, the former capital of Cambodia. By the 17th and 18th centuries, Siam and Vietnam increasingly fought over control of the fertile Mekong basin, enhancing pressure on an unstable Cambodia. The 17th century was also the beginning of direct relations between post-Angkor Cambodia and Vietnam, that is the war between
Nguyễn lords who ruled central and southern Vietnam and
Trịnh lords in the north.
Henri Mouhot: "Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China" 1864 However, Cambodia remained economically significant in the early part of the Oudong period. In the 17th century, the Japanese considered Cambodia to be a more important maritime power than Siam.
Loss of the Mekong Delta By the late 15th century, the Vietnamese—descendants of the
Sinic civilisation sphere—had conquered some of the territories of the principalities of
Champa. Some of the surviving
Chams began their
diaspora in 1471, many re-settling in
Khmer territory. However, the Cambodian Chronicle does not mention the Cham arrival in Cambodia until the 17th century. The last remaining principality of Champa, Panduranga, survived until 1832.
Traditional view In 1620 the Vietnamese on their
southwards expansion (Nam tiến) had reached the
Mekong Delta, a hitherto Khmer domain. Also in 1620 the
Khmer king Chey Chettha II (1618–28) married a daughter of lord
Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên, one of the
Nguyễn lords, who held sway over southern Vietnam for most of the
Lê dynasty era from 1428 to 1788. Three years later, king Chey Chettha allowed Vietnam to establish a custom-post at
Prey Nokor, modern day
Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam after gaining independence from the Chinese now instituted its own version of the frontier policies of the Chinese empire and by the end of the 17th century, the region was under full Vietnamese administrative control. Cambodia's access to international sea trade was now hampered by Vietnamese taxes and permissions.
Contrary views The story of a Cambodian king falling in love with a Vietnamese princess, who requested and obtained
Kampuchea Krom, the
Mekong Delta for Vietnam is
folklore, dismissed by scholars and not even mentioned in the
Royal Chronicles. In the process of re-interpretation of the royal records and their rather doubtful contents, Michael Vickery again postulates that future publications take these contradicting facts into account: "First, the very concept of a steady Vietnamese "Push to the South" (nam tiến) requires rethinking. It was not steady, and its stages show that there was no continuing policy of southward expansion. Each move was ad hoc, in response to particular challenges..." Vickery additionally argues that Cambodia was never "cut off from maritime access to the outside world" in the 17th century, as argued by
David Chandler.
Mid 17th century–19th century In 1642 Cambodian prince
Ponhea Chan became king after overthrowing and assassinating king Outey. Malay Muslim merchants in Cambodia helped him in his takeover, and he subsequently converted to Islam from Buddhism, changed his name to
Ibrahim, married a Malay woman and reigned as Ramathipadi I. His reign marked the historical
apogee of
Muslim rule in mainland
Southeast Asia. Ramathipadi defeated the
Dutch East India Company in naval engagements of the
Cambodian–Dutch War during 1643 and 1644. Pierre de Rogemortes, the ambassador of the Company was killed alongside a third of his 432 men and it was not until two centuries later that Europeans played any important and influential role in Cambodian affairs. In the 1670s the Dutch left all the trading posts they had maintained in Cambodia after the massacre in 1643. The first Vietnamese military intervention took place in 1658-59, in which rebel Cambodian princes, Ibrahim Ramathipadi's own brothers, had requested military support to depose the Muslim ruler and restore Buddhism. Koxinga's son
Zheng Jing sent a Chinese commander called Piauwja by the Dutch (Xian Biao 先彪 or Biaoye 彪爷 in Chinese) with hundreds of troops to Cambodia in February 1667 to the court of Cambodian King Paramaraja VIII. Piauwja received the title of
Shahbandar of the Chinese community of Cambodia from the King. Piauwja massacred 1,000 Vietnamese men, women and children in Cambodia on behalf of the Cambodian king, who wanted to break free of Vietnamese influence. Piauwja also demanded that the Dutch pay him compensation for confiscating his ships in a naval blockade. Pieter Ketting, the Dutch East India Company's representative in Cambodia only offered to pay 1,000
taels to Piauwja when an advisor to the Cambodian King said he should pay 2,000 taels. Piauwja in response then demanded Ketting pay 6,000 taels, as compensation for a debt that another Chinese merchant working for the Dutch in Batavia owed him. Ketting refused and tried to bribe Cambodian officials to help him, but Piauwja forced Ketting to pay 4,837 taels by seizing Dutch hostages. The Schelvis, another Dutch ship arrived at Cambodian capital's shoreline on the river's mouth, but the river banks low water level rendered the range of the Dutch cannons on the ship useless. The Cambodians forbade fighting between Koxinga's forces and the Dutch on Cambodian waters, so Piaujwa instead attacked the Dutch East India company outpost on land on July 9-10, fatally wounding a Dutch surgeon and killing Ketting immediately along with 3 servants. Jacob van Wijckersloot only survived by escaping to the jungle and hiding for days before reaching the Schelvis and documenting what happened. On 28 October, 1667, the Cambodian King sent a letter to the Dutch in Batavia apologising for the incident, and falsely claiming he executed Piauwja, and arrested three Dutch company employees who he said helped Piauwja against their fellow Dutch. He sent the three arrested Dutch back to Batavia, but Piauwja was in fact alive and was still working for Koxinga in the 1670s, raiding the Qing in Guangdong. Piauwja had also looted all the silk and silver on the Dutch ship Schelvisch before leaving. His name was also written as Pioja by the Dutch. Another account said Piauwja came with 3,000 Chinese troops at Oudong.
