A Talented Prince With Poetry Ability
On the royal court of Emperor Tran Nghệ Tông, there was a prince named Phủ, the third son of King Tran Minh Tông. His mother was the concubine Lê Minh Từ, a cousin of Hồ Quý Ly. He was born in the year of Tân Dậu (1321) and died in the year of Giáp Tuất (1394) after a two-year reign (1370-1372) before passing the throne to his younger brother and holding the title of emperor for 22 years until his death.
Since he was young, Nghệ Tông received an education. In 1331, at the age of 11, during the reign of Emperor Minh Tông at the Trùng Quang palace, Nghệ Tông, then known as Prince Phủ, assumed the role of regent. When it started raining heavily, he composed a poem. It included the line: “An đắc tráng sĩ lực cái thế; khả ngực đại ốc chi đồi phong” (Why be a great man in a time when you can’t even shield the house from the wind). Thanks to this poem, he received a reward of 10 gold taels from the Emperor.
In the year of Kỷ Dậu (1396), while serving as the Prime Minister, he composed a poem to bid farewell to the envoy from the Ming dynasty, Ngưu Lượng, who came to pay respect to King Dụ Tông. In the same year, the incident of Dương Nhật Lễm’s ascension occurred, and his daughter (name unknown) was made queen.
In October of the year Canh Tuất (1370), he went into hiding in Đà Giang prefecture and secretly defended with Cung Tuyên vương Kính (the son of King Tran Minh Tông, Nghệ Tông’s younger brother, appointed as the Prince, then ascended to the throne as Duệ Tông in 1372), Chương Túc Quốc thượng hầu Trần Nguyên Đán, and Thiên Ninh princess Ngọc Tha (the daughter of Minh Tông, appointed as Lạng Quốc thái trưởng công chua, married to the king of Hưng Túc), gathering troops at the Đại Lại river (the Lèn river in Thanh Hoá) to raise an army.
No Intention of Becoming a King
Trần Nghệ Tông had no intention of becoming a king. However, Thiên Ninh princess told him: “The empire belongs to our royal family. How can we abandon it to others? You must go, I will deal with the domestic slaves.”
A month later, in January, he led his troops to the capital to regain the throne, taking the regnal title Thiệu Khánh. At that time, he was 50 years old. Among the feudal dynasties of Vietnam, he was the oldest king to ascend the throne.
Although he reclaimed the throne from Dương Nhật Lễm, he only held it for 2 years. From the month of January in the year Canh Tuất (1370) to the month of January in the year Nhâm Tí (1372), he abdicated the throne to his younger brother Cung Tuyên vương Kính, also known as Trần Duệ Tông – the one who had joined forces with him at Đại Lại two years before.
The act of abdicating the throne early and returning to the position of Emperor with the co-rule of the new king was a special regime of the Tran dynasty. However, compared to other kings, Tran Nghệ Tông only stayed on the throne for 2 years. Meanwhile, the previous kings of the Tran dynasty had longer reigns. For example, Thái Tông reigned for 32 years (1226-1258).
His viewpoint during the 2 years of his reign is clearly shown in a famous saying: “Previous dynasties had their own laws and systems, not following the rules of the Song dynasty, because whoever rules a country is the one who owns it, not someone else’s imitation.
Around the time of Đại Trị (reign of Dụ Tông 1358-1369), the pure white-faced scholars were used without truly understanding the profound meaning of legislation, replacing the old laws of the ancestral temple with those of the northern customs, such as clothing, music, etc. This was truly unreasonable.” (Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, vol. 2, page 151). The chronicle also mentions: “The early court rituals followed the old customs of the Khai Thái era” (the reign of Trần Minh Tông from 1324 – 1329).
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