Imaginary interview with Nguyễn Trãi
by Charactorium · Nguyễn Trãi · Literature · Politics · Military · 7 min read
We found him at Côn Sơn, among the pines and the murmur of a stream, an old man with his back bent over an inkstone still damp. The evening light fell upon the hills of the reconquered Đại Việt. He set down his brush, gestured for us to sit, and began to speak in a low voice, as one recites an ancient prayer.
—Do you remember the day your father was taken away to China?
How could I forget? It was the year of the fall, 1407, and the Ming columns were heading north with their chained captives. I followed my father Nguyễn Phi Khanh to the Nam Quan Pass, at the very threshold of the country, determined to share his exile. But he, his face turned toward the mountains of Đại Việt, ordered me to turn back. He told me, according to the law of Heaven, that weeping at his side was not true filial piety; that I must instead wash away the dishonor of the homeland and avenge his blood. I obeyed, as a son obeys. The tears burned, but I turned around. That day, my life ceased to belong to me: it became a debt to my father and to the kingdom.
That day, my life ceased to belong to me: it became a debt to my father and to the kingdom.
—How does one become a scholar in service to the throne in the Đại Việt of your youth?
Through books, for a long time, before dawn. As a child, at Nhị Khê, then in the home of my grandfather Trần Nguyên Đán, I wore out my eyes on the Four Books and the Five Classics, those scrolls where the Ancients deposited all the wisdom of government. The master repeated that virtue is formed by study and habit, just as the inkstone is hollowed by constant grinding of the ink stick. In 1400, the new Hồ court opened the examination, and I obtained the degree of Thái học sinh. I was twenty. It was not a personal triumph: the scholar who passes the examination does not serve himself; he becomes the instrument through which Heaven orders the affairs of men. One enters service as one enters a temple, with head bowed.
One enters service as one enters a temple, with head bowed.
—What did the brush mean to you, beyond the tool?
A brush of hairs, a bút lông dipped in fresh ink — that is the weapon of a man of letters, and it weighs heavier than a lance. Every morning, at the court of the Hậu Lê, even before audiences, I prepared memoranda and reports in chữ Hán for the king. The official seal, the ấn tín, then came to seal what the brush had traced: without it, the writing has no authority; it is only the babble of a solitary man. I learned that governing is first of all naming things justly, and that writing a decree poorly can ruin a kingdom as surely as a lost battle. The scholar holds the Way in his sleeve: he must tremble every time he sets the tip to paper.
A brush of hairs weighs heavier than a lance.
—What were those ten years of wandering that the chroniclers speak of?
Ten years of shadow, from 1407 to 1417, during which I fled the surveillance of the Ming from refuge to refuge. They first held me under house arrest at Đông Quan — our old Thăng Long they had renamed to erase our name — spared, it is said, because the official Hoàng Phúc found my face extraordinary. Then I made my way to the hills of Côn Sơn, the domain of my maternal ancestors. In the evening, with no company but the moon and the stream, I composed verses about the places I had passed through, about boats moored at night far from the homeland. Rice was often scarce, river fish too. But it was not hunger that gnawed at me: it was searching, among so many men, for a leader worthy of giving one's life.
It was not hunger that gnawed at me, but searching for a leader worthy of giving one's life.
—How did you know you had to join Lê Lợi?
Heaven sends its signs to those who can read them. It is said — and I do not deny it — that during my wanderings I spent a night at an inn near the Trấn Vũ temple. A dream visited me: a spirit appeared and revealed to me the name and face of him who would raise the country, Lê Lợi, the man from Lam Sơn. Upon waking, I took the road without hesitation. You may smile at a dream; but a scholar knows that the Mandate is not given by chance, and that true dreams are only the voice of Heaven speaking softly into the ears of the living. I had sought a master for ten years; he was shown to me in one night. The rest was only obeying the dream.
True dreams are only the voice of Heaven speaking softly into the ears of the living.
—They say your letters to the Ming generals were worth armies. How so?
