ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some more details on the life of Mac Thien-tu and Phraya Taksin as well as the competitive relations between them. Among Mac Thien-tu accomplishments, the most remarkable may have been the diffusion and maintenance of Chinese cultural traditions in Ha-tien. In order to have a better understanding of the nature of the conflicts that actually occurred between Thien-tu and Phraya Taksin, the chapter refers to the covert influence exercised by the two opposing Chinese communities of different dialects on their background. The chapter argues that at first Thien-tu, as a political refugee, was received by King Taksin, but unfortunately such courtesy and friendship faded away within a couple of years, owing to a series of unlucky events which accurred in Cambodia and southern Vietnam. It focuses the important roles played by the Chinese settlers or their second generations in the Indochinese history of the 17th and 18th centuries.
