Ayutoya means "the city of eternal victory". Chinese people are more accustomed to calling it "Dadu". Louis XIV 's envoy once described it as follows: "Although the temple is the only abrupt carving in the world, I have never seen anything more beautiful than this."
shows what a prosperous dynasty it was in its prosperous period!
But how could such a powerful dynasty withdraw from the stage of history after more than 400 years?
The reasons are as follows:
First of all, at the end of Ayutaya dynasty, huge loopholes appeared in the internal ruling class, laying hidden dangers for the collapse of the dynasty building.
Secondly, the intensification of external contradictions, and the internal contradictions are only indirect reasons, and the direct reason is the death of an external force with one blow.
Finally, it is considered both historical reasons and personal reasons. The political and economic that were too excellent in the early stage were handed over to some monarchs who had no talent, and the final outcome was death.
The throne changed frequently
The Ayutah dynasty lasted a total of 417 years, and a total of 35 rulers were passed down. If calculated on average, the reign of one ruler can probably reach about 12 years.
However, just as this dynasty was about to perish, three kings were passed on in just three months!
This directly led to the further panic caused by the death of the 32nd reign to the dynasty.
Panic of the ruling class has also caused panic among the people. Once phenomena such as "the king's flag changes on the city wall" occur, it means that the war is waiting for an opportunity not far away.
Neighbors threatened, war broke out everywhere
From the first to the ninth century AD, there were many small countries in the Indochina Peninsula.
Later, with the social development and ethnic integration of this region, several larger multi-ethnic feudal dynasties emerged after the 10th century AD.
A feudal dynasty means annexation, and annexation means a war.
During this period, due to the continuous annexation between several dynasties, several dynasties continued to prosper and decline. They then continued to fight, which led to continuous wars on the Indochina Peninsula after the 10th century.
But we only look at the war between Myanmar and Siam , which led to the final demise of the Ayutah dynasty.
Myanmar's first feudal dynasty - Bagan dynasty converted to Tongyu Dynasty after the failure of the Third Dimension Myanmar War. During this period, the war was still raging, but the entire Myanmar dynasty has begun the process of unifying Myanmar under the leadership of Mangruiti .
According to the history of Myanmar, after Mang Rui became aware of Myanmar, he had a conflict with Siamese who had arrived in Tanah Salin. But at that time, Mang Ruiti did not want to fight with the Siamese people, and Myanmar had not yet been unified, so it was time to rest and recuperate.
Myanmar then asked the Ayutah dynasty, which was a vassal state, to offer a white elephant , but the Siamese king at that time relied on his own mercenary from Portugal, and did not print this requirement, but was preparing to fight.
So Mangruiti In order to seek absolute power over the local area, invaded Siam in November 1548 and launched the first battle in Myanmar Siam.
In addition to elephant soldiers , cavalry and infantry, the Burmese army also had 400 Portuguese mercenaries equipped with musket . Among the three groups, there were 80 battle elephants, 800 war horses and 40,000 soldiers along the way where Mang Ruiti was located.
However, after the Burmese army surrounded the capital of Ayutah, the capital was unsuccessful. More than 1,000 Portuguese mercenaries defended the city in the city. The Burmese army fought long-range battles, and soon ran out of food. Mang Ruiti immediately withdrew his troops when he saw the situation.
The Siam army took advantage of the victory and pursued it, but did not want to fall into the ambush circle of Burmese people, and the relatives of the Siam king were captured.
As a last resort, the Siam king could only ask for peace, gave two white elephants and other valuable gifts, and agreed to continue to offer white elephants and money every year, which led the Myanmar side to agree to a ceasefire.
Mang Ruiti's era passed after he was murdered and died, and what followed was the reign of his brother-in-law Mang Yinglong .
Burmese people have always believed that the Ayutah dynasty had always had the idea of invading the northern neighbors Chiang Mai and Laos , but these places also seemed to be what Myanmar wanted, so the war between the Ayutah dynasty and Myanmar continued until the demise of the Ayutah dynasty.
Mang Yinglong's rule was the most aggressive in Burmese history. He annexed and annexed multiple places and never gave up his conquest of Siam.
The fuse of the Second Myanmar-Sien War is said to be because the Siam King got 7 white elephants. Myanmar asked him to give 2. The Siam people disagreed and politely refused, which triggered the Second Invasion of Siam War by Mang Yinglong.
Mang Yinglong's war seemed to have been planned for a long time. After mobilizing a large army, in December 1563, he led five armies south to the Salwin River and entered the territory of Siam.
This battle caught the Siamese people off guard. Soon the northern land of Siam fell, and the son-in-law of the Siamese king also surrendered.
Mang Yinglong was not satisfied with this, but continued to go south and surrounded Ayutaya City. Countless houses and temples were destroyed. Siam finally agreed to use 4 white elephants and countless treasures as conditions for surrender, and sent the prince and the ministers of the pro-war faction to Myanmar as hostages.
was forced to surrender twice in succession, which made the old Siam king who had already escaped from the monk return to his country and planned to break away from Myanmar's control with the prince, which also found a reason for Mang Yinglong's third invasion of Myanmar.
