hello welcome to my channel my name is
sabor in today's video i'll be reacting
to kingdom
uh of majapahit wreth of han so stay
tuned we're gonna get started with the
video in just a couple of minutes
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[Music]
welcome back guys we're going to get
started with the video and at the end of
the video i'm going to be giving my
opinion as well as any
additional comments about the video so
please make sure you stay until the end
1292 marco polo sits idle in a sumatran
port
waiting for the trade winds to shift so
he can return home to venice
he spends his time collecting stories
about an island called
java mariners say it's the largest
island in the world he writes
that it's subject to a great king and
pays tribute to
no one people speak of its wealth and
the spices it produces
java's ports throng with merchants and
its treasure they say
is beyond telling and i can assure that
the great khan could
never get possession of this island he
writes
on account of the great distance and the
great expense
of an expedition the stories polo heard
were exaggerated
sumatra was in fact larger than java and
the island didn't grow spice
it just controlled the trade routes but
he was right about
one thing the great khan should have
left
java alone
[Music]
three years earlier an imperial envoy
makes his case before the king of singh
hassari
the greatest power on java the great
khan he says
has been monitoring conditions in this
southern ocean
he'd watched as singh khasari had
aggressively expanded
taking over srivijaya's crumbling vassal
empire to its east
and conquering bali to its west the
great khan had seen how this sent the
shipping lanes into disorder
and it had not escaped the khan's
attention that singh hassari had
rebuffed his order to send royal
captives to the mongol court
as any good vassal should now he offered
one last chance to comply
the king of singhasari had seen this
conflict brewing
for centuries the archipelago's kingdoms
had sent trade missions carrying spices
resins and fine wood to the chinese
emperor
who then sent back gifts of porcelain
and silk
the chinese had always called these
tributes
since the imperial throne did not engage
in anything as crass as trade
and as the states of southeast asia had
gone along with it
china could call the trade whatever it
wanted as long as the ships kept coming
once the mongols began rampaging through
china
and that tribute system broke down the
archipelago began a much more direct
trade with chinese merchants
now these new mongol emperors wanted to
make singh hassari
a true vassal but singh hassari was a
power on the rise
their king had built a miniature empire
and controlled the spice for cotton
trade with india
he'd even been inducted into the mystic
himalayan school of tantric buddhism
that kubla khan himself practiced the
king of singhasari may have in fact
done so in preparation for a conflict
wanting to be the spiritual equal of the
khan and know what mystical powers he
could call upon
singh asari was no vassal and would not
be treated as one
when the envoy presented himself at the
imperial court
the emperor knew that the mission had
failed he could read it on the man's
face
because the king of singh hassari had
cut off
his ears or his nose or
maybe just branded or tattooed him the
record isn't clear
but one thing was for certain kublai
khan
swor singh hassari would pay for this
loss of face
in 1292 the khan's great fleet arrived
off java
it had 1 000 ships 20 000 soldiers
and orders to destroy singh hassari they
would remove the king from his throne
and find a more pliant ruler yet upon
arrival
they found the job already half done the
fleet's envoy returned to say that the
king was dead
in the three years since the imperial
envoys visit the neighboring kingdom of
khadiri
had risen up and captured the capital
there was no longer a singhasari
now the king of khadiri ruled java but
this fleet
had been sent to bring the king of java
to heal
and they couldn't come back empty-handed
if singh hassari was gone
khadiri would have to do the fleet
easily captured the unprepared kadiri
navy
as it assembled at the mouth of a river
then the great ships began to unload
their famous mongol troops
and push into the heart of java and
that's when they got a message
a very strange message
it claimed to be from the rightful heir
to the throne of singh hassari
the sender radin wijaya was the dead
king's
stepson and the blood of his ancestor
the founder of singhasari
and avatar of the god vishnu ran strong
in his veins but he was besieged in his
new capital by the armies of the khadiri
if the chinese would help restore him to
his throne he would
