Chapter 233: Ayutthaya
King Prasat Thong woke up as usual, opened the window of his bedchamber, and looked out. The entire city of Ayutthaya was still bathed in sunlight. Ayutthaya, which the Chinese were accustomed to calling “the Great City,” was located on an island in the river, 100 kilometers northeast of modern Bangkok. Ayutthaya means “City of Eternal Victory.” This place was the ruling center of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which ruled for 600 years in Thai history.
Although the Kingdom of Siam was not yet unified, the city of Ayutthaya was already magnificent, with an urban area that had expanded to 15 square kilometers. According to the British, its population was roughly the same as London’s, meaning at least 200,000 people.
Even by the standards of the populous Great Ming, a city of 200,000 people was very large. In its heyday, it was said to have a population of one million.
The royal palace in the city was magnificent, with pagodas like a forest, and its commercial prosperity was second to none in Southeast Asia. Because Ayutthaya was built on a large island at the confluence of three rivers, water transport was very developed. Aquatic products from the south and agricultural products from the north gathered and were traded here. Even products from as far away as China were continuously shipped in by sea.
But the God-King had no heart to admire the magnificent scenery of his capital. Early in the morning, he heard a palace attendant report that a rather large fleet had arrived outside the mouth of the Chao Phraya River five days ago. The key was that they were flying flags they had never seen before. They were currently anchored on the bank of the Chao Phraya River in Thonburi.
Prasat Thong had been very cautious about outsiders recently. Last year, the great merchant of Ayutthaya, Yamada Nagamasa, had died of an infected wound after participating in a Siamese military expedition against a rebellion in Ligor. Although he had repeatedly assured Yamada’s Japanese subordinates that he had not poisoned Yamada, he still could not gain their trust. And his ministers had long been envious of the Japanese business in Ayutthaya, so they instructed the army to burn down the Japanese town in the south gate. The conflict further intensified, and the Japanese volunteer corps and merchants fled to Cambodia one after another. And while this mess was not yet cleaned up, just a month ago, a messenger brought news from Edo: Shogun Iemitsu was angry about the fate of the merchants with shogunate background in Siam and had officially terminated trade with Siam. This made the young king’s life even more difficult. The Burmese in the west were becoming more and more powerful, having already captured Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai.
Although Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai belonged to the Lanna Kingdom, one of the “Three Thais”—not the territory of the Ayutthaya Kingdom—they were vassals of Ayutthaya. The two sides had a close alliance, and the principle of “if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold” was not difficult for the rulers of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, who were of Chinese descent, to understand.
Although the local Siamese were brave, they lacked high-quality weapons. The metallurgy and handicraft industries in Southeast Asia had always been backward. In the past, swords were imported from Japan, and the Japanese silver obtained from exporting goods was used to buy gunpowder, matchlocks, and cannons from the Portuguese and the Dutch. Once the Japanese trade was interrupted, all these things would be gone.
He knew Thonburi. There were only some small fishing villages there, and a small number of overseas Chinese merchants. Compared to a large port like Pattani, where merchants gathered, Thonburi was relatively deserted. This was because the main exports from this place were rice and timber, while foreign merchants were more interested in the spices of the South Seas.
He began to ask the messenger who had reported the situation for information about this group of people.
From the messenger, he learned that this group was different from the overseas Chinese merchants of the Great Ming. Although they had the same faces and used Chinese characters, their speech and physique were not like those of the Ming people. Not to mention their short hair, which was very similar to that of some Siamese generals.
“They said they came here to buy our rice, and if we are willing, they are willing to trade with us with silver and weapons.” After speaking, the messenger presented the sample given by the Australians to the God-King: a standard machete. His Majesty the God-King carefully played with the knife. This knife was not much better than a Japanese knife.
This knife was the standard Type 1631 machete mass-produced in Lin’gao, used to replace the Type 1629 machete. It was widely equipped in the army and militia, especially in the navy and marine corps. It was also used in agricultural production, making it a dual-use product for both military and civilian purposes. Except for a few minor details on the handle, the blade was exactly the same.
Because it was a mass-produced practical knife, the materials and craftsmanship were very simple. The blade was directly stamped from a knife blank, heat-treated and blued, and finally shaped, sharpened, and fitted with a handle. It was wrapped in oil paper and packed in a wooden box.
In terms of cost and complexity of craftsmanship, such a knife was far inferior to the Japanese swords sold in East and Southeast Asia. However, thanks to the mass-produced high-quality steel, heat treatment technology, and chemical treatment, its quality was no worse than that of the lower-grade Japanese swords that cost three taels of silver each.
Prasat Thong had his officers take the knife out for a “trial use” and compare it with various imported Japanese swords. After a while, the officer came back and reported that the quality of this knife was no worse than that of a Japanese sword, and it was much lighter.
This moved Prasat Thong, and he asked about the price.
“They said that one hundred of them cost one hundred Chinese taels of silver.”
