Thailand Ascendent

The Indian Ocean

In 1489 a Chinese embassy arrived in Bangkok, and began to argue that Ayudhya should cease in its actions against Pegu. Several decades of trade had so enriched Ayudhya that they were able to persuade the Chinese that Pegu was more profitably controlled by them. However the break in warfare whilst Ayudhya dealt with the Chinese had been sufficient for the kingdom of Pegu to strengthen its own defences.

The subsequent campaign against Pegu was disastrous, and shortly afterwards King Intharacha abdicated, leaving the throne to his brother Ramathabodi II. After securing the Moulmein province from the Mon who invaded after his brother’s disastrous campaign against Pegu, Ramathabodi sought to strengthen and build upon Ayudhya’s gains and reforms of the past 50 years.

Ramathibodi, began his reign in a pious vein constructing many Buddhist temples and monuments. He also began a series of public improvements expanding and improving the roads on the central Thai plain, and also through the vital Three Pagodas Pass to Moulmein province and its increasingly important port.

Ramathabodi also began a census of all abled bodied men to better co-ordinate military training . This would result later in his reign in the establishment of several military academies, and culminate in a text commissioned by him a “Treatise on Victorious Warfare. The treatise was concerned with the causes of war, martial arts and tactics.

The naval and shipping power of Ayudhya was also bolstered at this time by the Champa navy. The Champans had begun to flee their native country after the fall of their capital at Hue to Annam (Vietnam). An event that co-incided with increased Cambodian attacks on their southern provinces on the Mekong delta.

The growth of sea power helped to accelerate the on going change in Ayudhya from being a primarily land based empire to one with a more maritime outlook. Ayudhya had for the last fifty years been increasingly interested in encouraging trade to its ports. Expanding west to the ports of Moulmein, Tavoy, and Tenasserim, had increased the kingdom’s share of the trade on the Bay of Bengal. Allowing direct access to the trade, and replacing the indirect access Ayudhya had gained through its vassal state in Malacca. By the mid 1490s Ayudhyan ships made the voyage across the bay to Satagaon in Bengal, on the Houghly river, to trade for Indian cotton cloth, and dyestuffs. Their ships were also frequent visitors to Galle and Colombo on Ceylon increasing their contact with the Gujarati and Arabian traders. With the increase in Ayudhyan shipping came inevitably an increase in acts of piracy against it.

Piracy was particularly bad during the summer months when the main trade routes on the Bay of Bengal hugged the coastline. The coastline was a mix of mangrove forests, numerous inlets and islands, all of which gave excellent cover to pirates to conduct raids from. Ramathabodi began to improve the Ayudayan navy, in a similar vein to the improvements he made to his armies. Equipping ships for war, a few even mounted guns, acquired from Arabian traders. Ayudayan ships of the period were ill suited to this purpose, and the firing of a cannon could damage the structure of the ship.

Piracy was prevalent around the mouths of the Irrawaddy where ships rounding the difficult Cape Negrais made easy targets for Mon pirates, and the delta a safe retreat for the pirates. Ayudhya invaded Pegu, in an attempt to control the Mon. The Mon defenders were overrun, the port of Rangoon and Pegu itself fell to Ayudhya. The invasion was unable to enter the delta, the deltaic swamps proved uncrossable to an invading army. Piracy remained a problem to Ayudhya around the mouth of the Irrawaddy, particularly after the Mon warlord Brahmak formed a pirate fleet to enrich his impoverished domain.

Ayudhyan efforts to deal with Thai pirates in the Mergui Archipelago, off their own coast, met with a similar lack of success. There were too many safe havens, amongst the myriad islands, to patrol and the naval action made little difference to the danger piracy posed to shipping bound for the ports of Tenasserim and Mergui.

Elsewhere trade developed overland, especially with Luang Prabang, its new king Somphu, extending trade routes into Ayudhya across the Khorat Plateau. Trade also grew with Phnom Penh and the Cambodian Kingdom.

Ayudhaya seemed destined to dominate the trade, of South East Asia. A major change from seventy years earlier, when the kingdom had only indirect access to the Bay of Bengal through Malacca. The country had risen through the fall of its major competitor state Lan Na, in the 1450s and had steadily added to its territory ever since. Malacca itself was a loosely held tributary state from the 1460s, encouraging the early importance of trade to Ayudhya. The kingdom had later sought more direct access to western trade through its acquisitions on the Tenasserim coast. With the growth in trade came a slow growth in sea faring, Ayudhya was beginning to break away from its traditionally land based roots.

Politically Ayudhya was more advanced than its neighbours having begun in the 1430s and 40s a series of changes in its political structure. Instead of the king being reliant on local lords and rulers for manpower, Ayudhya had institutionalised its labour creating a bureaucracy. Labour and military service were controlled through a series of officials, while more effective than the feudal system, it still suffered from weaknesses in the loyalty of its officials. At the beginning of the 1490s this system was strengthened further by the undertaking of a census of men eligible for military service. Coupled with the increase in trade the system of institutionalised labour was working to make Ayudhya a well organised and prosperous kingdom.

But the year is 1509 Christian calenar, and in Malacca a strange ship has arrived.