Lê Chiêu Thống (1765–1793), born Lê Duy Khiêm and later Lê Duy Kỳ, was the last emperor of the Vietnamese Later Lê dynasty. He was overthrown by the Tây Sơn dynasty. He appealed to the Qing dynasty of China to help regain the throne but failed after losing the Battle of Ngọc Hồi-Đống Đa. Afterwards, he no longer received support from the Qing Qianlong Emperor, relatives of the Later Lê imperial family were imprisoned in Vietnam, and he died in China. Furthermore, the Qianlong emperor banished the remaining members of the Lê family to border regions of the Qing dynasty such as Xinjiang and Heilongjiang.

The Lê dynasty, also known in historiography as the Later Lê dynasty, officially Great Việt, was the longest-ruling Vietnamese dynasty, having ruled from 1428 to 1789, with an interregnum between 1527 and 1533. The Lê dynasty is divided into two historical periods: the Initial Lê dynasty before the usurpation by the Mạc dynasty, in which emperors ruled in their own right, and the Revival Lê dynasty, in which emperors were figures reigned under the auspices of the powerful Trịnh family. The Revival Lê dynasty was marked by two lengthy civil wars: the Lê–Mạc War (1533–1592) in which two dynasties battled for legitimacy in northern Vietnam and the Trịnh–Nguyễn Wars between the Trịnh lords in North and the Nguyễn lords of the South.