Tây Sơn dynasty

The Tây Sơn dynasty was a Vietnamese imperial dynasty that briefly united the country at the end of the eighteenth century. It grew out of a peasant revolt led by three brothers of the Nguyễn family in Tây Sơn district, Bình Định. The brothers overthrew the Lê dynasty and the rival Trịnh and Nguyễn lords, ending a century of civil war and uniting Vietnam for the first time in about two hundred years. They took the official name Đại Việt and obtained recognition from the Qianlong Emperor of Qing China. Their most prominent leader, Nguyễn Huệ, ruled as Emperor Quang Trung from 1788 and presided over a period of relative peace and recovery. The dynasty's original base was Quy Nhơn, and it later established its capital at Phú Xuân, present-day Huế. Quang Trung died in 1792 at the age of forty, and his young successor Cảnh Thịnh could not hold the court together. Nguyễn Ánh, the last Nguyễn lord, rebuilt his power in the south, defeated the Tây Sơn and founded the Nguyễn dynasty in 1802. The Tây Sơn period is remembered for military reforms, land and currency policies, and the promotion of Vietnamese vernacular literature.