A fortress is taken by hunger, a man by his doubts. During the Khởi nghĩa Lam Sơn, from 1418 to 1427, I wrote on behalf of Lê Lợi the correspondence intended for the Ming commanders and governors. In the afternoon, while others sharpened their sabers, I sharpened my sentences. To each I wrote according to his heart: to one, arguments of right, proving that Đại Việt is a kingdom and not a province; to another, offers of honorable peace to open him a way out; to the third, fear, depicting his army hungry and surrounded. Divide the enemy, sow discouragement in his ranks, make him leave of his own accord: that is a victory that does not crush the harvests nor make mothers weep. The best blood spilled is the blood one did not have to spill.
The best blood spilled is the blood one did not have to spill.
—Why so much insistence, in those letters, on the legitimacy of Đại Việt?
Because a war is also won in names. The Ming had renamed our country, calling it Giao Chỉ, as one erases the name of a dead man from an ancestor tablet — that was the Minh thuộc, their domination, which claimed that we had never existed as a kingdom. Every letter I sealed with the ấn tín reminded that Đại Việt had its customs, its sovereigns, its own Way, distinct from that of the North. It was not pride, but fidelity: a people that loses its name loses the Mandate that Heaven has entrusted to it. In writing that we were a kingdom, I was not lying to the enemy; I was speaking an ancient truth that the occupation had sought to bury. Restoring its name to the country was already beginning to make it free.
A people that loses its name loses the Mandate that Heaven has entrusted to it.
—After the victory of 1428, what place did you occupy at the new court?
When Lê Lợi founded the dynasty and became Lê Thái Tổ, I was counted among the Khai quốc công thần, the meritorious founders of the reign. I served as Nhập nội hành khiển, inner secretary in charge of royal correspondence, then was elevated to the rank of Thượng thư, minister of civil affairs. During grand audiences, I held before me the official tablet, the hốt, insignia of my office, and I bowed before the throne as is proper. But I confess to you: the man who has known ten years of wandering never fully rejoices in embroidered robes. I had seen too closely how light the favor of courts is, like a boat on a rising river. Serving upright in peace is harder than fighting in war.
Serving upright in peace is harder than fighting in war.
—Tell us about that lychee orchard that would sweep everything away.
A lychee orchard — what a peaceful place for a catastrophe. In 1442, I was sixty-two, retired and weary, when the young king Lê Thái Tông stopped near my home at Lệ Chi Viên, and died there in the night, with no source able to say how. The chroniclers themselves write that the circumstances remain obscure. I, who had devoted my life to washing away the country's dishonor, found myself accused of defiling the sacred person of a sovereign. There are evils that no brush, however skillful, can avert. The intrigues of a court are more deadly than the lances of the Ming, for they strike from behind, under the perfume of flowers. The lychee, that sweet red fruit, will forever taste of blood to my kin.
The intrigues of a court are more deadly than the lances of the Ming, for they strike from behind.
—What punishment was pronounced, and how was your name eventually cleared?
The heaviest our law knows: the tru di tam tộc, the extermination of the three lineages. Not only my own head, but those of my paternal family, my maternal family, and my wife's family — an entire bloodline erased for a crime that was never proven. Thus perished, in a single day, what three generations had built. If Heaven sees all, I told myself, it will not let injustice have the last word. Twenty-two years later, in 1464, King Lê Thánh Tông issued a decree that rehabilitated me and restored my honor. I had long been dust, but a name cleared is worth more than a life saved in infamy. That is the only revenge a scholar wishes for: that truth, one day, retakes its seat.
A name cleared is worth more than a life saved in infamy.
—If people read you in a century, what would remain of you, do you think?
Who am I to guess the judgment of generations to come? If I may imagine, I believe battles fade faster than words. The lances of Lam Sơn have rusted, but perhaps the verses I composed in exile, between Đông Quan and Côn Sơn, will still tell a child of Đại Việt what it means to love one's land. I would like people to remember less the minister in robes than the son faithful to his father's words at the Nam Quan Pass. A man is not his honors nor his torment; he is the fidelity he held to the end. May the brush have served the Way and the country — if one cares to remember that, I will rest in peace under the pines.
Lances rust, but perhaps verses will still tell a child what it means to love one's land.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Nguyễn Trãi's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.