10 THE RELATION OF CHINESE AND SIAMESE 



this long period, still strong in their eastern home, they grew 

 increasingly powerful in southwestern China. By A.D. 629 

 they had "developed and formed the agglomeration which 

 became the great state of Nan-chao, which afterwards ex- 

 tended in all directions," and lasted over six centuries. This 

 is called in the Tai the Ai-Lao Kingdom, with its seat at 

 Talifu. As previously noted, Lacouperie fathers the state- 

 ment that the leading family of the Nan-chao agglomeration 

 was the Mung, whose actual emergence into Chinese Annals 

 had occurred some 2,800 years before that time. 



During the long period following the fourth migration 

 Lampun in North Siam and Vieng Chan in the French 

 Laos State were founded by Tai immigrants from the north. 

 North Siam histories give the date of the founding of Lampun 

 as A.D. 574. By this time the Ai-Lao, now the Tai if you 

 please, had spread over Tonking and the northern parts of 

 French Laos State and Siam. "An author of the thirteenth 

 century speaks of them" (i.e., the people of this migration) 

 "as having extended, in more than one hundred sub-divisions, 

 to fifty days' journey from the frontiers of the Ta-li 

 kingdom. 



The fifth great migration of the Ai-Lao occurred in the 

 tenth century of the Christian era. The eighth and ninth 

 centuries constitute an age of mighty conquests on the part 

 of the Chinese. Dr. Arthur H. Smith says that the inhabi- 

 tants of the south coast were incorporated into the main body 

 of the people, and the empire was extended to the bank of 

 the Caspian Sea. We could wish that Professor Lacouperie 

 had been a little more specific as to the date of this fifth 

 migration; but he locates it in this period of Chinese con- 

 quest. Writing of the Lao in Anhui and Chianghsi Provinces 

 he says : — 



"They were not dislodged from their seats before the 10th 

 century of our era, when they were driven into Hunan, W. of 

 Kuanghsi, and Kueichou. Many of them migrated altogether 

 from China at that time, but they are still largely represented by 

 the Tujen, Tchungkia and other tribes of Kuanghsi and Kueichou 

 of the present day, speaking dialects much resembling the 

 Siamese, of whom they are undoubtedly the elder brothers." 



This expulsion of the Ai-Lao from their ancestral seat at 

 the eastern focus occurred when Europe was still young. But 

 can we realize the length of time that the Ai-Lao had held 

 sway there in Anhui? Eome existed but a trifle over 1200' 

 years, Greece slightly more than 1300. The Medo-Persian 

 empire was short-lived. And even the great Babylonian 

 empire did not attain quite 1700 years. But from the time- 

 when the Lao. are first mentioned as residing in Anhui, 

 already a well established race, until their final expulsion, 



