Between the mid-16th century and the early 19th century, Thailand and Burma were at loggerheads, and they began a long war for a range of purposes, including land annexation and labor plunder, which took more than 300 years to finally stop.
The reasons for all this are also related to the fact that both sides are not satisfied with the results, the hatred is too great, and the intervention of Western countries.
Neither side is satisfied with the result
If there are historical records of war between Burma and Thailand in 1363 AD until the loss of Chiang Mai in 1802, 33 wars broke out between the two countries in the past few hundred years, this number is still incomplete.
However, the frequency of wars generally broke out between the mid-16th century and the late 18th century, causing great damage to both countries.
There is always no end to war, and the main reason is that the two sides involved in the war have not achieved their goals and continue to "work hard" through war.
The Burma-Thai War generally consisted of three phases, the first of which lasted from 1548 to 1592.
At the end of 1548, the Burmese king Mangrui took advantage of the contradictions within the Thai royal family to suddenly lead a large army to invade, and besieged the capital of Thailand, Ayutthaya the following year, but this time for various reasons, Mangrui did not succeed in "take" Thailand, so he had to retreat first.
After this war, the beams of the two sides were completely formed.
Myanmar's purpose is to get more land and labor, Thailand's ready-made resources must be within the consideration of the Burmese king, but the Burmese king's goal has not been achieved, and the ambition is also known to passers-by, then the next can only be completed through war.
Later, Mang Yinglong took the throne, conquered the city of Ayutthaya in 1569, captured all the Mahin royal family to Burma, and took more than 70,000 laborers with them, and since then, Thailand has been a vassal state of Burma for 15 years.
In 1659, in the second phase of the war, Bo Yingxiang again captured the city of Ayutthaya, which was completely looted and lost a lot of property and gold and silver jewelry in Thailand.
According to Thai chronicles, the strength of Burma's first expedition was 500,000 men, and the strength of the second expedition was 900,000.
The war progressed to its third stage, and the city of Ayutthaya was captured for the third time in the Burma-Thai War in 1767, which captured more than 2,000 members of the royal family and ministers, and captured more than 30,000 Thai craftsmen and civilians to Burma.
In the process of conquering the city of Ayutthaya on three occasions, Myanmar gained great benefits, but Thailand was always like a "weed after fire", and Myanmar finally failed to firmly control Thailand.
Moreover, throughout the three stages of the Myanmar-Thailand War, the strength of both sides is also one and the other, and in the early days of the war, Myanmar seized Thailand's weakness, but Myanmar cannot guarantee that it will always be strong.
For example, in the period from 1584 to 1592, the Burmese army invaded Thailand five times, but all of them ended in failure, and in 1592, during the decisive battle of Korasha, Thailand, the Burmese army was defeated and the commander was killed on the spot.
Between 1664 and 1665, when Burma was at war with the Qing army, there was also internal strife within the royal family, and this time Thailand seized the opportunity, they attacked in a big way and fought a decisive battle with the Burmese army, although it ended in failure, but also played a crucial role in depleting the national power of Burma.
In this way, in that 300-year history, Myanmar constantly wanted to occupy Thailand, and Thailand also wanted to compete for the hegemony of the Indochina Peninsula, and neither side succeeded.
In the composition of the troops, the addition of the Foreign Legion has increased the strength of both sides, which has also increased the difficulty for both sides to achieve their goals.
The essence of the Burma-Thailand wars was also the struggle between countries for suzerainty and hegemony, and other reasons were covered by this reason, and judging from the results, neither country achieved its goal, so the war continued.
Hatred is too great
From the perspective of world war history, most wars can be won and lost within a few years, but there are still many wars that last for more than a hundred years.
Then, such a war will inevitably involve several generations or even more than a dozen generations, and there will also be "family feuds" between countries and countries.
It is not difficult to imagine that a child knows from the beginning of understanding that a country has always been his enemy, so if one day the other party no longer fights with him, it is difficult to quickly turn his thinking back.
From a Thai perspective, none of the unified feudal dynasties in Thailand is better known than the Ayutthaya dynasty, which annexed the Sukhothai dynasty and lasted for 417 years, making it the longest feudal dynasty in Thai history.
It is precisely in these 417 years that the political system, social culture, etc. formed in Thailand have had a profound impact on Thai society, and this must contain a strong sense of national identity.
