King Le Uy Muc, whose posthumous name was Le Tuan, was born on May 5, 1488. Le Uy Muc was the eighth king of the Later Le Dynasty and the second son of King Le Hien Tong and Queen Nguyen Thi Can, also known as Chieu Nhan Hoang Thai.
Mother of King Le Uy Muc was from Phu Chan village, Dong Ngan district, Bac Giang province. Le Uy Muc ascended the throne on January 22, 1505, after his older brother, King Le Tuc Tong, who ascended the throne in 1504, passed away at the age of 17.
About the ascension of King Le Uy Muc, the book “Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu” states: “In the twelfth month of the year 1505, on the 6th day, King Le Tuc Tong met with the court officials, Binh Son hau Le Quang Do, Cong Xuyen ba Le Nang Nhuong, and other civil and military officials, and said: I am not recovered from illness, and I am worried that I won’t be able to handle the heavy responsibilities.
The second son of the late emperor is Tuan, a wise and filial person, capable of inheriting the throne and taking care of the people.
The court officials and the officials are requested to assist in the great cause. Any prince who dares to surpass the heavens, the people in the country will kill him together.
On the 7th day, the king became gravely ill. On the 8th day, the king passed away in the Hoang Cuc Palace, leaving edicts for the officials to mourn him with appropriate rituals.
On the 18th day, the commander of the central troops, Binh Son hau Le Quang Do, the commanders-in-chief Tu An su Le Nang Nhuong, along with the ministers, nobles, generals, and officials from the five provinces, six ministries, Royal Historiographical Institute, Eastern Assembly, Han Linh (Imperial Academy), Luc Tu (Six Ministries), Luc Khoa (Six Departments), and the representatives of the thirteen regions, went to the Huang Ming Palace to welcome the second son of Hien Tong to ascend to the throne as Emperor Tuan. A new era was declared, and the first year was named Doan Khanh.”
However, contrary to the belief in a “wise and filial” king that King Le Tuc Tong had hoped for, King Uy Muc was completely a playboy, indulging in excessive drinking, beautiful women, and brutally killing many innocent people.
Right after King Le Uy Muc ascended to the throne, he killed his grandmother, Queen Truong Lac, the former queen of King Le Thanh Tong, simply because Queen Truong Lac had refused to support the enthronement of King Le Uy Muc.
Although the crown prince Tuan was chosen as the successor under the delegation of his younger brother, King Tuc Tong, Queen Truong Lac strongly objected.
According to her, Crown Prince Tuan was the son of a concubine, born in humble circumstances and not properly educated, and it was unacceptable for him to become the emperor.
The reason why Queen Truong Lac said so was that the mother of King Le Uy Muc, Nguyen Thi Can, was orphaned at a young age and came from a poor family, so she sold herself to a minor official in Dong Do.
When this person committed a crime, Nguyen Thi Can was captured by the court and became a palace maid in the Forbidden City. At that time, Queen Truong Lac was living in her own palace, and Nguyen Thi Can became a maid there.
King Hien Tong, who was then a crown prince, visited his mother and fell in love with Nguyen Thi Can at first sight, and then took her as a concubine. Nguyen Thi Can gave birth to Prince Tuan and then passed away.
At that time, Kinh Phi, who was originally an imperial concubine of King Hien Tong, took Tuan as his foster child. Prince Tuan kept the grudge in his heart.
Not long after ascending to the throne, King Le Uy Muc ordered the execution of his grandmother, Queen Truong Lac, because she had opposed his ascension to the throne.
According to the books, “Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu”: “The mother of the king is Queen Chieu Nhan Nguyen Thi Can, who was originally a maid named Can in Phu Thi’s residence in Phung Thien. After she committed a crime, she was captured and became a palace maid of the Queen of Quan Ninh.
When Hien Tong was still a crown prince and saw her beauty, he fell in love with her and took her as a concubine. In the 19th year of Hong Duc (equivalent to 1488), on the 5th day of the 5th month at the hour of the Rat, the king was born.
In the 1st year of Thai Trinh (equivalent to 1504), when Tuc Tong passed away and did not have a successor, the secondary queen Kinh Phi Nguyen Thi conspired to establish a king in the Forbidden City, and finally ascended to the throne.
She changed the era, took the date of the king’s birth as Thien Khanh Thanh Tiet, and proclaimed Quynh Do as the capital with the title Uy Muc Hoang De.
On the 22nd day, Queen Nhan suddenly passed away at the Truong Lac Palace at the age of 65. Previously, when Tuc Tong passed away without a successor, Nuoi Vi wanted to establish a king and Thanh Thanh Tong believed that the king was the son of a concubine, unable to continue the heritage, and insisted on establishing Lu Khoi Vuong (Duke Lethal).
At that time, Nhu Vi closed the city gates and established a new king. The queen already had a king, and was not happy. Later, the king ordered the officials to secretly kill the queen and mourn for seven days.”
Not only did he kill his own grandmother, but since he ascended to the throne, King Le Uy Muc also harbored suspicions and hatred towards his uncles and cousins who had refused to assist him in his ascent to the throne, killing them all, including Le Van Le, the Minister of Rites, and Nguyen Quang Bat, the Minister of Royal Guard.
King Le Uy Muc’s revengeful actions were also recorded in the book “Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu”: “Previously, when King Hien Tong was bedridden, his mother gave birth to a king, Queen Chieu Nhan Nguyen Thi, the concubine whom Hien Tong loved, gave birth to a king but passed away early.”
