Even though the restored Lê emperors' rule was marked by civil strife and constant peasant uprisings, few dared to openly challenge their power for fear of losing popular support.

He joined a secret Taoist swearing commentary in Lũng Nhai, Thanh Hoá in winter 1416, with other 18 men, all swore will fought against the Ming Chinese, restore the Vietnamese independence and sovereignty.

[16] In November 1424, the Lam Sơn captured the Nghệ An citadel in a surprise attack from their base in Laos, leading to the retreat of the ethnic-Vietnamese Ming commander Lương Nhữ Hốt (Liang Juihu) to the north.

From their new base in high-density population Nghệ An, Lê Lợi's rebel forces captured the territory in modern-day central Vietnam, from Thanh Hoá to Đà Nẵng.

[17] By August 1426, the Lam Sơn rebellion launched an offensive to the north with new forces against a fresh Ming army commanded by Wang Tong in charge of defending northern Vietnam.

In December 1435, Thái Tông ordered general Tư Mã Tây to subdue the Tày chief Cầm Quý who having a ten-thousand army of raiders in the northwest region.

[28] In January 1436, the emperor ordered to make roads and canals from northwest region to the capital for showing the superior power of the Imperial court to the local tribes men.

Bang Co assumed the throne as Lê Nhân Tông (黎仁宗)[27] but the real rulers were Trịnh Khả and the child's mother, the young Empress Nguyễn Thị Anh.

Two things of note occurred: first, the Vietnamese sent an army south to attack the Champa kingdom in 1446; second, the Dowager Empress ordered the execution of Trịnh Khả, for reasons lost to history, in 1451.

[citation needed]In 1467, Lê Thánh Tông changed the name of the state to "Thiên Nam" (Heavenly South) to make the parallel position with their northern neighbor and shared classical culture more explicit.

[citation needed] Lê Thánh Tông introduced reforms designed to replace the Thanh Hoá oligarchy of Dai Viet's southern region with a corps of bureaucrats selected through the Confucian civil service examinations.

[37][38] A 1499 entry in the Ming Shilu recorded that thirteen Chinese men from Wenchang including a young man named Wu Rui were captured by the Vietnamese after their ship was blown off course while traveling from Hainan to Guangdong's Qin subprefecture (Qinzhou), after which they ended up near the coast of Vietnam, in the 1460s, during the Chenghua Emperor's rule (1464–1487).

Wei Chen planned to sell him back to the Vietnamese but told them the amount they were offering was too little and demanded more however before they could agree on a price, Wu was rescued by the Pingxiang magistrate Li Guangning and then was sent to Beijing to work as a eunuch in the Ming palace at the Directorate of Ceremonial (silijian taijian 司禮監太監).

The Confucian annalists portrayed him as a relatively good emperor who released many prisoners, stopping several construction works that posed heavy burden on his subjects, as well as reducing tributes from vassals and holding high-ranking officials in high regard.

In 1534, after Nguyễn Kim forces recaptured Thanh Hóa, Vũ Văn Uyên declared allied with Lê loyalists and Ming army to fought against the Mạc dynasty.

Third, the geography was favorable to them, as the flat plains of the North suitable for large organized armies ended at Nguyễn-controlled territory; the mountains of the central highlands reach almost to the sea.

With the Qing dynasty under the Kangxi Emperor serving as mediator, the Trịnh and the Nguyễn finally agreed to end the fighting by making the Linh River the border between their lands (1673).

Vũ Văn Nhậm installed Lê Duy Cận as Country Supervisor (Vietnamese: Giám quốc, chữ Hán: 監國) without Huệ's approval.

The Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Empire under the pretense of restoring Lê dynasty dispatched a large force of 200,000 soldiers, to invade Northern Vietnam, captured the capital Thăng Long.

In 1744, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Khoát of Đàng Trong (Phú Xuân) decreed that both men and women at his court wear trousers and a gown with buttons down the front.

[121] During the Lê dynasty, various forms of Vietnamese literature and art flourished, including poetry, painting, novels, hát tuồng, chèo, cải lương, and ca trù.

Xuande Emperor gave Lê Lợi the title "An Nam Quốc Vương" (King of Annam) and recognized internal Vietnamese independence and sovereignty (which would last until 1526).

[128] The 16th century political crisis caused severe damage to Vietnam's agriculture and conscription was required by incessant military campaigns; this was compounded by natural disasters, largely contributed to regular crop failures.

After Mạc Đăng Dung gained power in 1527, he sought to restore the economy by encouraging these unemployed peasants into the city and factories, pursuing massive handicraft and industrial manufacture as well as sea trading.

[130] Until the later 18th century, due to an epidemic, severe flooding in the Red River Delta, the immense corruption of the government and the rise of the Tây Sơn rebellion in Southern Vietnam that later spread to the entire country, devastated most of the economy and international trading, it played an important role in the collapse of the dynasty.

The Trinh lord and his families live in the 30-meter high Ngũ Long castle, near Tạ Vọng lake, which can be seen at its highest from the Red river..."[135][failed verification] In 1637, the Dutch successfully established commercial and diplomatic relations with Tonkin and maintained their trading station in Đông Kinh until 1700.

Worse still, after the protracted civil war with the southern Vietnamese kingdom of Quinam (or Đàng Trong) that ended in 1672, the Tonkinese rulers seemed to be more indifferent towards foreign trade as they were no longer in urgent need of a supply of weapons from the Westerners.

In 1535 Portuguese explorer and sea captain António de Faria, coming from Da Nang, tried to establish a major trading centre at the port village of Faifo.

[citation needed] Then, with the triumph of Emperor Gia Long, he repaid the French for their aid by giving them exclusive trade rights to the nearby port town of Đà Nẵng.

[citation needed] In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (1618–28) allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trịnh–Nguyễn civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor and to set up a customs house there.