Lê Lợi
In late 1421, a large Ming army marched to the Mã River valley to attack Lê Lợi and the Vietnamese rebels. A Laotian army with 30,000 men and 100 elephants from Lan Xang approached down the valley from the opposite direction. Lê Lợi was under the illusion that the Laotians were his allies. However, they sided with the Ming and joined the Chinese to laid siege on Lê Lợi. By the end of 1422, Lê Lợi was utterly defeated and sued for peace. In 1423 he was forced to returned to Lam Son. The Ming army offered a peace treaty, in which Lê Lợi paid an indemnity with unspecified amounts of gold and silver in return for food, salt, rice, and farm implements. However, the Ming arrested the messenger Lê Trăn. This raised suspicion to Lê Lợi and he cancelled the peace pact.