Lê Chân Tông

Lê Chân Tông ( chữ Hán : 黎 真宗; * 1630 in Đông Kinh (Hanoi); † August 1649 ibid) was the seventh Vietnamese emperor from the restored Lê dynasty . He sat on the throne from October 1643 until his untimely death almost six years later. Like all monarchs of his line, he was a puppet ruler of the Trịnh princes who actually ruled .

Life

Before his accession to the throne, his name was Lê Duy Hựu (黎維祐). He was the eldest son of the emperor Lê Thần Tông . He was known as a highly educated scholar and devout Buddhist, but showed little interest in his imperial duties and was accordingly happy when the ruler Trịnh Tráng allowed him to abdicate in favor of his young son. As a result, Lê Chân Tông, aged around thirteen, was crowned emperor in the autumn of 1643. He chose Phúc Thái (福泰) as the era name (government motto).

His tenure was marked by the ongoing war against the Nguyễn princes . In the years 1643/44 and 1648 campaigns to the south took place without his participation, but they failed. There was also fighting within the Trịnh camp: Prince Trịnh Tráng appointed his son Trịnh Tạc co-ruler in 1645 , whereupon two of his disappointed brothers started a rebellion; an estimated four thousand people were killed in the capital during the crackdown on the uprising.

In August 1649, Emperor Lê Chân Tông died of a sudden illness at the age of about nineteen. It is possible that he was secretly killed because of his involvement in a failed conspiracy against Trịnh Tạc. At least Dutch traders who were in the country at the time reported that Trịnh Tạc had both one of his uncles and the young monarch poisoned.

After the death of Lê Chân Tông, his father was forced to return to the throne and remained there until his death in 1662. In the following years three other sons ( Huyền Tông , Gia Tông and Hy Tông ) were to become emperors one after the other.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Văn Thư Hà, Hồng Đức Trần: Tóm tắt niên biểu lịch sử Việt Nam , Verlag Nhà Xuất Bản Văn Hoá Thông Tin, Hanoi 2004, p. 154 (entry Lê Chân Tông )
2. ↑ BẢNG TRA NIÊN ĐẠI CÁC TRIỀU VUA VIÊT NAM (List of the Era names of the Vietnamese monarchs), accessed January 2019
3. ↑ KW Taylor : A History of the Vietnamese , Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 286, 297–299, 307

predecessor	Office	successor
Lê Thần Tông	Emperor of Đại Việt Restored Lê dynasty 1643–1649	Lê Thần Tông