of August, 1385 in Lam Giang village, Lam Sơn, Thanh Hóa province to a noble family and he was the youngest among three sons. His father, Lê Khoáng, was a wealthy Vietnamese aristocrat nobleman/land owner in the village, although there is some evidence to suggest his family was Mường in origin. Recent genealogical studies of the Lê family have discovered that the primogenitor of Lê Lợi is Lê Mỗi, who is from Bái Đô (now part of Xuân Bái commune, Thọ Xuân district). Bái Đô is an area that was historically never settled by Mường people. Regarding Lê Lợi's maternal lineage, the maternal side also originated from Kinh people who migrated to develop the Thủy Chú region. Therefore, it is confirmed that Lê Lợi is of Kinh ethnicity, not Mường. The Lê/Lê Duy clan was the powerful clan in Lam Sơn for hundreds of years. The area of Lam Sơn, Thanh Hóa back then in the late 14th century was a mixed region with various ethnic groups such as Vietnamese, Mường, Hmong and Tai villagers. During Lê Lợi's early adult time, the Ming invasion and occupation suddenly happened. During two Trần princes's revolts against the Chinese rules (1408 – 1414), Lê Lợi joined the revolt as nominally in charge of the royal guard. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Chinese from 1413 to 1415 after the Trần princes were defeated, and other revolts were suppressed in 1411 and 1420. After his release, he worked as a tutor officer and translator for the Ming colonial administrator in Ngã Lạc county, Lạng Sơn (modern-day Bình Gia District, Lạng Sơn Province). He then became involved in a feud with a neighboring strongman who denounced him as a rebel to the Ming. The Ming chased him back to his village. It was widely reported that when Lê Lợi's daughter was nine years old, a Chinese eunuch, Ma Ji (fl. 1410–1427) had taken her away from her parents and sent her into Yongle's harem. Yongle's grand secretary Yang Shiqi noted that Zhang Fu time and again criticized Ma Ji's wanton behavior in Jiaozhi. Although Ma Ji did the bidding of His Majesty, his conduct provided the catalyst that brought the new uprising. The Chinese also said that Lê Lợi escaped to Laos and Cambodia several times. In early 1418, Lê Lợi again raised the flag of resistance at his home village of Lam Sơn, declaring himself Bình Định vương (平定王, Prince of Pacification).

Revolt against Ming rule

Lê Lợi began his revolt against the Ming Chinese on the day after Tết (New Year) February 1418. He was supported by several prominent families from his native Thanh Hóa, most famously were the Trịnh and the Nguyễn families. Initially, Lê Lợi campaigned on the basis of restoring the Trần family to power. A relative of the Trần emperor was chosen as the figurehead of the revolt but within a few years, the Trần pretender was removed and the unquestioned leader of the revolt was Lê Lợi himself. From the start, the Ming had tried to ensure that local opposition forces would not obtain the new weapons technology, including the Chinese musket known as the magic handgun. The Yongle Emperor had ordered all firearms counted and well-guarded. The Ming occupying army of Jiaozhi consisted 87,000 regulars, scattered in 39 citadels and towns in Northern Vietnam, but clustered in the Red River Delta areas. They also employed a significant number of local auxiliaries. Lê Lợi's Lam Son rebels employed firearms, copied in rebel-built arsenals from Ming weapons used against Hồ Quý Ly army ten years earlier. In early 1418, Lê Lợi and his men successful managed and ambushed a Ming patrol column on the upper Chu River, near Lam Son but was then betrayed by a turncoat who showed Ming units a way to attack him by surprise from the rear. His partisan party scattered and he briefly went into hiding before regaining enough strength to ambush the Ming patrol and force it to withdraw. In 1419 Lê Lợi attacked and seized a Ming outpost near Lam Son held by a local noble who was working for the Chinese, and beheaded 300 enemies captured here. In the next year, Lê Lợi spent time marching around the western highlands to recruit more men. In late 1420, his force ambushed a Ming patrol. The Chinese marquis, Li Bin, responded by mobilizing Ming and local military forces to against him, but Lê Lợi defeated them, gained the control over Quan Hoa district on the upper Mã River. In late 1421, a large Ming army marched to the Mã River valley to attack Lê Lợi and the Vietnamese rebels. A Laotian army with 30,000 men and 100 elephants from Lan Xang approached down the valley from the opposite direction. Lê Lợi was under the illusion that the Laotians were his allies. However, they sided with the Ming and joined the Chinese to laid siege on Lê Lợi. By the end of 1422, Lê Lợi was utterly defeated and sued for peace. In 1423, he was forced to return to Lam Son.

Reign

It states that in 1427, Lê Lợi's resistance movement successfully drove the Ming armies out of Vietnam and restored Vietnamese independence. No further information about his reign is provided.