AYUTTHAYA HISTORICAL RESEARCH



THE BURMESE MOUNDS





After a marauding expedition that had begun two years earlier, the Burmese Army again stood before the walls of the City of Ayutthaya in 1767 CE. The city was besieged for several months, and the residents were deprived of provisions many climbed the walls to escape starvation.


The Burmese General Nemiao Sihabodi (Ne Myo Thihapate) found the right occasion to attack and chose to make the main effort at the north-eastern corner of the city, where the Lopburi River was at its narrowest, in front of the Maha Chai Fortress.


At that time of year, the current of the Lopburi River must have been low, as it was the dry season. The Siamese defensive fortifications at Wat Chedi Daeng, Wat Sam Wihan and Wat Monthop on the opposite riverbank of the city were attacked and captured by the Burmese forces.


The Burmese chose to attack Ayutthaya at night and prepared a bamboo bridge to cross the river just opposite the weir, meant to break the incoming waters of the Lopburi River a weir called Thamnop Ro.





A stockade was built near the riverbank in front of Wat Mae Nang Pluem, on both sides where the bridge was planned to be set up. Stockades were created by building earthen ramparts and by setting wooden posts in the ground to prevent incoming gunfire.


The Siamese, recognising the significance of the ongoing Burmese activity, launched an attack and defeated the Burmese at the construction site. They continued attacking a Burmese fortification, but, lacking reinforcements, were defeated by the Burmese, who received support from other stockades. It would be the last time the citizens of Ayutthaya went out to fight.


The Burmese continued their construction work and built a bridge across the river. On the land in front of the city wall, they set up a fortification and dug a tunnel towards the foundations of the city wall to “mine” the wall. The technique of "mining" was used in warfare to bring down fortifications not built on solid rock. A tunnel was excavated under the outer defences either to provide access into the fortification or to collapse its walls. Temporary timber supports supported the tunnels as the digging progressed. When the excavation was completed, the wall or bastion that had been undermined would be brought down by filling the excavation hole with combustible material. When lit, the combustibles would burn away the pit props, leaving the structure above unsupported and thus liable to collapse.





(The Burmese mounds - Picture taken June 2011 CE)



On Tuesday, 7 April 1767 CE, at 15.00 Hr, the Burmese set fire to the base of the city wall on the edge of the Maha Chai Fortress. All Burmese stockades began firing their heavy guns into the city. At dusk, the city wall collapsed. At 20.00 Hr, the Burmese commander ordered a general attack, during which the Burmese scaled the walls on all sides of the city. At the point where the city wall crumbled, the Burmese entered the city around midnight. Ayutthaya turned to ashes.


A detail out of the Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya explains:


“Reaching 1129 of the Royal Era, a year of the boar, ninth of the decade, and arriving at a Tuesday, the ninth day of the waxing moon in the fifth month, the ninth day and middle day of the New Years Festival, the Burmese lighted fires to burn the combustible firewood under the foundations of the walls opposite the Head of the Sluice beside the Fort of Grand Victory, and the Burmese in the stockades of the Monastery of the Crying Crow and of the Monastery of the Jubilant Lady, as well as in each and every other stockade, lit [the fuses of] their great guns the guns in the forts and in the bastions - and simultaneously fired them on into the Capital in volleys from a little past three mong in the afternoon until dusk. As soon as the walls where they had lit the combustible firewood to consume the foundations had collapsed somewhat, around the second thum, they thereupon had [the fuse of] the signal gun lit. The Burmese troops of each brigade on each side who had been prepared, having accordingly taken their ladders and simultaneously leaned them against the places where the walls had collapsed and against other places all around the Holy Metropolis, climbed them and were able to enter the Capital at that time. Now they lit fires in every vicinity and burned down buildings, houses, hermitages and the Holy Royal Palace Enclosure, including the palaces and royal domicile. The light of the conflagration was as bright as the middle of the day. Then they toured around to chase and capture people, and to search out and confiscate all their various sorts of valuables, [whether] silver, gold, or [other] belongings.” [2]


On the south side of the road, in front of Wat Mae Nang Pluem, some remnants of the Burmese fortifications are still visible [3]. Two earthen mounds of a stockade, used by the Chinese as burial mounds after the city's fall, are among the last surviving witnesses to the 1767 CE tragedy.





(The Burmese mounds - Picture taken June 2011 CE)



Apparently, there were more mounds associated with Burmese stockades, as indicated on a 1993 CE Fine Arts Department map, which shows mounds just east of Wat Maheyong. Today, they have vanished due to the construction of a modern Buddhist complex.





References:


[1] Rajanubhap, Damrong (Prince) (1917). Our Wars with the Burmese. White Lotus, Bangkok (2000). pp. 352-354.

[2] Cushman, Richard D. & Wyatt, David K. (2006). The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya. Bangkok: The Siam Society. pp 520-521.

[3] Burmese mounds are indicated on a Fine Arts Department digital map (2007).



When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
(Alexis de Tocqueville)





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