happily pay tribute to the great khan
and become his willing vassal
it was an odd proposition to put their
original target's air
on the throne sure but eminently
practical
they needed to install a vassal ruler
and here one was
so they took the deal moving on the
capital of khadiri
with raden which is troops as their rear
guard
but one thing about wijaya in indonesian
folklore there are two kinds of rulers
there's the righteous prince a mystic
messianic figure that arises to save
java in its time of need
these figures were devout steadfast and
morally upright
then there are the iago the fighting
yago are scrappy upstarts they're rebels
and gangsters
people who are resourceful cunning and
effective
but never to be trusted wijaya's
ancestor
the founder of singh hassari had been a
yago
legend said he'd once been the greatest
thief in java
a man who used theft flattery and guile
to go from impoverished orphan to
usurper of a dynasty
anduija was a fitting successor to that
legacy
when singh hassari fell he'd been up
north with the army
crushing a rebellion while there he'd
received word that the king of khadiri
had forced the capital
his father-in-law had died surrounded by
mandalas and ritual objects
attempting to save his kingdom through
mystic ceremonies as the palace burned
around him
but wijaya had something better than
rituals to protect him
he had an army and over the next year he
attacked the khadiri forces handing them
three defeats
but these victories got him no closer to
taking the capital
if he wanted to survive he'd need to
establish a base of operations and wait
for his moment
so he approached a prince who'd
supported the khadiri rebellion
asking for refuge in exchange for
submission the prince who figured
allying with wijaya might be a smart bet
in the long term
agreed we just settled on the brontes
river
a place between the island's biggest
port and its inland rice terraces
when he arrived one of his followers
plucked a fruit from a tree
after tasting it the man threw it away
complaining that it was bitter
wijaya decided that would be the name of
his new capital
bitter fruit maja pahit
now that the mongols were here the
waiting was over
his chance had arrived he led the mongol
army's rear guard as they battered their
way
into the kadiri capital they captured
the usurper
took his family hostage and broke his
army
the mongols had done their part now it
was wijaya's turn
to hold up the bargain and of course he
was happy to pay the tribute as agreed
oh but hey uh one little thing
his treasury was back in majapahit of
course
if they could lend him an escort he
could lead them straight to their reward
wijaya was of course being polite these
escorts were prison guards
not honor guards he was a captive and
had little choice
and so he led them back to his new lands
of majapahit
and straight into an ambush the army of
singh hassari
now majapahit annihilated the mongols
who weren't so formidable without their
horses
afterward wijaya took his troops into
the jungles and rice terraces
engaging the chinese in a hit-and-run
guerrilla war
which was not great as far as the
chinese commanders were concerned
guerilla wars take time and they weren't
supposed to start an occupation
their orders had been to destroy a
kingdom and they had done that
sure it was the wrong kingdom but
whatever
check and they'd taken royal hostages
from a family no longer in power granted
but
let's call that a check they'd installed
a new ruler
which okay it was the heir to the guy
they were supposed to
remove but you know what check
good job everyone roll out that mission
accomplished banner
and let's go and so the great khan's
punitive
expedition dropped sail and left chinese
fleets would be absent from the
archipelago for the rest of the yuan
dynasty
and meanwhile radin wijaya sat in a new
palace
heir to his father-in-law's project to
expand and strengthen
javanese power a new empire was on the
rise
the empire of majapahit
[Music]
interesting you most of the time we hear
about that the spice
came from india but seems like the spice
actually
came from parts of indonesia
it would go to india get traded for
cotton and i guess from
india maybe you would go to europe uh so
i guess that part is not really touched
on to
uh too much but it's nice to find out a
little bit more detail um
here i guess uh the khan the mongols
were trying to get in there they got
defeated and kicked out and i didn't
know what majapahit uh
meant and it's it was nice that they
covered it that it means bitter fruit
so really really cool this is the second
episode can't wait to go through the
rest of them i think another
three or four of them left uh so if you
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