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Laos
Index
This conflict had a long history. At the time of Siam's
retributive campaigns against Vientiane in 1827-28,
relations
between Vientiane and Annam were good. The Vietnamese
called
Vientiane Van Tuong (the Kingdom of Ten Thousand
Elephants). But
when Vientiane's ruler, Chao Anou, sought refuge in Hué
following
Siam's destruction of his capital, it caused serious
embarrassment
to the Vietnamese. King Rama III of Siam wrote to the
Vietnamese
emperor, Minh Mang, explaining that Chao Anou had refused
obedience
to him and had started hostilities. Minh Mang, pursuing a
consistently cautious policy toward Rama III, lent Chao
Anou two
companies of men to escort him back to Vientiane,
instructing them
to return immediately after accomplishing their mission.
Siamese
and Vietnamese sources--the Laotian primary sources having
for the
most part disappeared--give conflicting versions of what
happened
next. In any event, in mid-October 1828, Chao Anou found
himself
once again engaged in hostilities with a stronger Siamese
force. He
again fled to safety, this time to Muang Phuan because a
Siamese
force was encamped at Nakhon Phanom, blocking the Mekong
downstream.
The arrival of Chao Anou on their doorstep with a
Siamese army
in pursuit confronted the leaders of Muang Phuan with a
dilemma.
When the Siamese commander issued an ultimatum to
surrender Chao
Anou under penalty of an attack on Xiangkhoang, the
leaders of
Muang Phuan quickly accepted. The Siamese took Chao Anou
to Bangkok
and kept him captive.
What followed was illustrative of the consequences of
the
constant meddling in each other's affairs that went on
among the
Laotian principalities. The reigning prince of Muang Phuan
was Chao
Noi, son of the ruling family. Vientiane had attempted to
take
advantage of Chao Noi's youth when his father died to
install Chao
Xan, the head of a rival family from Muang Kasi. The Phuan
elders
of Xiangkhoang refused to accept this candidate, so power
was
shared under a compromise arranged with help from Hué.
Chao Xan,
however, led a delegation to Hué, where he accused Chao
Noi and his
cousins of bringing dishonor to the emperor by
surrendering a
vassal prince to another king, of obstructing passage of a
tribute
mission from Louangphrabang across the territory of Muang
Phuan to
Hué, and of negotiating to acknowledge Siamese suzerainty.
Chao Noi was accordingly summoned to Hué to explain
himself but
sent his eldest son, Po. Angered by this flagrant
disregard of a
direct order, Minh Mang took no action, awaiting news of
the fate
of Chao Anou, who was the nominal suzerain and ordinarily
would
have dealt with the Phuan on behalf of Hué. Once word was
received
that Chao Anou had died, Minh Mang sent a Vietnamese
detachment to
Muang Phuan and arrested Chao Noi and most of his family.
In May
1829, the prisoners were taken to Annam, where Chao Noi
and his
cousin were executed in January 1830. Chao Noi's young
sons and
their mothers were kept in exile in Nghe An. The Muang
Phuan
succession thus fell to Chao Xan. Minh Mang, however,
posted a
quan phu (commissioner), supported by a garrison of
500
soldiers who were rotated seasonally, to reside
permanently at
Chiang Kham (Khang Khay), at the headwaters of the Nam
Ngum, as a
precaution against a recurrence of conflict with the
Siamese king.
Rama III sent a further letter to Minh Mang in early
1829
outlining his view of Chao Anou's treachery and thanking
the
emperor for his presents. But the king failed to provide
an
explanation for a serious incident at Nakhon Phanom in
which three
Vietnamese mandarins had been killed. In November 1829,
Siamese
envoys returned home with a letter from Hué reiterating
earlier
demands for punishment of those people responsible. When
it became
obvious that Rama III would not revert to the old
arrangement of
joint administration, Hué gave administrative control over
the
entire eastern half of the former kingdom of Vientiane to
Vietnamese officials in Annam and Tonkin. The territory
was
virtually annexed by Hué in 1831 under the name Tran Ninh
Phu Tam
Vien. The Vietnamese presence at Khang Khay continued
until the
mid-1850s.
Chao Anou's wars with the Siamese had stirred massive
disruptions of villages on the right bank. Terrified Lao
fled every
which way. When the Siamese arrived at Nakhon Phanom in
1827 they
found the town deserted, the officials having fled across
the river
to Mahaxai. In the aftermath of the war, however, the
Siamese
established new towns--Chiang Khan, Nong Khai, Mukdahan,
and
Kemmarat--at key points on the Mekong to serve as
administrative
centers and as logistical bases for expeditionary forces
operating
across the river toward the mountains.
On the left bank, where the writ of Siam ran as far
south as
Stung Treng, the Siamese followed a policy of depopulating
the
country. This policy had actually been initiated as early
as 1779;
the first Phuan carried off by the Siamese arrived in
Bangkok
around 1792, where they were used as workers in the fields
of the
official classes. By removing people from the left bank,
the
Siamese deprived any invader from Annam of food supplies,
transport, and recruits. Sporadic resistance, however, led
for some
time by the latsavong (first prince), of the old
Vientiane
kingdom continued at Mahaxai until 1835, when the leading
Lao
official there agreed to become governor of Sakon Nakhon
on the
right bank, and the Siamese resettled there. From 1837 to
1847, the
Siamese carried out depopulation raids annually during the
dry
season in Khamkeut and Khammouan and in the valley of the
Xé
Banghiang. Entire Lao villages were uprooted.
