Comrade Guevara
As the main concentration of Chinese in Southeast Asia, a large number of Chinese have immigrated to Thailand since the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, and after hundreds of years of living and reproduction, the number of Chinese has accounted for 14% of the country's total population. Although the proportion is not high, the Chinese are active in various fields such as politics, business, culture and sports in Thailand, and there are countless people who have made brilliant achievements. Among them, the most outstanding representative is undoubtedly the only Chinese emperor in the history of Thailand and the greatest emperor in the history of the country - Zheng Xin.
01 From the son of a Chinese merchant to the emperor of Thailand
Zheng Xin belongs to the second generation of Chinese, his ancestral home is Chenghai County, Guangdong Province, his father Zheng Yong is a native Chinese, and later moved to Siam (the old name of Thailand) to do business, because of his flexible mind and wealth, he eventually became a wealthy businessman. After Zheng Yong developed, he married a Siamese aristocratic woman as his wife, and gave birth to Zheng Xin after marriage. Due to the low status of businessmen in Thailand, Zheng Yong did not let Zheng Xinxue do business, but entrusted him to his close friend and minister Po Ye Jieji, hoping that the latter would help his son make a name for himself in the political arena.
Portrait of Zheng Xin
Poye Jieji lived up to his friend's ardent expectations, not only accepted Zheng Xin as his righteous son, but also used his power to escort him. Due to the vigorous support of his father-in-law and Zheng Xin's outstanding talent, he rose quickly in the political arena, starting from the palace guards, and it only took more than ten years to climb to the high position of the city lord and was named a marquis. After the death of the old king Wulongge, the new king Yikata succeeded to the throne, and the neighboring Burma invaded on the occasion of Siam's national mourning. At this critical juncture, Zheng Xin, who was highly gifted with military talent, was recalled to the Jingshi Ayutthaya (known to the Chinese as "the Great City") to assist in defending against the enemy.
Although Zheng Xin struggled to support the crisis, the decay of the imperial court, the lack of cooperation among the defenders, and the severe shortage of ordnance, grain and grass led to the final fall of the Jingshi and the fall of the Ayutthaya Dynasty (known to the Chinese as the "Ayutthaya Dynasty") in April 1767. Before the fall of Ayuthaya, Zheng Xin, who was unable to support himself, led his troops to break through the siege, and successively established bases in Rayong Province and Chanthaburi Province in the southwest, and through large-scale recruitment of troops and horses, and liaison with local resistance forces, in order to expel the invading army and revive the country in the future.
Statue of Zheng Xin
After the fall of the Ayutthaya Dynasty, the Burmese army burned and plundered in Siam, arousing strong resistance from the military and civilians everywhere, and invisibly promoting the development of Zheng Xin's great cause of restoring the country. Just half a year after the fall of Ayutthaya, Zheng Xin led an army with 100 warships to the north, and it took only one month to recover Ayutthaya and expel all the Burmese troops from the country. At the end of the same year, Zheng Xin, who led the military and civilians to successfully restore the country, accepted the support of his subordinates, officially ascended the throne as king, and moved the capital to Thonburi, so historians called the dynasty he founded the Thonburi Dynasty.
02 Woe to the wall
Zheng Xin said that Wang was only 34 years old at the time, and he was in a period of great energy and great intentions, so he did not rest on his laurels and actively engaged in large-scale expansion. In the following ten years, Zheng Xin launched wars against Laos, Cambodia and other countries on the basis of eliminating the heroes and completing the unification of the country, forcing the two countries to pay tribute. At the same time, Zheng Xin kept a close eye on the movements of his enemy Burma, and in 1774-1775 he inflicted heavy losses on the invading Burmese army, so that the latter did not dare to invade again.
The territory of the Thonburi Dynasty at its heyday
Under Zheng Xin's hard management, Siam not only recovered all the lost territory, but also successively eliminated the regimes of Lamphu, Phra, Nan, Lanna, Champasak and Ha Tien, and forced Laos, Cambodia and other countries to become vassals, thus becoming a powerful power dominating the entire Indochina Peninsula. With the rapid increase in Siam's strength, Zheng Xin's prestige also reached its peak, and he was embraced as the emperor by his ministers. To date, only five monarchs in Thailand's history have been awarded the title of "The Great", and Zheng Xin's achievements are at the top of the list, making him the country's undisputed greatest emperor.
In all fairness, Zheng Xin forged ahead in the early part of his reign, not only completing the great cause of recovering the country, but also raising Siam's national strength and prestige to unattainable heights, which can be called a generation of holy lords. However, Zheng Xin's military achievements were largely based on reckless militarism, and over time, it was natural that this unpopular policy would provoke popular revolt, and even the soldiers complained. In this regard, Zheng Xin did not change his course, but adopted the means of strong suppression, which further intensified the contradictions.
Portrait of Rama I
In such a delicate and tense situation, the long-cherished general Chao Phraya Chokri took the opportunity to launch a mutiny, forcing Zheng Xin to abdicate and establish himself as king, thus establishing the Bangkok dynasty. Since the new king had come to power, there was no chance that the old king would survive, but since Siam was a Buddhist country, it was stipulated that his subordinates should not use swords on the emperor, so Chao Phraya Chokri ordered the guards to beat Zheng Xin to death with sandalwood on April 7, 1782. Zheng Xin was only 48 years old when he was killed.
03 Turmoil behind you
Since Siam was a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty, and the new king had to obtain the canonization of the Qing Emperor before ascending the throne to be legitimate, so Chao Phraya Chokri pretended to be Zheng Hua, the son of Zheng Xin, and sent an envoy to request the Qing Dynasty to be canonized. The Qing court did not know about the changes in Siam, so Emperor Qianlong, who did not know what was going on, was fooled, and really canonized Zhao Phraya Chokri as the king. Since then, it has been customary for Zhaophiya Chokri to refer to himself as Zheng Hua in his dealings with China, and it has been customary for future generations to follow it, and without exception they will also take a Chinese name surnamed Zheng, and this is still the case today.
Emperor Zheng's Day
Although Zheng Xin died, he was still deeply loved by the people, and if they learned the truth about Zhao Phye Chokri's murder of the king, the consequences would be unimaginable, so Zhao Phraya Chokri desperately blocked the news, declaring that Zheng Xin was suddenly seriously ill and died, and held a very grand state funeral for him, and afterwards set Zheng Xin's birthday as a major festival, and held a large-scale memorial service every year. Today, every December 28, the anniversary of Zheng Xin's birth, Thailand holds a grand pilgrimage ceremony, which shows his historical status and the degree of national love.
Rama X
Although Chao Phye Chokri and his descendants exalted Zheng Xin to the supreme position and wanted to alleviate their guilt, their hearts were always uneasy. It turned out that Zheng Xin hated the betrayal of Chao Phraya Chokri before he died, and once issued an extremely vicious curse: Whoever takes my throne will die in ten lifetimes. So far, the Bangkok dynasty has inherited exactly 10 kings, and the current king, Rama X, has been unstable due to the outcry caused by his lasciviousness. Because of this, it may not be long before Zheng Xin's curse will be fulfilled.
bibliography
David · K. Wyatt, History of Thailand, Oriental Publishing Center, 2009 edition.
Duan Lisheng: General History of Thailand, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2014.