Le Thanh Tong

Emperor of Vietnam (r. 1460-1497)

• Born: 1442
• Birthplace: Thang Long (now Hanoi), Vietnam
• Died: 1497
• Place of death: Vietnam

Le Thanh Tong expanded the Vietnamese Empire after battling the Kingdom of Champa. He also promulgated a progressive code of law based on the moral precepts of Confucius and instituted a Chinese-style centralized administration, which ordered Vietnamese society.

Early Life

Le Thanh Tong (lay-tahn-tawng) was born Prince Tu Thanh. His grandfather, Le Loi, had driven the Chinese out of Vietnam , winning Vietnamese independence from China. As Emperor Le Thai To, Le Loi founded the Le Dynasty (1428-1789). Le Thanh Tong’s father was emperor Le Thai Tong, who came to the throne at age eleven. Ngo Tiop Du, Le Thai Tong’s concubine, was Le Thanh Tong’s mother.

Le Thanh Tong’s father feared that there was a supernatural reason behind Ngo’s delayed childbirth because she was ten months pregnant with the future Prince Tu Thanh, the fourth son of the emperor. Le Thai Tong ordered that she be tied to a stake and that arrows be shot into her womb by soldiers, but she was rescued by Nguyen Thi Lo, a poet and court lady. Ngo first was hid in the horse stables, then she gave birth to prince Tu Thanh in the house of the poet, who provided a place of escape from the emperor for mother and son.

When Tu Thanh was one year old, his father died at age twenty, under mysterious circumstances, after having spent the night with Nguyen Thi Lo. The court executed Nguyen Thi Lo, her husband, and their families. A half brother of the prince, Le Nhan Tong, became emperor at age two, but he and his mother were killed by his half brother, Le Nghi Dan; court officers rebelled. On June 24, 1460, the conspirators forced Nghi Dan to commit suicide after only eight months on the throne.

The conspirators then approached Prince Cung Vuong, the second son of Tu Thanh’s father, to become emperor. After the prince declined, a majority of officials invited Tu Thanh, who accepted immediately.

Life’s Work

On June 26, 1460, Prince Tu Thanh became Emperor Le Thanh Tong of Dai Viet, as the Vietnamese empire was then called. Le Thanh Tong ordered a state funeral for his half brother (and his half brother’s mother), who had been killed eight months prior. After their bodies were transferred to a new tomb and their spirit names recorded on July 15, 1460, rain fell to end a drought. Le Thanh Tong interpreted this as heavenly approval of his reign, and his people concurred.

Also in July, he married his first two wives, daughters of men who had helped him. Of the two, it was Nguyen Thi Huyen who gave birth in 1461 to the son who would succeed his father as Emperor Le Hien Tong.

With the intelligence, energy, and determination that characterized his actions, Le Thanh Tong organized his administration. He appointed new key officials and generals, set clear responsibilities for high officials, and instituted an open court, where opinions and reports could be shared. He promoted governance by ability, demanded high morals of his administrators, and earned a reputation for both leniency and firmness.

Politically, he sought good relations with China. On October 16, 1460, he sent a diplomatic mission to his neighbor, and in October, 1462, the Ming court recognized his rule.

Le Thanh Tong also strengthened the Vietnamese army. He organized his forces of 70,000 soldiers into five regional armies. In 1467, he raised another 99,000 regional troops and instituted rigorous military training.

In the south, the Kingdom of Champa remained hostile. The Chams had been fighting with the Vietnamese to their north since the second century b.c.e. Through the centuries, the Vietnamese had pushed the Chams farther south and conquered their land in turn. In 1469, the Cham king, Ban La Tra Toan, raided a Vietnamese province. For Le Thanh Tong, it was time for a final reckoning.

In October of 1470, Tra Toan again invaded Vietnam. Le Thanh Tong responded immediately by sending a mission to China that won the neutrality of the Chinese. On November 28, 1470, Le Thanh Tong declared war on Champa, on the grounds that its king was an illegitimate usurper who had invaded Dai Viet. On December 6, 1470, the emperor led more than 100,000 foot soldiers on land and aboard 1,700 warships into Champa.

On December 28, the first Cham nobles surrendered, just before the Vietnamese navy had arrived. In desperation, Tra Toan ordered his brother to attack. On February 24, 1471, the Chams assembled five thousand war elephants near the River Sa Ky in central Vietnam, but they were discovered. When the Cham and their elephants attacked two days later, they ran into a strong defense, unable to break through the Vietnamese infantry. Their defeat was catastrophic.

