Emperor Tran Du Tong

Early in the morning, water buffalo wade through the flooded fields, and someone calls to a neighbor to come out to the paddies. Far off, a thin thread of smoke rises from the kitchen of a thatched house. There is no sound of war drums at all. There are only birds, running water, and farmers laughing as they work. This was a peaceful morning in Đại Việt, an old name for Vietnam, in the early years of a very young emperor. He was Emperor Trần Dụ Tông.

His personal name was Trần Hạo. He was the seventh emperor of the Trần dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400.

His father was Emperor Trần Minh Tông. So Trần Hạo was born into a family that had long given the country kind emperors, one after another.

He took the throne in 1341, and he was still a small child. The emperor before him, Emperor Trần Hiến Tông, had just left the throne. At once a robe far too wide was laid over the shoulders of a little boy.

A child could hardly carry a whole country. Yet the boy emperor never had to stand alone.

Close behind him stood his father, by then Thượng hoàng, the retired emperor Trần Minh Tông. Because the emperor was so young, in those early years the father took on most of the court's work, large and small, and guided his son. He kept the affairs of the country running smoothly, and the country kept on prospering as it had before.

The warmest part of the story is this. The father's care did not stop at the court. It reached all the way to the rice bowls of the people. Whenever the harvest was poor, and whenever hunger struck some place, the retired emperor ordered taxes waived, again and again, and opened the storehouses to relieve the hungry, so that no household would go without food.

A farmer in those years, one can imagine, had a lighter tax burden and help in his hard times, so he could plow and plant with an easy mind. The fields turned green again. The rice ripened to gold. The meal in each home grew a little fuller.

Such days were precious because the years before them had been hard. The ancestors of the Trần family had driven back fierce armies three times. But by the time of this boy, the war drums had been silent for a long while. The smoke of battle had cleared. What remained were quiet days, when people could rest, rebuild their homes, and enjoy life. After so much hardship, a peaceful day like that was something people longed for.

This calm first stretch of the reign had a beautiful name, the Thiệu Phong era. It lasted from 1341 to 1357. All through those long years, villages quietly rose again and fields quietly grew greener, under the sheltering hand of the father who stood behind the throne.

In those peaceful days, the court still had many gifted men. Among them were Trương Hán Siêu and Nguyễn Trung Ngạn. And there was a famed scholar and teacher, whose name later generations still repeat, Chu Văn An. These learned men, who cared for the people, carried the work of the country together and helped make the early years of the reign firm.

A boy sat on the throne, with his father sheltering him from behind. Outside, the fields were resting after the harvest, houses were being raised again, and children played in the sun.

Some of the most precious things are simple. A harvest of rice gathered in safety. A village rebuilt without hurry after years of hard labor. A child growing up who has never heard the sound of war drums. Those peaceful years were not loud and not dazzling, yet they were a treasure that earlier generations had paid for with hardship.