Foreign trade allowed Ayutthaya to enjoy rich benefits, the development of trade also contributed to the prosperity of Ayutthaya economy, the ports of the lower Chao Phraya River have always been an important transit point for East-West trade, and the Ayutthaya dynasty has also accumulated a lot of wealth in the long-term trade process, which is also the result of the efforts of countless laborers.
However, the Burmese king used the dispute to obtain the fruits of Thailand's development by force, which is unacceptable to any Thai.
From the moment hatred begins to form, if one country cannot truly "disappear" from the map, it will always be a threat to another country.
In the 15 years since 1569, Burma established a puppet regime in Thailand, which was also a major result of the conquest by force.
Under the "feud", even if Thailand has become a vassal state of Burma, the new king is still unwilling to be a puppet, and secretly plots to form a strong army.
In 1581, the new king of Thailand declared independence.
Myanmar's "obsession" is also deep, they are unwilling to give up their vested interests, so they have repeatedly attacked Thailand, but they have failed, but they themselves have fallen into economic decay and insufficient military resources.
In those hundreds of years, the two sides never let go of hatred, and only when their strength was equal could they balance each other.
After the end of the Thai counterattack in 1605, the two countries were equal in national strength, so neither side was confident that it would succeed in launching a large-scale invasion, and the struggle was mainly concentrated in the border areas of Chiang Mai and Madu VIII.
Under these circumstances, the struggle between the two countries is far from over, and the two sides are still waiting for each other's opportunities.
Western countries intervened
Neither country seems to have imagined that after competing for hegemony for hundreds of years, it was invaded by foreign forces.
As the pace of global expansion of colonial powers such as Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, and France accelerated, they also came to the Indochina Peninsula for natural resources, and also discovered the incompatibility between Thailand and Myanmar.
Initially, the colonial invaders wanted to take advantage of the war between the two countries to claim some privileges, and their aggression at that time focused on places such as India and the Strait of Malacca, where transportation was more convenient, so they had not yet killed these two countries.
In the mid-18th century, with the advent of the Yongya and the establishment of a strong army in Burma, the balance was upset due to the opposite situation in Thailand, where princes fought over the throne.
The powerful Burma soon attacked Thailand, and by the way, it also provoked the Qing Dynasty in the north.
After the fall of the Thai capital, the Qing Dynasty decisively sent troops to fight back against Burma, which once again gave Thailand the opportunity to recover, and in the end, Thailand recovered the lost territory and gained independence under the leadership of the general Zheng Xin, but Burma was divided after the conquest, but Zheng Xin of that meeting put the first task on unification and did not attack Burma.
After that, the two sides fought countless wars, large and small, but under the decline of strength, the conflict also changed from a full-scale war to a local war.
In the late 18th century, after the British monopoly on India, France was not willing to accept defeat and turned its head to invade Indochina, Britain saw that France took the first step and immediately invaded Indochina from India, and the two European countries also once again burned the war to Southeast Asia, and Burma and Thailand became victims.
Burma also naively thought that it was better to strike first, and suddenly attacked the British army, and after the outbreak of the Anglo-Burmese War, Burma eventually became a British colony, lost its autonomy, and they were no longer able to attack Thailand.
After ending the war with Burma, Thailand turned to Cambodia and Laos, only to encounter fierce French troops and become a "Anglo-French buffer zone", and the three-century war between the two countries finally ended.
It is not difficult to imagine that without the strong intervention of Britain and France, the war between Thailand and Burma would have continued.
After World War II, the two countries once again went on different paths, Thailand was relatively stable and economic development improved, but Myanmar's civil strife and development also encountered serious obstacles, which also affected their position in Southeast Asia.
Today, the two countries have had a lot of exchanges, and now comparing the two countries together reveals many practical problems.
From the land, Thailand covers an area of more than 510,000 square kilometers, and Myanmar has more than 670,000 square kilometers, but the population, the smaller area of Thailand has 70 million people, but Myanmar is only 52 million, about 160,000 square kilometers of the area difference, but nearly 18 million more people.
Population, to a large extent, determines the stability and economic strength of the country.
This is also confirmed by the national GDP data.
Thailand's GDP is more than $500 billion, but Myanmar is only $70 billion, so rounding up, one Thailand, equal to more than 7 Myanmar's GDOP, is really embarrassing.
reference
Thai Nguyen people during Burmese rule The formation of the Thai nation-state and its ethnic integration process