Everyone present was a little surprised. It should be known that Japanese swords were not cheap. A hundred lower-grade Japanese swords cost three hundred taels, and even the lowest-grade Japanese swords, “ordinary weapons for self-defense for the common people, not weapons of war,” sold for one tael of silver each.
In comparison, the price quoted by Ping Qiusheng was very conscientious, one hundred taels for one hundred knives, equivalent to the price of the worst Japanese swords. The cost-effectiveness was so high that King Prasat Thong asked about the price twice.
“The Australians said that they have as many of these knives, and spears of similar quality, as we want. As long as we give them enough rice and the privilege of setting up a trading post and trading in Thonburi,” the messenger, who had received a bribe from the Australians, quickly explained when he saw the king was lost in thought.
“Then let Worawong handle this matter.” Even if the quality was not as high as that of Japanese swords, as long as there was a sufficient supply, it was what the kingdom needed most. And there was plenty of rice here. If the Burmese in the west continued to attack, it would just be a free meal for them.
Thonburi is on the west bank of present-day Bangkok. In this era, due to the resources and geographical conditions of Pattani, it had not developed. Its rise came after the fall of the Ayutthaya dynasty. Now, apart from the core Ayutthaya region of Siam, the southwestern parts could only be considered a federation or confederation united under the Siamese flag.
In the 16th century, Thailand had three kingdoms: Sukhothai, Lanna, and Phayao. According to Chinese custom, they could be called the Three Thais. The Three Thais were in an alliance. Later, the Ayutthaya dynasty, founded by the descendants of Chinese merchants, King Uthong, replaced Sukhothai and defeated the Khmer, making Sukhothai a vassal of the Ayutthaya dynasty. As for Lanna, it survived as a vassal of the Siamese dynasty until the 19th century.
The later Bangkok area was still a vast jungle at that time. Bangkok itself did not exist. The only port that could be used was Thonburi on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River. But this was the mouth of the Chao Phraya River, and its geographical location was very important, making it easy to absorb the large amount of rice from the Chao Phraya River basin.
The northeast of Thailand is a plateau. Due to the obstruction of the mountains, it has a rainy and shady climate, with drought in summer and excessive rainfall in the rainy season, which is not suitable for cultivation. Thailand’s ranking among the top three rice exporters in the world in the original timeline was entirely due to the Chao Phraya River basin. As long as the mouth of the Chao Phraya River was controlled, the rice of Siam could be continuously absorbed. After the Engine Project was completed and the layout of Southeast Asia began, the food problem of the transmigrators in southern China could basically be solved once and for all. The data Ping Qiusheng found in the Great Library indicated that in the mid-Qing Dynasty, the annual rice exports from Siam to Guangdong were 11 million shi—which was equivalent to half of the total rice production of Japan! Even if only one-third or even one-fourth of this resource was controlled by the transmigrators at this time, it would be enough to feed the entire population of Hainan for a year with a surplus. The only remaining problem would be transport capacity.
During the few days the messenger was away, the fleet was not idle. In addition to measuring the hydrology and surrounding terrain, the survey team also sent out an investigation team to investigate other local resources. In less than two days, the dispatched team brought Ping Qiusheng a surprise.
“Old Ping, look what this is!” Liu Zheng from the investigation team shouted with a tone of surprise, holding a yellow, irregular crystal in his hand.
“Amber? Where did you get this?”
“This is a potassium salt mine—to be precise, carnallite. The amount here is huge. No wonder the land here is so fertile.” Liu Zheng had been in the exploration team for a long time and was very familiar with minerals. He was no longer the simple “donkey friend” he used to be.
“This is good stuff,” he said. Because of his work in finding mines, Liu Zheng had a lot of dealings with the industrial and agricultural departments. The Elders in the agricultural department often mentioned the problem of chemical fertilizers.
Chemical fertilizers are not just nitrogen fertilizers; they also require potassium and phosphorus fertilizers. Compared to phosphorus fertilizers, which were supplied by guano and phosphate rock, the supply of potassium fertilizers had always been in short supply. This shortage could not be solved simply by upgrading industry. Not only Lin’gao or Hainan, but the entire East Asia lacked sufficient potassium salt mines. Lin’gao’s source of potassium fertilizer was from the refined salt industry in Maniao, but the output was very low. About two tons of potassium salt could be produced for every one hundred tons of refined salt, which was a drop in the bucket.
If a stable supply of potassium salt mines could be obtained from Siam, it would be of great help to the entire agricultural production. If it could be mined in batches and processed into potassium fertilizer as a gift to the Ministry of Agriculture, all of which would be used in the cooperatives in Qiongshan, the immediate and sensational effect of the cooperatives would make the series of agricultural reforms in Qiongshan more successful.
At Liu Zheng’s suggestion, potassium salt mines were also added to the trade list this time.
Thailand’s potassium salt mines are mainly on the Khorat Plateau, with many scattered distributions. However, potassium salt mines are generally buried deep, mostly at a depth of three hundred meters underground. However, due to the karst topography, some veins are exposed on the surface, and the mining conditions are acceptable.