Meanwhile, the leaders of Houaphan principality,
fearing that
the example of Muang Phuan might be applied to them,
submitted to
the suzerainty of Bangkok through the intermediary of
Louangphrabang. Events were not going well for the Siamese
in Muang
Phuan. After the Siamese removed Chao Xan and some of the
elders to
Bangkok in 1836, the Vietnamese in effect ruled the state
directly,
appointing local officials as administrators. The
depopulation
activities the Siamese carried out on the Plain of Jars
and
elsewhere in Xiangkhoang caused the remaining population
to migrate
eastward and southward, forming new villages in the upper
reaches
of the Nam Mat and around the northern extremities of the
Nam
Kading basin, around Muang Mo, Muang Mok, and Muang Ngan.
This
expansion of the Phuan state was encouraged by the
Vietnamese in
their administrative reorganization. Some of the Phuan,
however,
perhaps enticed by Lao governors acting for the Siamese,
moved down
the river valleys toward the Mekong. There, new towns such
as
Bolikhamxai and Pakxan were founded and given satellite
status by
the Siamese in the 1870s.
Tu Duc, on his accession as Vietnamese emperor at Hué
in 1847,
allowed the sons of Chao Noi to return home with their
families and
to reestablish Xiangkhoang as the Phuan capital. They were
given
administrative responsibilities and the eldest, Prince Po,
at last
was permitted to replace the commissioner. Meanwhile, King
Tiantha
Koumane of Louangphrabang (r. 1851-69), one of three sons
of Manta
Thourath who succeeded to the throne in succession, while
in
Bangkok to receive the investiture, quickly arranged with
the new
Siamese king, Rama IV, to become once again the suzerain
over the
Phuan state. The Vietnamese had no objection to vassal
relations of
the Phuan with Louangphrabang. But Rama IV was deeply
suspicious of
the Phuan elders and set as a condition for accepting this
arrangement that the Phuan send an annual tribute mission
to
Louangphrabang. Tiantha Koumane hence was able to
reestablish his
authority over Muang Phuan.
A new element--the Hô--entered the picture, further
complicating the situation in northern Laos. The Hô first
appeared
in mid-1869 in the upper valley of the Nam Ou, where they
made
common cause with some Lu dissidents displaced from the
Sipsong
Panna during a civil war lasting twenty-five years. An
army from
Louangphrabang attacked these bands and withdrew with
prisoners.
The Lao and Siamese were ill prepared to face up to the
new
danger of anarchy in their domains. Tiantha Koumane was
dying of
malaria, and the Siamese, preoccupied with preparations
for the
cremation of their own monarch, Rama IV, demanded that a
tribute
mission from Louangphrabang arrive in Bangkok in time for
the
ceremony. Many princes and senior officials had to absent
themselves from Louangphrabang at this critical time and
had to
remain in Bangkok afterward for audiences with the new
monarch. Oun
Kham, who was already fifty-eight years old, did not
receive his
crown from the Siamese until 1872.
It was not until 1873 that the Siamese sent an army up
the Nam
Ou to attack the Hô and drive them out. Some Hô retreated
into
Houaphan, while others overran the Plain of Jars, where
Chao Hung
had succeeded his brother Chao Pho as ruler of the Phuan
state,
which became the main theater of conflict. The Hô camped
at Chiang
Kham and demanded "tax" payments from the local
population,
threatening to kill anyone who resisted. Chao Hung raised
a small
army and led it to assist the beleaguered governor of
Chiang Kham
in 1874, but a fatal bullet wound prompted the withdrawal
of his
army. Chao Hung's son, Prince Khanti, appealed to Annam
for aid. A
joint attack was made on Chiang Kham but was also
repulsed.
Early the following year, the Hô began plundering the
lowlands
along the Mekong as far upriver as Chiang Khan and as far
south as
Nakhon Phanom, directly threatening Siam's security. The
teenage
King Rama V was unable to mount an effective response. The
governor
of Khorat took a force of men across the flooded Mekong at
the
height of the monsoon and attacked the Hô encamped in the
ruins of
Vientiane, killing their warlord and forcing the others to
retreat
to Muang Phuan. A concerted campaign against the Hô in
their
stronghold was finally put in motion in 1876, but it
resulted more
in pillaging and looting the inhabitants than in stopping
the Hô,
who, with their horses, were more than a match for the
Siamese and
Lao foot soldiers. Rama V blamed the Phuan for having
brought
trouble on themselves by giving rice, silver, and horses
to the Hô,
which in fact they had done in a desperate effort to
appease them.
He rejected further appeals for aid on the grounds that
the local
leaders would prove incapable of dealing with the
situation after
the army withdrew.
Meanwhile, the troubles in the upper valley of the Nam
Ou
continued. Siamese commissioners had to assist Oun Kham in
restoring order in 1876 and to prod him into reorganizing
the towns
under his rule. Affairs remained in a state of flux for
the next
six years, and when in late 1882 Oun Kham appealed again
to Bangkok
for help against the Hô, the Siamese sent a major military
mission.
Subsequently, the Siamese maintained a permanent garrison
at
Louangphrabang.
Data as of July 1994
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