Siam, which might otherwise have been courted as an ally against Vietnamese incursions in the 18th century, was itself involved in prolonged conflicts with Burma and in 1767 the Siamese capital of
Ayutthaya was completely destroyed. However, Siam recovered and soon reasserted its dominion over Cambodia. The youthful Khmer king
Ang Eng (1779–96) was installed as monarch at Oudong while Siam annexed Cambodia's
Battambang and
Siem Reap provinces. The local rulers became vassals under direct Siamese rule. A renewed struggle between Siam and Vietnam for control of Cambodia and the Mekong basin in the early 19th century resulted in Vietnamese dominance over a Cambodian vassal king. Justin Corfield writes in "French Indochina": "[1807] the Vietnamese expanded their lands by establishing a protectorate over Cambodia. However king […]
Ang Duong was keen on Cambodia becoming independent of [...] Thailand [...] and Vietnam [...] and sought help from the
British in
Singapore. When that failed, he enlisted the help of the French." Attempts to force Cambodians to adopt Vietnamese customs caused several rebellions against Vietnamese rule. The most notable took place from 1840 to 1841, spreading through much of the country. Siam and Vietnam had fundamentally different attitudes concerning their relationship with Cambodia. The Siamese shared a common religion, mythology, literature, and culture with the Khmer, having adopted many religious and cultural practices. The Thai
Chakri kings followed the
Chakravatin system of an ideal universal ruler, ethically and benevolently ruling over all his subjects. The Vietnamese enacted a civilising mission, as they viewed the Khmer people as culturally inferior and regarded the Khmer lands as legitimate site for colonisation by settlers from Vietnam. The territory of the
Mekong Delta became a
territorial dispute between Cambodians and Vietnamese. Cambodia gradually lost control of the Mekong Delta. By the 1860s French colonist had taken over the Mekong Delta and establish the colony of
French Cochinchina.
Nguyen rule As the Vietnamese empire consolidated itself over the eastern mainland under
Gia Long and
Minh Mang, Cambodia fell to the Vietnamese invasion in 1811. The invasion was initiated by the ruling king, King
Ang Chan II's (r. 1806–35) request to Gia Long to suppress his own brothers,
Ang Snguon and
Ang Em, who were in
rebellion against him. The two brothers fled to Thailand, while Ang Chan became a Vietnamese vassal. In 1820 Gia Long died and his fourth son Minh Mang inherited the throne. Both Minh Mang and his father were strong adherents of Confucianism, but Minh Mang was a sadistic isolationist and strong ruler. He removed the Viceroy of Cambodia and Saigon in 1832, triggered the pro-Catholic
Lê Văn Khôi revolt against him in 1833. The Thai army, intended to support the rebellion, launched an offensive campaign against the Vietnamese on occupying Cambodia. This led Ang Chan to flee to Saigon, as
Rama III promised to restore the Kingdom of Cambodia and punish the insolence of the Kingdom of Vietnam. In 1834, the rebellion in Southern Vietnam was suppressed, and Minh Mang ordered troops to launch the second invasion of Cambodia. This drove most of the Thai forces to the west and reinstalled Ang Chan as the puppet king in Phnom Penh, later succeeded by his daughter, Queen
Ang Mey (r. 1835–41). Later that year, the
Tây Thành Province was established, the Vietnamese occupied Cambodia result in direct Vietnamese control. For the next six years, the Vietnamese emperor had tried to force the Cambodians to adopt Vietnamese culture by cultural assimilation, a progress that historian
David P. Chandler called
The Vietnamization of Cambodia. The death of Minh Mang in early 1841 halted the Vietnamization of Cambodia. With 35,000 Thai troops, they took advantage of the dire situation in Vietnam, rushed into the Tây Thành Province, and were able to fend off Vietnamese counteroffensives in late 1845. The new Vietnamese emperor,
Thieu Tri, readied to make peace with Siam, and in June 1847 a peace treaty was signed. The Kingdom of Cambodia under
Ang Duong regained its independence after 36 years of brutal Vietnamese occupations and Siamese interventions. ==Consequences and conclusions==