THE RELATION OF CHINESE AND SIAMESE 11 



was more than 2500 years. The discriminating student of 

 history will say that while the great empires of the west 

 passed away, the races which they represented did not. This, 

 is equally true of the Lao of Anhui and Chianghsi and 

 Szechuan. They shifted their habitation but continued their 

 history. And it is worth-while history, too. The phenomenal 

 progress of the Tai kingdom of Siam in recent decades abun- 

 dantly proves that. 



The sixth great Tai migration began in A.D. 1053. The 

 occasion was another war of conquest by the Chinese. In 

 "Burma," at page 110, Sir George Scott says of the period 

 between the third century of our era and the downfall of the 

 T'ang dynasty — A.D. 907, according to Dr. Smith — that 

 "The Chinese Empire was in an inchoate state then, and for 

 long after it was engaged in a desperate struggle with the 

 Tai." The inhabitants of the south coast may have been 

 incorporated nominally into the main body of the Chinese 

 people, as Dr. Smith asserts, during the T'ang dynasty. 

 But the Ai-Lao Kingdom at Talifu was at its zenith; and 

 citations could be given from various authors to prove that in 

 reality the Tai were in control everywhere south of the 

 Yangtze until A.D. 1053. During that year in a series of 

 battles along most if not all of the navigable course of the 

 West River the Tai lost out to the Chinese. Thus another 

 great Tai migration began, thirteen years before William the 

 Norman crossed over to England. This migration reinforced 

 and extended the Tai invasion of Tonking and eastern Siam. 



Tai rule was not, however, broken in the southwest of 

 China. The Ai-Lao Kingdom, continued on for nearly two 

 hundred years longer, with its influence extending far beyond 

 the confines of China proper. The Mong Mao State, founded 

 some six or possibly seven centuries before, had by this time 

 become a great Tai Kingdom. According to Mr. Holt Halle tt, 

 by the time of A.D. 1229 its sway covered all of what is 

 now Upper Burma, Assam, parts of Aracan in Lower Burma, 

 and the upper Yun States of Chieng-rung and Chieng-tung 

 (Kenghung and Kentung). By this time (A.D. 1229), the 

 Tai had become so numerous and powerful in what is now 

 southern Siam. that they were menacing the rule of the 

 Mon-K'mer in Cambodia, says the Siam Directory. 



The seventh and last great wave of migration of the Tai 

 from China southward followed the overthrow of the Ai-Lao 

 Kingdom at Talifu in A.D. 1234. This kingdom had existed 

 for over 600 years. And it was overthrown not by the Chinese 

 but by the Mongols under Kublai Khan. That cataclysm 

 marks the end of autonomous Tai rule in territory governed 

 at the time by the Chinese. And our detailed historical study 



