Che Bong Nga's wars against Đại Việt

Che Bong Nga — called Ngo-ta Ngo-che in the History of the Ming and probably the Binasuor of Cham legend — became king of Champa about 1360. Taking advantage first of the decline of the Mongols, and then of an understanding with the first Ming emperor, who recognised him as king of Champa in 1369, he led campaign after campaign against Đại Việt. George Coedès lists them: in 1361 the pillage of the port of Da Li; in 1368 a defeat of the Vietnamese in present-day Quảng Nam; in 1371 an invasion of the Red River delta and the sack of Thăng Long (Hanoi); in 1377 the destruction of a Vietnamese army before Vijaya, where Emperor Trần Duệ Tông was killed, followed by a new invasion and another sack of the capital; in 1380 the pillage of Nghệ An and Thanh Hóa; in 1384 (by the Vietnamese annals, the summer of 1383) an attack by land; and in 1389 a victorious campaign that carried the Chams deep into the delta. Vietnamese annals record that Thăng Long was taken several times in these years.

In February 1390, as Che Bong Nga's fleet advanced along the rivers of the delta, a low-ranking officer betrayed him; his ship was surrounded and he was killed — by Vietnamese guns under Trần Khát Chân, according to the Vietnamese annals, while the Ming records say that his general La Khai had him murdered. La Khai took the throne and gave up the lands north of the Hải Vân pass that Che Bong Nga had recovered. Coedès warned against Georges Maspero's description of the reign as Champa's ‘apogee’: its military glory was like “the last rays of a setting sun”, and in 1471 Vijaya itself fell to Đại Việt.