1568, the third invasion of Myanmar war began, and Mang Yinglong's army still invaded from the north and headed south.
There are different opinions on the military power of Myanmar these two times. The Myanmar chronicle records that the second time was 600,000, and the third time was 545,000. The second time was " Siamese History " compiled by Wu Di said that the second time was more than 900,000, the third time was more than 1 million, and the second time was more than 300,000.
In short, "regardless of which number is the correct number, the army commanded by Mang Yinglong is indeed unprecedented in Southeast Asia."
The Myanmar Army relied on the support of more than a thousand Portuguese mercenaries equipped with smoothbore gun and cannons, and in December 1568 it attacked the city of Ayutthaya.
Although the Siamese people fought to the death, the 32nd Siamese King suddenly passed away. The government and the country were in turmoil and panic. In just three months, three monarchs were changed, and the morale of the Siamese army was greatly reduced.
Finally, under the methods of the Myanmar army cutting off the supply of materials in the city and sow discord, the Ayutaya Dynasty finally fell on August 30, 1569.
571, the previously captured Prince Nalixuan returned to China to restore the Ayutah dynasty. In June 1584, Nalixuan declared the independence of Siam.
581 Mang Yinglong ended his life of great war, and his son Mang Yingli took over as the King of Burma. Mang Yingli did not have the outstanding achievements of his father. During his reign, he launched 5 wars invasions of Siam, but none of them succeeded.
During his reign, Nalixuan not only successfully resisted Myanmar's five attacks, but also maintained peace for more than 150 years for Myanmar and Siam.
752, the Yongjiya dynasty in Myanmar replaced the Dongyu dynasty, which was the last feudal dynasty in Myanmar history. In view of Nalixuan's annexation of small surrounding countries and control of trade ports, Alang Pat, the ruler of the Yongjiya dynasty, launched a fifty-year war of invasion of Siam.
Yongjiya dynasty launched a number of wars invading Siam. In 1764, Mengpu dynasty, the third-generation ruler of the Yongjiya dynasty, launched the final war of aggression against the fallen.
This army was divided into two teams, occupying Laos first and then taking Laos south, and the other team first occupied the earth tiles of south and then headed north.
This army had a total of 50,000 people, which took about a year to finally meet under the city of Ayutahya in early February 1766.
The Siam people and the Myanmar army resisted tenaciously for October for a long time. Finally, the Myanmar army dug tunnels to destroy the city walls and occupied Ayutaya on March 28, 1767.
A long and war-torn dynasty has finally come to an end.
The king is incompetent, internally corrupt
As the former king Bhumibol Aduedu said, "Unless the role of the monarchy is taken into account, any effort to study or attempt to understand Thailand is incomplete."
After the fifteenth century, the development of the Ayutaya dynasty reached a strong period, mainly due to the wise measures of the rulers at that time.
First of all, they strengthened centralized system . During the reign of King Delailogana, he separated from military and political affairs, formulated the "land-giving hierarchy" system, formulated the "in-house law", and reformed the judicial system, and turned the Ayutah dynasty into a feudal dynasty.
518, Ramat Bodhi II Reformed the military service system, and the army was directly controlled by the central government and strengthened centralization.
These rulers also deepened the royal rule with the support of the Sangha. Due to this dynasty's fanatical belief in Buddhism, the rulers gained support from the Sangha, that is, they gained support from the people.
The above measures greatly expanded the sphere of influence of the Ayutah dynasty and became one of the important international markets for Southeast Asian trade.
The expanded territory and foreign trade need to be followed up continuously before it can be maintained. Obviously, the Ayutaya Dynasty could not do this.
Such a rich family background may allow the rulers to squander for a few years, but unexpectedly, there will be no talent among the rulers afterwards. Everyone is busy with internal strife, and they will not stop internal consumption until the dynasty is destroyed.
History borrows from
A great dynasty like Ayutaya, which is so outstanding in both wealth, culture and politics, is ultimately unable to escape the fate of destruction. It is really sad.
But the reason is nothing more than the constant internal strife and external troubles, coupled with the foolish and incompetent rulers of later generations, they can only allow the once powerful Ayutaya dynasty to dissipate into the clouds of history.
Perhaps later people can still see the glory of that year in the ruins of the Ayutaya Dynasty. However, the true prosperity of this dynasty can only exist in the memories of those broken walls.
The Ayutaya Dynasty was destroyed, and only one lesson left to us is left. The prosperity of the country must be settled first. The prosperity of the country is closely related to the ability of the ruler. There is no internal dispute. Even a weak country can stand in the forest of powerful countries. If there is a dispute within, the country will be like rotten fruits inside. It looks good on the surface, but the toxins have penetrated into the bones.
