Page 37 - A History of Siam
P. 37

A HISTORY OF SUM
                                                              35
                          "
          forced to retire             cent, of the inhabitants of
                           eighty per
          certain towns in Szechuan were          artificial noses
                                          wearing
          and ears made of wood."    It is not recorded what the
          noses were made of.
            The war thus started was continued under the
                                                       Emperor
          Ytsong,  who succeeded to the throne of China in A.D. 860.
          The Chinese were                          and Nanchao
                           consistently unsuccessful,
          became
                  entirely independent.
            In A.D.  863  the Tai  conquered Annam, but   it was
          retaken  three       later     the  celebrated Chinese
                        years        by
          General
                  Kaopien.
            In  A.D.  870  Tsui  Lung again  invaded China and
                              but was   driven  back.   Another
          besieged  Chengtu,
          invasion in A.D.  875  was  equally  unsuccessful.
                                                          "    "
            In A.D.  877  a Tai  King,  called  by  the Chinese  Fa
                  succeeded to the throne of Nanchao.      This
         (P'ra ?),
          King  made  peace  with  China,  and received a Chinese
         envoy  at his  Court.  In A.D.  884  his son married  a
                   of the
         daughter         Emperor.
            These  events,  chronicled with some  detail  by  the
                                    show us that Nanchao was
         Chinese historians, clearly
         a                          its own         the Chinese
           powerful State, holding          against
         Emperors   for  many  hundreds of  years.
           From the time of    King  Fa  onwards,  little mention
         is made   in Chinese          of
                               history    Nanchao, which had
         apparently  once and for all  accepted  the  position  of a
         vassal  kingdom, though  Chinese control over the  country
         was          of a              kind.
             probably     very shadowy
           In A.D.      Nanchao               was
                   1253          (or Yunnan)      conquered by
         Kublai Khan,    This              an end   to the Tai
                               finally put
         kingdom,  and resulted in a wholesale  emigration  of the
         inhabitants  southwards,  with  important  effects  upon
         the         of Siam,  as will be seen  later.
             history
           As mentioned above, many    of the Nanchao Tai had
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