Tra Toan’s request for peace was refused. Instead, Le Thanh Tong assaulted the Champa capital of Vijaya. After four days of heavy fighting, the capital fell March 22, 1471. Le Thanh Tong had the Champa king caught alive with his wives and children. Between forty thousand and sixty thousand Chams died in battle, and Le Thanh Tong took some thirty thousand prisoners to Vietnam. There, he had their left ears cut off and deposited at a temple honoring his ancestors, and he then made them slaves. When Tra Toan died in captivity, Le Thanh Tong had Tra Toan’s head cut off and displayed.

Le Thanh Tong annexed more than half of Champa territory, from the south and down the central Vietnamese coast for more than 500 miles, and then up to the Cu Mong pass, near the modern province of Phu Yen. The conquered territory became the new Vietnamese province of Quang Nam. He divided the remaining Champa lands into three different duchies, and he eventually recognized one of the dukes as vassal king.

In the west, in 1479, the Lao tribe of the Bon Man rebelled against Vietnamese rule. Their leader, Cam Cong, declared his allegiance to the king of Laos , Paya Sai Tiakapat, who sent Le Thanh Tong excrement from a white elephant and then attacked Vietnam. In the fall of 1479, Le Thanh Tong counter-attacked with a force of 180,000 soldiers, defeated the invaders, and captured the Laotian capital of Luang Prabang. Paya Sai Tiakapat was forced to abdicate in favor of King Suvarna Banlang, and Cam Cong was captured and executed. More than 80,000 Bon Man soldiers fell. Le Thanh Tong appointed a ruler over the defeated Bon Man, whose land was divided into nine districts.

Le Thanh Tong also worked as a lawgiver. In 1483, he promulgated the Hong Duc penal code, which would remain in effect until the nineteenth century. The code represented a genuine Vietnamese body of laws that corresponded to the needs of Vietnamese society and was based on Confucian moral principles. Its laws focused on agricultural society and also gave rules for marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The legal code was surprisingly progressive and improved the legal status of Vietnamese women significantly.

Le Thanh Tong also focused on historiography, commissioning the writing of an impressive history of Vietnam from its mythical origins to the reign of Le Thanh Tong’s grandfather. In 1479, historian Ngo Si Lien completed the Dai Viet su ky toan thu (complete book of the historical record of Dai Viet). Also, the emperor supported the arts and education, did not favor Buddhism, ordered the accurate mapping of his empire, and strengthened civil administration.

When Le Thanh Tong died in 1497, he had fathered fourteen sons and twenty daughters. In an orderly transition, his oldest son, Le Hien Tong, succeeded him.

Significance

Le Thanh Tong’s victory over Champa greatly added to Vietnam’s land. It also opened room for further expansion, which would continue into the nineteenth century. His defeat of the Chams marked the ultimate triumph of the Vietnamese in a struggle that had lasted more than a millennium. It is for this achievement that many Vietnamese consider him the most successful of their emperors.

Le Thanh Tong’s other achievements are also impressive. His legal code would remain in effect for more than three hundred years and would shape the nature and jurisdiction of Vietnamese society, giving women many more rights than in neighboring China. His support for the writing of a comprehensive Vietnamese history bestowed on his people a sense of collective written memory that aided Vietnam in maintaining an independent cultural identity.

Le Thanh Tong, however, proved unable to provide Vietnam with able rulers to succeed him, once Le Hien Tong died in 1504. His second son, who came to the throne in 1505, was a serial killer who strangled at dawn the women with whom he had spent the night; he died in 1509. The Le Dynasty declined rapidly, and soon it would rule in name only. Thus, while Le Thanh Tong’s military successes and legal reformation transformed Vietnam, his own dynasty was unable to cling to power.

Bibliography

Chapuis, Oscar. A History of Vietnam. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. Describes the achievements and events of the emperor’s reign in full detail. Very readable. Maps, bibliography, index.

Heidhues, Mary Somers. Southeast Asia: A Concise History. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000. Places Le Thanh Tong’s reign in the context of Vietnam’s history. Illustrations, maps, index.

Huard, Pierre, and Maurice Durand. Viet-Nam, Civilization, and Culture. Rev. 2d ed. Hanoi: École Française d’Extrěme Orient, 1994. A useful general history of Vietnam. Admires the emperor for his skills at ordering the administration. Rich illustrations, maps, bibliography, index.

Raj, Hans. History of South-East Asia. Delhi, India: Surjeet, 2002. Includes a brief account of the emperor’s achievements. Maps, bibliography, index.