1426
Le Loi's Rebels Ambush Ming Army at Tot Dong
After years of hit-and-run fighting, Le Loi's Lam Son insurgents lured a Chinese relief force into marshland near the Red River and destroyed it. The Ming occupation began its retreat. Vietnam's founding myth of resistance against northern invaders gained its most usable hero. The victory forced Ming China to negotiate, and within two years the Chinese garrison withdrew entirely, ending twenty years of occupation.
Mamluk Sultan Barsbay Monopolizes Spice Trade
The Mamluk sultan of Egypt imposed a comprehensive royal monopoly on the enormously profitable spice trade passing through the ports of Alexandria and Beirut, taxing Venetian and Genoese merchants heavily on every sack of pepper and cinnamon. European frustration with Mamluk price controls and arbitrary tariffs became one of the driving commercial forces behind Portuguese exploration of an alternate sea route to India around the southern cape of Africa.
Mamluks Conquer Cyprus
Sultan Barsbay's fleet invaded the Lusignan kingdom of Cyprus, defeating King Janus at the Battle of Khirokitia and carrying him back to Cairo in chains through streets lined with jeering crowds. The king was ransomed for two hundred thousand ducats and forced to accept humiliating Mamluk suzerainty over his diminished island. The last independent Crusader-descended kingdom in the eastern Mediterranean had been thoroughly humbled by an Islamic power.