Ho Quy Ly was originally Le Quy Ly, adopted by Le Huan, thus changing his name to Le. However, when he became emperor, he changed his name back to Ho. Ho Quy Ly had two aunts who married emperor Ming Tong of the Tran Dynasty. Therefore, he held a very high post (duke or marquis) in the Tran court. He later raised to the position of a king and held all the powers. A very ambitious man, he eventually seized the throne and forced his grandson (son of his daughter, who was a concubine of the Tran emperor) to abdicate, thus ended the Tran Dynasty in 1400. Adopting the Tran Dynasty's custom, he gave up the throne after a year and let his son ruled. However, he still held real powers from behind the curtains. However, in 1407, the Chinese invaded Vietnam and captured him and his sons, ending the Ho Dynasty.

Although the Ho Dynasty did not last long, however, Ho Quy Ly made a lot of changes. He knew that the Ming Dynasty would eventually invade Vietnam, therefore, he ordered a national conscription to increase the size of the army. He also made new, modernized warships with canons on them. His eldest son, Ho Nguyen Trung, was a great inventor who invented the canons, new ships and weapons. He was also a great economist. He was the first Vietnamese ruler to issue paper money to facilitate trades. Ho Quy Ly also paid a lot of attention to agriculture and education. He took fallowed lands and gave them to the poor to farm. In education he added mathematics as a new subject in testing.

Although Ho Quy Ly was a great man with lots of talents and ambitions, who was trying his best to make Vietnam a strong and powerful, both economically and militarity. However, he was severely condemned by historians as an upsurer. Nevertheless, since I admire his talents and ambitions. I would give him a 7 out of 10. One interesting fact: My mother wrote an essay on him in her entrance history exam before she could be a history teacher and got 4th place in all of the South of Vietnam.