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Case file s1000 · Japan and Southeast Asia · 1407
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1407
Tay Do castle South gate: Cổng Nam thành Tây Đô (thành nhà Hồ), Thanh Hóa, Việt Nam
Tay Do castle South gate. vi:Thành viên:Silviculture. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
1407 (Hồ Quý Ly captured by Ming forces; date of death disputed)
Place
Thăng Long (Hanoi) and Tây Đô, Thanh Hóa, Vietnam; Nanjing, China
Field
throne · Royalty and nobility on the timeline
Legal tradition
Trần dynasty succession custom; Ming tributary claims · Chinese and East Asian law
Historical event
Ming conquest of Đại Việt, 1406-1407
Japan and Southeast AsiaMurder and sudden deathCrowns and successionMedievalEast AsiaChina

A royal in-law took Vietnam's throne from his own grandson in 1400, and China invaded claiming to restore the true heir

Hồ Quý Ly was born Lê Quý Ly. His family had married into the Trần royal house since the reign of Trần Minh Tông, and two Trần emperors were his cousins. After Emperor Trần Duệ Tông died fighting Champa in 1377, Quý Ly took control of the army. In 1388 he had the reigning emperor killed and put his own son-in-law, Thuận Tông, on the throne. In 1398 he made Thuận Tông abdicate for a two-year-old boy, Quý Ly's grandson†. In 1400 he deposed the boy, took the throne, renamed the country Đại Ngu and took the surname Hồ. The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư records 1400 as "the year the Trần fell." In 1401 he handed the throne to his son Hồ Hán Thương and kept the power. He issued Vietnam's first paper money. A man named Trần Thiêm Bình went to the Ming court and said he was a Trần prince. The chronicle records that in 1406 Ming troops entered the country "pretending to escort the false Trần king Thiêm Bình home." Then the Yongle Emperor sent a large army. The chronicle says Ming soldiers carried off women, silk and copper coins to Nanjing and castrated boys. Both Hồ rulers were captured in 1407 and the Ming made the country a province. In 1428 Lê Lợi drove the Ming out and founded the Lê dynasty.

What the law took from it

A ruler who takes a throne from a child gives every outside power a claim to restore the child's family.

Record vs. record

Britannica Japan says Hồ Quý Ly was beheaded in Nanjing: | English Wikipedia says he was made a common soldier in the Ming army and his date of death is unknown:

kotobank.jpWikipedia (English)
Sources
  1. zh.wikisource.orgScholarship
  2. kotobank.jpPress
  3. kotobank.jpPress
  4. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “A royal in-law took Vietnam's throne from his own grandson in 1400, and China invaded claiming to restore the true heir,” story s1000, https://www.celebrity.estate/a-royal-in-law-took-vietnams-throne-1407, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Japan and Southeast AsiaMurder and sudden deathCrowns and successionMedievalEast AsiaChinese and East Asian lawChina