ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the southern Vietnamese took advantage of Cambodia's weakness and ended by occupying most of the Mekong delta through a process of slow but steady infiltration. Chou Ta-kuan gives an extraordinarily accurate description of the capital, and then discusses various types of dwelling, beginning with the royal palace, in which there is a golden tower at the top of which the king has his sleeping apartments. According to the chronicles, the Siamese succeeded at least twice in taking Angkor, the first time in 1352, the second in 1394 but these are sources of dubious reliability. The Siamese army that brought Ang Duong to Cambodia was again commanded by General P'raya Bodin. A large part of Cambodian prose literature consists of religious texts: translations of canonical texts or treatises of exegesis in which the discussion of merits acquired by the faithful as a result of good works holds an important place.
