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Thonburi Kingdom
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Thon Buri (Thai: ??????) was the capital of Thailand for a short time during the reign of King Taksin the Great, after the ruin of capital Ayutthaya by the Burmese. King Rama I removed the capital to Bangkok on the other side of the Chao Phraya River in 1782. Thon Buri stayed an independent town and province, and was merged into Bangkok in 1972.
Reunification of Thailand
In 1767, after dominating southeast Asia for almost 400 years, the Ayutthaya kingdom was destroyed.
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Thon Buri (Thai: ??????) was the capital of Thailand for a short time during the reign of King Taksin the Great, after the ruin of capital Ayutthaya by the Burmese. King Rama I removed the capital to Bangkok on the other side of the Chao Phraya River in 1782. Thon Buri stayed an independent town and province, and was merged into Bangkok in 1972.
Reunification of Thailand
In 1767, after dominating southeast Asia for almost 400 years, the Ayutthaya kingdom was destroyed. The royal palace was burnt and the territory was occupied by the Burmese army. During the occupation by Burma, Thailand began to recover rapidly. The resistance was led by Taksin, a nobleman of Chinese descent and a capable military leader. Initially based at Chanthaburi in the south-east, within a year he was able to defeat the Burmese occupation army and reestablish the Thai state with the capital at Thonburi on the west bank of the Chao Phraya river, 20 km from its estuary at the Mouth of Menam.
In 1768 Taksin assumed the throne of Thonburi and was named King Krung-Thonburi (generally known as King Taksin the Great). He rapidly reunified the central Thai heartlands, and in 1769 was able to conquer western Cambodia. After that, his army marched south and reestablished Thai power over the Malay Peninsula including Penang and Terengganu. In order to secure his base in Thailand, Taksin attacked the Burmese in 1774. Next came the capture of Chiang Mai in 1776, permanently unifying Thonburi and the Lanna kingdom. In 1778 Thonburi captured Vientiane and reestablished Thai domination over Laos.
Political trouble
Despite these successes, by 1779 King Taksin was in trouble. He was recorded in the Rattanahosin's gazettes as a religious maniac, alienating the powerful Buddhist monkhood by claiming to be a sotapanna or divine figure. He began to lose his kingship. The servants were divided into 2 groups, one of which still supported him but the other did not. In 1782 Thonburi sent an army to subjugate Cambodia again, but while they were away a rebellion broke out in the area of the capital. The rebels, who had wide popular support, offered the throne to King Taksin's commander in chief. He marched back from Cambodia and deposed Taksin, who was secretly executed shortly after.
Rattanakosin establishment
After the execution, the commander in chief assumed the throne of Thonburi kingdom as King Ramathibodi or Rama I.
King Rama I removed his royal seat across the Chao Phraya river to the village of Bang-Koh (meaning "place of the island") which he had built. The new capital was established in 1782, named Rattanakosin. Then Thonburi diminished and became a part of the Bangkok metropolitan area.
See also
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