Nguyen Trai

Who is Nguyen Trai?

Nguyễn Trãi was a brilliant Confucian scholar, military strategist, diplomat and poet who became a foundational figure of Vietnamese national identity. Born near Thăng Long (Hanoi) into a scholarly family, he passed the civil-service examinations under the Hồ dynasty. After the Ming Chinese occupied Đại Việt, he became the chief political adviser and strategist to Lê Lợi during the decade-long Lam Sơn uprising (1418–1427) that expelled the Ming and founded the Lê dynasty. He is celebrated as the author of 'Bình Ngô đại cáo' (Great Proclamation upon the Pacification of the Ngô/Ming), a ringing declaration of Vietnamese independence, and of 'Quốc âm thi tập,' one of the earliest surviving collections of poetry written in the vernacular chữ Nôm script. In 1442, following the sudden death of the young king at Lệ Chi Viên, he and his clan were executed on false charges of regicide; he was later posthumously rehabilitated. UNESCO honored the 600th anniversary of his birth in 1980.

Sources: Nguyễn Trãi, 'Bình Ngô đại cáo' (Great Proclamation upon the Pacification of the Ngô), 1428 · Keith Weller Taylor, 'A History of the Vietnamese' (2013)