Taksin

King of Siam (r. 1768-1782)

• Born: April 17, 1734
• Birthplace: Ayutthaya, Siam (now Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Thailand)
• Died: April 6, 1782
• Place of death: Thonburi, Siam (now in Thailand)

After the Burmese defeated the army of Siam at Ayutthaya in 1767, Taksin rescued Siam by uniting the people who had fled from the invading army. He then became king and relocated the capital at Thonburi, across the river from present-day Bangkok, and began to revive and modernize the country.

Early Life

Taksin (TAHK-sihn) was a commoner born in Ayutthaya, then the capital of Siam (modern Thailand). His given name was Sin. His father, Hai-Hong, was Chinese, and his mother, Nok-lang, was Thai. His education began at the age of seven in a Buddhist monastery, where one of his fellow students was Tong-Duang (later General Chakkri, who became King Rama I). According to legend, a Chinese fortuneteller predicted that the two boys would both become kings.

At fourteen, Taksin became a royal page. Later, he was a trader and managed a fleet of carts. The king recognized his expertise in law, his intellectual abilities, and his managerial skills by raising him to the status of a noble and appointing him deputy governor of Tak Province; he later became governor. His name changed to Taksin while in Tak Province, where he evidently developed military skills that were later to set him apart from other generals.

Life’s Work

In 1765, Burma’s army approached Siam to make war, so Taksin returned to defend the city in the role of general, in recognition of which the king promoted him to be governor of Kamphaeng Phet Province. In 1767, after a fifteen-month siege of Ayutthaya, the Burmese defeated the outnumbered and hungry Siamese army, massacred the residents, looted the temples, and burned the city. As a result, the country was split into several parts.

Just before the city fell, Taksin escaped through the siege with a small army to the east coast, where he collected enough men, provisions, and weapons to counterattack the Burmese. In January, 1768, he led his army back toward Ayutthaya. En route, he defeated a Burmese garrison at Ban Pho Sanghan. When he crossed the Prachinburi River, Burmese forces attacked him but were also routed. Still marching toward Ayutthaya, he continued to pick up support, notably from the governor of Rayong Province after Taksin’s forces broke through enemy lines to enter Rayong City. Next, he advanced on Chantaburi. The governor of Chantaburi, however, was not prepared to welcome Taksin. To fire up his troops one night, Taksin dramatically ordered his men to finish dinner, throw away their leftovers, and smash all their rice pots, declaring that they would take Chantaburi City and have breakfast there the next morning.

In the Battle of Chantaburi, his troops first quietly surrounded the city, and Taksin then crashed through the city gates while riding an elephant. Next, Taksin won a battle in the Trat River against Chinese junks carrying cannon; he wanted the junks because the Burmese did not have a navy, and the junks were also carrying a lot of weapons and ammunition. Returning to Chantaburi, Taksin devoted three months to building up his army for an attack on the Burmese at the end of the monsoon season, when the areas around Ayutthaya would be flooded, thereby providing his forces with a definite advantage. After defeating the Burmese at Thonburi, he advanced on Ayutthaya. In October, 1768, in the Battle of Pho Sma Ton Camp at Ayutthaya, his forces completely defeated the Burmese. Soon, he was crowned king, and he moved the people to Thonburi (then called Chao Phraya San), which he designated the new capital.

While king, Taksin continued to drive the Burmese out of the country in at least eight major battles at border towns. He also subdued rival generals who did not accept his ascendancy, notably the Phimai, Phitsanulok, and Sawankhalok factions. While preoccupied by Burmese aggression, Siam’s vassal states had begun to assert their independence. Accordingly, he soon launched military campaigns to gain control over Cambodia, Chiang Mai, Laos, and Nakhon Si Thammarat. Nevertheless, he allowed the Malay vassal states to become independent. In 1779, the Emerald Buddha was taken from Laos to Thonburi. As Siamese power expanded, relations with Vietnam deteriorated, however. Siam, as never before, had become the dominant power in mainland Southeast Asia.

