Marquis Lệ Đức, born Lê Nghi Dân, was the fourth emperor of Lê dynasty in Vietnam. He ruled the country for a short time, about eight months until be deposed by a group of court officials. As he was deposed in a coup, later he was not given any temple name.
On 3 October 1459, Lê Nghi Dân launched a coup that killed Emperor Lê Nhân Tông, and then declared himself as Emperor.
Reign
He put the Era name as Thiên Hưng. The young emperor was very ambitious, and tried to reform the government. He changed the administrative system to "six ministries, six departments" which was considered as a brilliant policy and this system still be followed by his successors. For the foreign affairs, he requested the Ming Dynasty not to pay pearls as tribute. He also titled his brothers, Prince Lê Tư Thành as Prince Gia, Prince Lê Khắc Xương as Prince Cung and gave them new palaces as new properties. However, he was largely unsupported by many imperial court officials because he killed his brother, Emperor Lê Nhân Tông as a "inhuman" action. During his short-time reign, he had to face many conflicts and coups from the old officials, who followed his grandfather and father since dynasty foundation period. The Vietnamese historians reported the series of coups during Thiên Hưng's era as Thiên Hưng coup. In May 1460, some officials, notably Đỗ Bí, Lê Ngang, Lê Thụ secretly discussed about a coup against Lê Nghi Dân, but the discussion was leaked out and all of them were put to death. After this affair, emperor Thiên Hưng became more suspicious and he started installed his inner supporters into the Royal court's important official positions. It made him even more unpopular among court officials, and they finally began plotting against him. In 6 June 1460, a group of officials, notably Nguyễn Xí, Đinh Liệt, Lê Lăng, Lê Niệm,Nguyễn Đức Trung, launched another coup and successfully deposed Thiên Hưng Đế. He was demoted to Marquis of Lệ Đức, and does not have any royal mausoleum like the other Vietnamese rulers. Some unofficial reports stated that the coup leaders drove him to suicide, and Thiên Hưng Đế died in 1460, at the age of 21. However, also some others stated that he and her mother were just sent to exiled to Lạng Sơn and he lived there until his death in 1460. After the coup, the coup leaders wanted to put the second prince of Emperor Lê Thái Tông, Prince Lê Khắc Xương to the throne, but received his refusal. Therefore, they decided to place Prince Lê Tư Thành as the fifth Emperor of Lê dynasty.
