[snorter]

“Although the Burmese threat was contained by 1804, Bangkok’s military expansion continued over the following decades”
“In the early 1800s, the Bangkok and Lanna troops went further north to seize Khoen, Lu and Shan.”
“In the 1820s, Bangkok began to tap the resources of the Khorat Plateau which was still largely unpopulated and open for expansion. In 1827-28, Bangkok went to war with the lao ruler of Vientiane, Jao Anu, who competed to control this frontier region. Bangkok’s armies destroyed Jao Anu’s capital and dynasty much the same as the Burmese had set on Ayutthaya sixty years earlier. People were then resettled from across the Mekong river onto the Khorat Plateau to increase it’s value as a source of trade goods.”
“After the 1827 war against Vientiane, over 150,000 were captured and some 50,000 marched down to the Chaophraya basin. In the 1830s, the Bangkok armies made six expeditions into the Lao regions, depopulating the left bank of the Mekong, and bringing back Lao Phuan from the Plain of Jars, Tai Dam from Sipsongchuthai, Khmer and Vietnamese.
Some of these people were resettled around Bangkok and employed to build the new capital. Some were resettled around the central plain to increase its capacity for growing rice. Others were placed on the Khorat Plateau to collect the forest produce demanded in trade to China.”