Because refugees from Ayutthaya lacked clothing and food, Taksin used his own money to import basic necessities. Soon, the economy started to recover, with the people resuming agricultural and other occupations. Taksin promoted trade with Britain, China, the Netherlands, and Portugal, believing that income derived from foreign commerce in gems, gold, lead, rice, spices, tin, and wood would serve to ease the tax burden on the people. From among the imports, a substantial number of guns was imported from Britain; ceramics and silks came from China.

The king constructed a canal and built roads. In addition to restoring and renovating temples, he revived the arts, including architecture, dance, drama, handicrafts, literature, and painting. In the field of education, he promoted religious studies. He reorganized the monastic order and in 1773 promulgated the monastic daily routine with the aim of restoring Buddhism to its former glory. Because the sacking of Ayutthaya destroyed many sacred writings, he sought to import critical Buddhist manuscripts for the capital at Thonburi. The government was handled by four ministries: agricultural, civic, financial, and palace affairs. The king handled judicial and military matters. In 1773, to ensure loyalty to the state, Taksin ordered all soldiers to be tattooed on the wrist.

At some point, Taksin began to suspect that some of his subjects were involved in smuggling or stealing from the treasury, so he sought informers. The informers then began to extort money from the rich merchants, even those not engaged in smuggling, and Taksin thus did not find their efforts of much help. One of the king’s wives was burned to death on a false allegation that she was stealing money from the treasury. Taksin, in short, became paranoid and oppressive. By 1781, Taksin imagined that he was a god. He demanded to have priests pay him the honors of a divinity. When some five hundred priests refused, he had them flogged, and the head priests were imprisoned. The rest submitted to his demands, but rebels launched a coup, arresting Taksin. On hearing of the unrest, General Chakkri, the top military commander and Taksin’s boyhood friend, returned to Thonburi from a military expedition in Cambodia, investigated the charges against Taksin, and then asked government officials to decide how to punish Taksin. In 1782, Taksin was executed. He had been of mixed blood, and many Thais preferred not to have a king who was part-Chinese. His legitimacy, since he was born a commoner, was questioned in several circles. Meanwhile, Chakkri, of pure Thai ancestry, was crowned king.

Significance

Under his leadership, Taksin stopped the Burmese advance, moved the capital closer to international trade routes, unified the country, restored Thai culture, reorganized Buddhist practices, and began a process of economic and political modernization. The Malay vassal states were allowed to become independent while Taksin concentrated his military attention on Burma, but he gained control over Cambodia, Chiang Mai, Nakhon Si Thammarat, and annexed Laos, thus making Siam the superpower in mainland Southeast Asia. With his removal from power, the Chakkri Dynasty began, and the capital and the Emerald Buddha were moved to Bangkok. The response to Taksin’s repressive actions at the end of his rule may have served to establish the principle that the Thai people have a right to expect rulers who are considerate, deliberative, progressive, and wise.

In recognition of his accomplishments, in 1954 the government began the practice of setting aside December 28, including a state ceremony, to honor him, though the day is not a public holiday. In 1981, the cabinet passed a resolution to name him King Taksin the Great. The election of a prime minister with the given name Thaksin Shinawatra (spelled differently in Thai) in 2001 has further revived interest in the king who restored Siam during the country’s darkest hour.

Bibliography

Adirex, Paul. Rattanakosin: The Birth of Bangkok. Bangkok: Asia Books, 2004. An account of how the capital of Siam moved from Ayutthaya to Thonburi and then to Bangkok.

Chunlachakkraphong, Prince. Lords of Life: A History of the Kings of Thailand. 2d rev. ed. London: Redman, 1967. Biographies of the kings of Thailand written by the grandson of King Chulalongkorn.

Phra Tacha Wang Derm Restoration Foundation, Bangkok. “King Taksin.” http://www.wangdermpalace .com. Accessed June, 2005. Explores major events in the life of Taksin, including his civilian and military accomplishments.

Wood, W. A. R. A History of Siam. New York: AMS Press, 1974. A history of Thailand that focuses primarily on events before 1782.

Wyatt, David K. Thailand: A Short History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. The definitive history of Thailand, though focusing on developments in later centuries.