Page 267 - A History of Siam

CHAPTER XVI

REIGN OF KING TAKSIN

IT has been said, and with some truth, by a Siamese
"
author, that the King of Hanthawadi waged war
like a monarch, but the King of Ava like a robber.'*
By this is meant that King Bhureng Noung's invasion
of Siam was made with the intention of the
reducing
Kingdom to the position of a vassal, but King Mengra's
invasion, which was undertaken without any real cause,
had no other than the ruin of and the
object Siam,
of and slaves.
acquisition plunder
as so crushed and terrorised
Having, they thought,
the Siamese nation as to render its
recuperation impossible
for the Burmese withdrew a of
many years, large part
their army, leaving only a comparatively small force,
under the command of a General named to
Sugyi,
control the was established in a
country. Sugyi camp
near the ruined called the of the Three
capital, camp
Bo Trees.
P'ya Taksin, with his five hundred followers, managed
to shake off his Burmese and established
pursuers,
himself near Rayong, on the east coast of the Gulf of
Siam. His own fellow-countrymen in that region were at
first by no means at all certain whether to regard him as
a rebel or a deliverer, but before the fall of Ayut'ia
he had all and was in full control of
quelled opposition
the Rayong and Jonburi districts.
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