I wrote this timeline a long time ago, but stopped and started feverishly for a while until I finally gave up. But now, I'm restarting it! Rewritten and everything!
Rise of the Krung Tai
A Timeline by Darren Bitter
Excerpt from "Sons of Indraditya: A History of the Ayutthayan Empire"
The city was falling. That great lady Ayutthaya, that for many years had stood in splendid imperial glory, casting her rule over the narrow valley of the Chao Phraya(1), was being violated and raped in a manner only Burmans could stomach.(2) Even as Burman cannon hammered the walls and their infantrymen clamored for an entrance into the city, however, one man climbed the city walls and called the people to him. This man, leprous, one-eyed, and crippled, nevertheless projected an aura of greatness and command that the people of the city instinctively came to. And so the great Dhammaraja(3) Somdet Phra Chao Ekkathat spoke of the ancient glory of Ayutthaya, and of the divine nature of its original era(4), and of the strength and of the courage of its arms. It is said that then, the people of the city rejoiced and took up their arms once again, for a final, desperate defense of the city. And no matter whether it was the moral weakness of their enemies, the staunch courage of they themselves, or the intervention of great Vishnu himself, it was on that day that Ayutthaya was saved, and allowed to rise once again.(5)
The Battle of Ayutthaya
Notes
(1) The river that runs through central Thailand. Traditionally held sacred by the Tai (yes, Tai) peoples.
(2) This guy isn’t biased at all, huh?
(3) “Ideal ruler”, the Ayutthayan Buddhist title of the king. The later reference to Vishnu may perhaps confuse you who know the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism; the Ayutthayan dhammaraja was believed to be the avatar of Vishnu, Indra, and Shiva, and a Bodhisattva so as to appeal to both major religions.
(4) I stole that from Frankenstein (“…it is difficult for me to remember the original era of my being…”). Wonderful turn of phrase. Mary Shelley could really write.
(5) And we’re off! Ayutthaya has been saved by their lazy, terrible king and will soon be on the rise again.
Excerpt from "Sons of Indraditya: A History of the Ayutthayan Empire"
Ekkathat had saved Ayutthaya. The Krung Tai of the Chao Phraya were still menaced by the Burmese forces who continued to occupy much of the valley. The chakravartin(1), knowing that the few Krung Tai still bearing arms were little better than peasant soldiers(2), was left without mortal answers. One warm night upon which the sky was clear and the stars bright, Ekkathat left the Wat Chaiwatthanaram(3)—he had been seeking advice from the teacher therein—and sat in its great garden. As he did so, he observed the moon rise up from the west and beheld upon its surface his brother Uthumphon’s face(4), adorned with a crown of stars. Around his brother, an army of constellations, armed with firearms, marched in perfect order. Falling on his knees before the vision, he swore that he would summon his brother from the monastery where he had cloistered himself and anoint him as the rightful uparaja(5) and future dhammaraja.
Returning to his palace in the heart of the city, he did such, and, further, sent the kalahom(6) Taksin to the foreign quarters of the city to find gunsmiths and mercenaries willing to work for him. The kalahom did so, and several hundred mercenaries from the Austrian Netherlands, led by famed adventurer Jan van Ruyts, were presented to the chakravartin, accompanied by several tens of Portuguese gunsmiths, their temporary spokesman being one Joao Alencar. Ekkathat spoke to these men feelingly, telling them of the difficulties the Krung Tai were facing as their dreaded enemies raped the countryside(7). The dhammaraja, displaying humility worthy of the Buddha himself, fell on his knees before the foreigners, tearing his clothes in anguish and begging them to help him save his people(8). Filled with awe by this display of holiness(9), van Ruyts and Alencar agreed to help him. Van Ruyts set to work training a host of new volunteers numbering two thousand in the use of firearms and European military tactics, whilst Alencar began organizing the production of enough weapons for these and the seven hundred Nederlander mercenaries who had agreed to fight with them.
Four months passed, as the Burmese king Hsinbyushin besieged Sukhothai in the north, and the men were finally ready. Placing the army under the joint command of kalahom Taksin and uparaja Uthumphon, Ekkathat sent them to save the ancient capital of the great dhammaraja Ramkhamhaeng. He himself knew that his death-time was coming, and so fasted and prayed in Wat Chaiwatthanaram to prepare for death’s coming. Taksin and Uthumphon launched a campaign of rabbab(10) warfare against the Burmese, ambushing small detachments and strangling Hsinbyushin’s supply lines. By the time monsoon season had come, Hsinbyushin’s forces were starving and trapped outside of the walls of Sukhothai while the city bravely fought on. With very little choice left to him, the Burmese king attempted to fall back from the city to his own borders to recuperate—his force was yet hampered by the monsoons and was forced to move at the pace of a snail across the occupied, rebelling territories. Near the end of the year, Taksin and Uthumphon ambushed the Burmese army in Uttaradit, a province near the border, and destroyed it, capturing Hsinbyushin himself(11). The Burmese was forced to sign a humiliating treaty in which he ceded most of his eastern and southern territories, including the Valley of Rubies, to the kingdom of the Krung Tai, and release the Mon as an independent kingdom. Returning to Ayutthaya in triumph, Uthumphon and Taksin were received with terrible news; Ekkathat had died. Uthumphon was now king, and was crowned as the monsoon season trailed off.
But this was not to be the end of the tribulations of the Krung Tai….
Wat Chaiwatthanaram
Notes
(1) Another title of the king, meaning “universal ruler”. This is a concept in Hinduism; a powerful avatar of Vishnu who, due to the fact that he essentially is a god, causes the entire world to be both bound by the laws he adheres to and creates. This is an important concept in Ayutthayan legalism, creating a king who is not a father to his people—as most other Indochinese monarchs were—but a living god who bent the world to his will. This is reflected in the fact that the Ayutthayan court had its own language (in Thai, Rachasap, in Sanskrit, Rajasabda), created and monitored by the dhammaraja.
(2) Worse, in fact.
(3) An ancient Buddhist temple at the heart of Ayutthaya.
(4) This is the part where you shouldn’t trust the narrator. Just a heads up.
(5) “Viceroy”, or, more correctly as relates to the actual position, “crown prince”.
(6) “General”.
(7) This is true.
(8) This, not so much.
(9) Probably more by the offers of vast amounts of wealth and threats of violence.
(10) Guerilla warfare, essentially.
(11) True, but Hsinbyushin’s force was worn down by attrition, long forced marches, and suckiness of Thai weather.