Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
During the siege, about a year before Ayutthaya fell, a Siamese general named Taksin
managed to break out of the city with five hundred troops and he headed for the east
coast, to Rayong, far away from Burmese influence. He was too late to save Ayutthaya,
but at Chantaburi and along the eastern coast he built up an army of 5,000. With a land
assault impractical, Taksin assembled a fleet of ships and sailed up the Chao Phraya to
Thonburi, where the Burmese had installed a puppet governor. The Thonburi forces were
overpowered and the governor executed. Taksin and his men sailed on up the river and
drove the invaders out of Ayutthaya and back across the border into their own country.
Ayutthaya was no longer habitable, and so Taksin as the new ruler had to make a very fast
choice of location for a new capital. He selected Thonburi. There was already a thriving
community, a port and fortifications, and the river and canals formed a moat.
Taksin's kingdom
Taksin is one of the most remarkable figures in Thai history. He was part Chinese, his tax-
collector father having been Teochew Chinese and his mother Siamese. The boy was given
the name of Sin, and showing great promise he had joined the service of King Ekkathat.
Eventually he rose to become the governor of Tak, a province in the north of Thailand that
borders Burma. This brought him the title of Phraya Tak, or Lord Tak, and from there he
became popularly known as Phraya Tak Sin. He was crowned king at Wang Derm Palace
in Thonburi on 28
th
December 1768, at the age of 34.
Much of the new king's reign was devoted to warfare. Several of the provinces in
the east, north and south had broken away and were declaring themselves independent.
Taksin waged campaigns against the rebels, he drove the Burmese out of Lanna, and he
extended his power into Laos, Cambodia, and part of the Malay peninsula. Despite an al-
most continual state of warfare—and Taksin was a king and a general who led from the
front—he still paid a great deal of attention to the transformation of Thonburi from gar-
rison town to capital, renovating temples and building new ones, ordering canals to be
dug, promoting trade with other countries including China, Britain and the Netherlands,
and encouraging education and the arts. He brought in prisoners of war from his battles
and used them as labour.
Craftsmen who had survived the destruction of Ayutthaya settled in Thonburi and
formed their own communities. With China supplying money and manpower, Chinese
traders thrived. The Portuguese, who supplied Taksin with arms and ammunition, were
