ABSTRACT
The segment of Vietnamese society that sought to establish the Ming Sinic pattern in their state and society formed from those educated in classical Chinese texts and thought. This chapter describes the Vietnamese adoption of the Ming pattern in their examinations, administration, law, and ideology. It focuses on the ritual core of the new system, that by which the Vietnamese rulers originated their Sinic reforms. The chapter examines the 1430s with a court debate over the nature of the proper ritual to be performed, leading to the decision to install the contemporary Ming pattern. The new rulers and aristocracy had just emerged from the highlands, near what is the Lao border region, and a decade of war against the Ming occupiers. This young ruler, Le Thanh-tong, pushed for what he termed a “Restoration” and under its guise brought the Ming bureaucratic style of government fully into Dai Viet.
