To avoid intruding on another thread, some interesting stuff about Thai History:
1767 to 1782.
‘King’ Taksin came just after the obliteration of Ayutthaya by the Burmese and moved the center of power to Thonburi.
“His origins are obscure. Possibly he was the son of a Teochiu Chinese migrant gambler or trader and his Thai wife”
“The remilitarization of society, initially for defence, resulted in an expansion of the Siamese capital’s territorial influence far beyond any earlier scope. In the north and south, Bangkok’s armies pacified areas disrupted by the Burmese invasions, and settled them as tributaries”
“In the aftermath, (of the Burmese invasion) Taksin and Yotfa (Rama 1) sent armies south, gained a warmer welcome from local rulers, and established Siam’s influence down to the Malay states of Kedah and Trengganu.”
“Chiang Mai had fallen under Burmese influence since the sixteenth century. Between the 1770s and 1804 Taksin and then Yotfa helped a local lord, Kavila, drive out the Burmese and re-establish Chiang Mai. Kavila’s successors remained querulous tributaries to Bangkok. Next, Taksin took the Lao capital of Vientiane, hauling away its prince as a hostage. He also burnt the Cambodian capital to the ground, and installed a puppet ruler.”
“Large numbers of the former population were carried away to Burma in 1767. Many more fled during this and subsequent campaigns. One purpose of Bangkok’s military expansion was to restock the population by forced resettlement. In the 1770s and 1780s, Taksin’s captured many thousands of Lanna Yuan, Lao Wiang, Lao Phuan, BlackTai and Khmer. The southern expeditions brought back several thousand Malays.”
Taksin was executed following a coup in April 1782 “on the grounds he had become mad”………..I can see why.
But then worse was to come….
