Warring Societies of Pre-Colonial Southeast Asia_ Local Cultures of Conflict Within a Regional Context

Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asia

Thuc Luc) mention Nguyen Phuc Anh’s order to construct vessels several
times a year during the 1790s. Realizing that the navy was the backbone
of his war machine, ship-construction became his ultimate concern.^30
The production of vessels did not only fulfil the rapid demand by the
Nguyen’s fleets, but served also as an important trade commodity with
the Siamese in exchange for iron, saltpeter, and guns.^31
The Siamese acquisition of Vietnamese vessels clearly confirmed
regional recognition of their advanced shipbuilding techniques. A
nineteenth-century poem reveals their admiration for the Vietnamese as
“skillful carpenters. They like eating crocodile meat. They settled along
rivers and possessed great expertise in boats”.^32 Siamese kular ships were
identical to the Malay-Cham’s kora-kora and to the Vietnamese ghe tau
that were mostly constructed along the Gulf of Siam’s eastern coast, in
Ha Tien, Phu Quoc, Long Xuyen, and An Giang.^33 Those places, as the

30. The British diplomat John Barrow, who came to Gia Dinh in 1792–1793, observed
    that the Nguyen prince was an “intendant of the ports and arsenals, master ship-
    wright of the dockyard, and chief engineer of all the works... In the former, not a
    nail is driven without first consulting him; nor a gun mounted on the latter but by his
    orders. He not only enters into the most minute detail in drawing up instructions,
    but actually sees them executed himself.” John Barrow, A Voyage to Cochinchina, in
    the Years 1792 and 1793: To Which Is Annexed an Account of a Journey Made in the
    Years 1801 and 1802, to the Residence of the Chief of the Booshuana Nation (London:
    T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1806): 277.


31. At least two entries in the Bangkok Chronicle, reign I (Rama I), reveal the exchange
    of the Nguyen’s ships for Siamese support. “If and when Nguyen Phuc Anh (Ong
    Chiang Su) asked for military help, the king would be willing to send an army to
    help. However, to travel overland would be too far, and in going by sea, there would
    be only 70 to 80 ships available at the capital ... therefore whenever Nguyen Phuc
    Anh was free from fighting, it was asked that he construct some 60 or 70 kular
    ships, along with a very fine kular for the king’s use and sent these to the king. ...
    On the first day of the waxing moon of the eleventh month, in that year of Pig, the
    king of Annam sent a letter asking to purchase 1000 flintlock guns ... With this
    came thirty Vietnamese hammocks to be presented to the king, and also seventy
    warships that had been ordered constructed. The ships were taken and moored
    at the Bang-o Peninsular at the king’s order, and on Thursday, the second day of
    the waning moon of the third month, the king ordered that 200 hap in weight of
    iron for wharfts and 200 guns be sent out as gifts to the king of Annam.” Thadeus
    and Chanin Flood (trans.), The Dynastic Chronicles Bangkok Era, the First Reign
    (Tokyo: Center for East Asian Culture, 1978): 167, 174–75.


32. Davisak Puaksom, Khon Plaek na Nana Chat Khong Krung Sayam [The Strangers
    of Siam] (Bangkok: Matichon Publishing, 2003): 42.


33. For the Malay–Cham’s kora-kora, see Manguin, “The Vanishing Jong: Insular
    Southeast Asian fleets in war and trade (15th–17th centuries)”, in Reid (ed.)