Emperor Le Nhan Tong

In a quiet library inside the royal palace, the air smells faintly of old paper. Dust drifts through a slant of afternoon sun that slips in through a crack in the door. The whole room is hushed. The only sound is a small hand turning the pages of a book. The hand belongs to a boy, and that boy is the emperor. Tall shelves heavy with old writings rise around him, and he is still only a youth.

The young emperor's birth name was Lê Bang Cơ, and later generations call him Lê Nhân Tông. He was born in 1441, the son of Emperor Lê Thái Tông. He was the third emperor of the Later Lê dynasty. He took the throne when he was very small, after his father died. He was so young that the empress dowager and the great officials of the court had to help look after the country.

A boy who had barely grown sat on the throne with a whole land resting on his small shoulders. Many people must have been anxious. But the older he grew, the more he set their hearts at ease.

In 1452 he was old enough to take the reins of the country himself, and he began to show the kindness of his heart. The old records praise him as a gentle emperor who cared for his people. He valued farming and treasured every grain of rice that the farmers grew. In the years of his reign, ordinary families lived in peace and warmth. Smoke rose steadily from the kitchens under the roofs, and the rice ripened gold across the fields.

He gave his reign two lovely names. At first it was called Thái Hòa, and later the name was changed to Diên Ninh. Thái Hòa means great peace and joy, and Diên Ninh means peace that lasts. Those two names alone tell us what was in the heart of the emperor who chose them. He wished his people to live in peace, and he wished that peace to stay for a long time.

His kindness was not only in names. While he ruled, he did much good for people who had little. He restored the rank of officials of merit who had suffered wrongs, and he gave land to their children and grandchildren. He supported the poor, and widows who had no one to turn to. In a time so long ago, a very young emperor who knew how to bend down and look at small, ordinary lives showed a heart worth admiring.

Now return to the quiet library. In 1453 the emperor was looking through the writings kept in the court library, and he found a precious book. It was Dư địa chí, a book of geography written by a worthy man of an earlier time. That man was Nguyễn Trãi.

Nguyễn Trãi was a scholar and statesman of the 15th century, a man of great talent and high virtue. He had given himself wholeheartedly to helping the earlier emperors build their realm and keep the peace. Yet his life had once held a wrong, a sadness that people of later times still speak of with pity.

When the young emperor held in his hands the pages the scholar had left, he fell silent. He recorded the loyalty of Nguyễn Trãi. Here, he said, was a faithful man who had helped Emperor Thái Tổ put down the unrest, and had helped Emperor Thái Tông set the country in good order.

Those words sound light, yet they weigh a great deal. They were like a warm hand laid on an old wrong. The young emperor could not turn time backward. But he did something beautiful. He looked again at the wrong done to a loyal and righteous man, and he gave back to him the good name he deserved.

So the story of Emperor Lê Nhân Tông is the story of a kind heart. He sat quietly in a library full of sunlight, held in his hands the pages of that scholar's book, and gave the scholar his good name back.