The secondary queen Kinh Phi did not have a son, so she raised him as her own and wanted to make him king, afraid that the great generals would not follow her. She offered bribes, but Van Le did not accept them. When Hien Tong was in critical condition, Van Le and Quang Bat received the imperial decree to assist the crown prince in ascending to the throne.
At that time, the princes competed to proclaim themselves kings. Van Le feared that there would be upheaval in the confusion, so he secretly took the national seal and returned home, and then, together with the civil and military officials, made Tuc Tong the Emperor.
King Uy Muc was extremely angry. Using the scheme of Khuong Chung, Nguyen Nhu Vi was falsely accused of treason and was killed by the king.
When they arrived at the Chanh Phuc district of the Trung Quoc River, the king ordered someone to chase after them and force them to commit suicide. When they were about to throw themselves into the river, they recited a poem in Quoc Ngu (Romanized Vietnamese script) before perishing. The unborn child in their womb was known by everyone to have died innocently, but the king blamed Nhu Vi and killed him.”
In addition, King Le Uy Muc secretly sent someone in the palace, Nguyen Dinh Khoa, to investigate his siblings, uncles, and cousins, and expelled them to Thanh Hoa.
Therefore, Kinh Vuong, whose real name was Kien, the youngest son of Le Thanh Tong, the younger brother of Le Hien Tong, and the uncle of Le Uy Muc, was afraid of trouble and avoided being discovered in order to prevent the king from finding his trace.
Gian Tu Cong Le Oanh, the grandson of Le Thanh Tong, the son of Kien Vuong Tan, who later became King Le Tuong Duc, was also arrested and imprisoned.
King Le Uy Muc also demonstrated himself as a merciless killer. Often, the king ordered people to fight each other as an entertaining spectacle right in the palace.
The books recorded that one day, when the people returning from the Nam Giao festival were passing through the Dong Hoa gate, King Le Uy Muc rode an elephant and arrived with his Ti and Ve troops from the Five Phu, bringing the elephants for the king to choose.
Then, the king ordered the local officials to bring more elephants from the capital for further selection. The sole purpose of King Le Uy Muc was to find two elephants, Ngu Tuong and Ngu Ma, for the king’s procession.
The king dressed the soldiers in the Ngu Tuong unit with mercury-colored hats adorned with kneeling rose patterns. Every day, the king sent two guards to fight with each other. The two guards fought with sticks from the Thanh Duong gate to the Thai Mieu gate.
The king was fascinated by the sight of the two guards fighting and rewarded them with silk money. Moreover, even though he was only twenty years old, King Le Uy Muc had a wicked pleasure of killing people.
Every night, King Le Uy Muc would summon the concubines and palace servants into the palace to attend to him. The king and the concubines and palace servants would drink excessively and engage in revelry.
Most horrifyingly, when drunk and after merry revelry, the king would then kill all the concubines and palace servants he had just embraced.
King Le Uy Muc’s penchant for killing innocent people was also shown through the edict he issued to kill all the people who were captured and made slaves in the estates of the aristocracy and nobles during that time.
Indulging himself in merry revelry and satisfying his twisted desires, King Le Uy Muc neglected the affairs of the state.
When an ambassador from China visited Dai Viet, he saw Uy Muc and composed a poem calling him the Demon King, and the main idea was: The Southern Peace will last for four hundred years / How could a Demon King, born in such a sky, come into being? From then on, the infamous nickname Demon King or King Demon was associated with King Le Uy Muc.
Furthermore, King Le Uy Muc trusted and delegated power to his relatives from his wife’s and mother’s sides. Consequently, during that time, the supreme power in the royal court fell into the hands of the relatives of the queen and the king’s mother. Therefore, all the military power in the court was concentrated in the hands of external favorites.
There were external favorites from Hoa Lang, the hometown of the adopted father, in the east. In the south, there were external favorites from Nhan Muc, the hometown of the queen. In the north, there were external favorites from Phu Chan, the queen’s hometown.
The external favorites relied on the power and support of the king, oppressing hundreds of officials and thousands of subjects. Some used their fingers to secretly plan to embezzle money.
They took away all the treasures, precious items, and marked the initials on them to claim ownership. They plundered all the assets of the people, whether it be livestock or luxury goods. Every household that had rare and valuable items was marked for confiscation. The people complained, but the king did not relent and instead harbored doubts, suspicion, and jealousy.
Officials and people who did not flatter the king in the past were often killed. They then devised various schemes to confiscate valuable assets of the country. What was more wicked was that they also killed innocent people, confiscating all the wealth from the people.
The downfall of the Demon King
This young king, indulging in debauchery and excesses such as alcohol, beautiful women, and cruelly killing people, met a tragic end after ruling for 4 years.
Among the children of Kien Vuong Le Tan who were imprisoned, Gian Tu Cong Le Oanh bribed the guards and was released, fleeing to Tay Do (Thanh Hoa), where a disgraced official named Nguyen Van Lang established him as a rebel leader against King Uy Muc. Luong Dac Bang was ordered to write a poster calling for the officials to join.
Afterward, Gian Tu Cong Oanh quickly recaptured Dong Kinh (Hanoi). Having captured Uy Muc, he ordered the self-proclaimed Demon King to commit suicide after ruling for 4 years. Uy Muc was only 21 years old at that time.
One month later, in the twelfth month of the year Ky Ty (1509), although Uy Muc was already dead, Gian Tu Cong Le Oanh, still resentful of Uy Muc for killing his family, had not calmed down. He ordered someone to load Uy Muc’s body into a large gun and fired it, obliterating his bones. Only a little bit of ashes were collected and buried in An Lang in Phu Chan village, the hometown of Uy Muc’s mother. At the same time, he conferred the title of Man Le Cong.
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