Overview
Le Loi founded the dynasty in 1428 after the Lam Son uprising drove out the Ming. Its zenith came under Le Thanh Tong (1460–1497): the Hong Duc legal code, a full Confucian examination state, and southward expansion — the 1471 campaign broke Champa’s power.
Key developments
From the sixteenth century the dynasty ruled in name only. The Mac usurped the throne in 1527; the country then divided between the Trinh lords in the north and the Nguyen lords in the south through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with Le kings as figureheads.
End and transition
The Tay Son brothers’ rebellion, from the 1770s, swept away both sets of lords. The Tay Son emperor Quang Trung crushed a Qing intervention at Ngoc Hoi–Dong Da at Tet 1789, and that year the last Le king fled to China.