Ayutthaya

• Dates: 1350-1767

Ayutthaya was a Siamese kingdom known by the name of its capital city. In the 16th to early 17th centuries, Ayutthaya was one of the most powerful and prominent polities in Southeast Asia, and the most prominent Southeast Asian trading partner with Japan and the Ryûkyû Kingdom. It was also home to the largest Nihonmachi (Japantown) of the era; the community housed as many as 1500 Japanese at its peak in the 1620s, the city of Ayutthaya as a whole boasted a population over 100,000. A small number of Siamese ships, officially under the name of either the king or one of the royal princes, traveled to Nagasaki over the course of the 16th-18th centuries. Despite maritime restrictions against trade with most outside powers, Nagasaki accepted these Siamese ships under the category of "Dutch ships," given their Western-style construction.

Ayutthaya was one of the most distant polities - culturally, at least, insofar as Siam is an Indic culture, not a Sinic one - to maintain regular relations with the Ming court. The kingdom fought off attacks by Ming Chinese armies in the 1580s-1590s, but also engaged in regular tribute trade, sending missions to China once every few years, and receiving investiture in return. In 1575, Ayutthaya sent envoys to Ming to request a new royal seal to replace one destroyed in fighting with the Burmese, and in 1592 King Naresuan offered to send his navy to help the Ming defeat Toyotomi Hideyoshi's attempts to conquer Korea.

Ayutthaya entered into trade relations with Ryûkyû in the mid-to-late 15th century, and only began trading with Japan a century later, in the 1570s. The Japanese community in Ayutthaya got its start at that time as well, as Japanese ronin, merchants, smugglers, adventurers, and the like began to settle there. Some came to be employed by the royal court, as bodyguards, or in other capacities, and by the 1620s, Japan was Ayutthaya's most major trade partner. More than twenty Japanese merchant houses, along with some number of independent individual sailors, were active in trading between Ayutthaya and Nagasaki each year, and the kingdom enjoyed formal relations with the Tokugawa shogunate as well, beginning in 1606, and received arms and other supplies from the shogunate to aid in Ayutthaya's defense against periodic Burmese attacks. Following an unofficial mission which nevertheless was received in audience by the shogun in 1612, Ayutthaya sent official missions to Japan in 1616, 1623, 1626, and 1629, informing the shogun in each case of the succession of a new king of Ayutthaya.

In 1610, King Ekothotsarat was succeeded by Songtham; that same year, the kingdom suppressed a Laotian invasion and an uprising by Japanese merchants, and established a royal guard consisting of Japanese. This guard eventually came to be headed by the ronin adventurer Yamada Nagamasa. Other Nagasaki merchants were similarly rewarded for their service in helping defend the kingdom from Burmese invasions. Kiya Kyûzaemon was appointed to a high official position, and Tsuda Matazaemon was permitted to marry a daughter of the king.

A series of court intrigues, and a violent coup d'état, led to the destruction of the Nihonmachi, and the death of Yamada Nagamasa, in 1630. Yamada Nagamasa had served for some time as head of the royal bodyguard, had led a force of some 700 Japanese in suppressing insurrections, Burmese incursions, and the like, and had been elevated to high court rank. He had also been named governor of several provinces, and held monopolies over the trade in deerskin and a number of other goods. He thus represented a significant obstacle to Prasat Thong, a member of the royal family who seized the throne in 1629 following the death of King Songtham. In the course of his coup, Prasat Thong had Yamada murdered, and the Nihonmachi burned to the ground, in order to prevent Yamada's fellow Japanese from seeking violent retribution. A number of Japanese fled to Cambodia, and some returned later, with amnesty from a later king. Where the Japanese had previously exercised some degree of influence within the royal court, and the port's commerce, this now left the Dutch and Chinese merchants in a far more prominent position.

The Nihonmachi revived following its destruction in 1630, though it would never again attain its former levels of activity. The imposition of policies of maritime restrictions by the Tokugawa shogunate in the late 1630s meant that Japanese could no longer return to Japan (and very few left Japan, either, after this time), severing the Nihonmachi from any infusion of new blood, and severely hampering its economic power. Further, the Tokugawa shogunate, seeing Prasat Thong as an illegitimate usurper, severed formal ties with the kingdom of Ayutthaya. Though several missions were later sent to Japan attempting to restore formal relations (including missions in 1640 and 1644 which were lost in storms), none were ever successful.

Still, figures such as Kimura Hanjemon, who became head of the community in 1642, remained prominent in local trade activities, including supplying the Dutch East India Company factory in Ayutthaya with deer skins. Another man by the same name, possibly the elder Hanjemon's son, traveled widely across Southeast Asia in the 1680s.

The Japanese community of Ayutthaya played some role in bringing King Narai to the throne in 1657, and official royal involvement in trade with Japan resumed, even though it was not formally recognized as diplomatic court-to-court relations by the Tokugawa. Narai was perhaps among the most active of Southeast Asian rulers in engaging with the West. In 1673, he received formal diplomatic communications from both Louis XIV of France, and Pope Clement IX, and reciprocated them. Narai's relations with France led to his declaring war on the English East India Company in 1687; the following year, French East India Company forces, ostensibly there to help combat the English, seized Bangkok and a number of other areas, before finally being convinced to quit their occupation and return these areas to Siamese control. Narai died that year, and was succeeded by Phra Phetracha.

The Dutch East India Company, meanwhile, closed its base in Ayutthaya in 1663. Despite no longer enjoying formal court-to-court recognition and relations with the Tokugawa shogunate, Ayutthaya was able to send royal ships (generally under the name of one of the royal princes, if not the king) to trade in Japan. Due to their European-style construction, they were generally received at Nagasaki as "Dutch ships," and were able to trade with no formal quota. At least 41 Siamese ships traveled to Japan to trade between 1689-1723; some carried goods worth millions of silver dollars. This royal junk trade ended in 1688, however, amidst the fighting between the French and the English.

By the early 18th century, the Japanese community in Ayutthaya disappeared, assimilating into the broader Siamese society through intermarriage and acculturation. The kingdom fell to Burmese invasion in 1767.

Kings of Ayutthaya

• Naresuan (r. 1590-1605)
• Ekathotsarot (r. 1605-1610)
• Songtham (r. 1610-1628)
• Chetthathirat (r. 1628-1629)
• Athittayawong (r. 1629)
• Prasat Thong (r. 1629-1656)
• Chao Fa Chai (r. 1656)
• Si Suthammaracha (r. 1656)
• Narai (r. 1657-1688)
• Phra Phetracha (r. 1688-1703)
• Sanphet VIII (r. 1703-1709)

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