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| Fig.1: Stuff like this was a prime target for those Europeans and their label makers. |
Typically if you received a visit by the Europeans in the early modern period, soon you would face the unhappy prospect of watching them move in, snag all your resources, diminish your population to a subservient status, and take full control of the TV remote. One of the few places that escaped this fate was the country of Thailand in Southeast Asia (also known as
Siam in the European practice of renaming nations whatever the heck they wanted). This was due in part to the actions and policies of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which ruled the region from the 1350s until 1767. The kingdom was centered on the city of Ayutthaya (fig.1), considered in 1700 to be one of the most populated locales in the world, and unquestionably had the worst rickshaw traffic known to man. When those rascally Europeans came floatin' about, the Ayutthayan government successfully played the different embassies off each other, and even earned the respect and full friendship of Louis XIV of France, the most powerful and
fluffy-haired king in the world! Let's find out more about these Thai fighters, and see how they avoided domination from any empires.
