 by the way what a united nations report came out that i read today that said that in 2023 india is going to surpass china as the most populous country on earth do you know what that means that means during lockdown we know what you guys have been doing indians are very good at that hey welcome back to our steve and rickson gives a corbin how many of you have created people listening to us i want to know is that where we your background music we're a good baby making music yeah we are i gotta tell you especially some of the reactions we do you turn on a little thing there and you get some rithic dancing or some hellen moving those hips that'll motivate you to populate india today we got a uh you know those little animated videos we we've seen many times that we love so much yeah yeah the instructional ones yeah yeah yeah this is the time india's kingdom invaded southeast asia oh right this uh rejendra chola and the maritime chola empire chola empire i do believe is what money rottnams film is about the the chola uh i do because awesome i gotta send this a lot after the teaser after the teaser um and so uh a lot of people sent us this to get a little more information about you guys are so freaking great and so if there's other videos so that we can also thank you um and apparently there's a that that whole um things they're making is a is a book one of the most famous books in tamo um oh that they're they're turning into a film that they're they've tried for money rottams tried for many times like back in the day right i remember you telling me this kamahasa i was actually supposed to i remember starting but the budget and all yeah budget effects things of that nature but um yeah i i would just we've said it over and over again it's it's one thing for people to be teachable which corbin and i that's a value for us all of our lives is to remain teachable which has helped us to embrace what we have learned but to have teachers like you guys who are constantly wanting us to learn so that we just we encounter something and then you have consistently over the years bombarded us in the most beautiful way with information to help broaden our understanding is a huge gift so thank you for doing that absolutely yeah indian history can be a bit tricky for them initially yes it can effort to build a cohesive story for a nation whose people have been stitched together into a sort of post colonial frankenstein we're given only a thin slice of the whole the indus valley civilization the moria's the guptas the moguls to british roge and the independence movement simple clean and limited and quite frankly a bit stale here's the dirty little secret of indian history we rarely learn about its most interesting players only its most convenient ones well that's about to change right now meet the cholas a visionary maritime empire from the deep south of india in a region known as tamal country the cholas were many things warlike opportunistic and politically manipulative but above all they were ambitious but the medieval era they had fashioned themselves into a regional hegemon that dominated their contemporaries in india and southeast asia and established extensive intercontinental trade networks perhaps the single most impressive feat of the cholas was their naval invasion of southeast asia in 1025 cd part of a multi-generational effort to gain supremacy over international sea trade a naval invasion in 1025 in the century of pseudo-colonial intervention that followed is one that challenges conventional perceptions of indian empire i'm seeing the trailer in my head but let's dig into some historical context first the chola dynasty first came into being sometime around 300 bce in the keveri river delta same as america in the beginning the cholas were reliant on the sea for well it's all right 200 years ago the ships from lands as far away as china and rome in the early medieval era the cholas were nothing more than a mere vassal kingdom to the dominant polyvas that all changed however when the polyvas found themselves embroiled in a series of conflicts in 850 c e from their core city of urea the cholas exploited an opportunity to capture the city of dongevore from the polyvas thereby resting control of the region from their former overlords over the next 150 years the cholas went through what might be considered a civilizational golden age temo arts culture and language flourished government administration was centralized and approved using processed palm leaves as a sort of paper substitute the cholas kept copious records from administrative reports to legal disputes to internal reviews of official misconduct meanwhile surveys and centralized revenue collection ensured fairness in taxation the cholas also introduced elected councils whose officials were subject to regular auditing these and other reforms undercut the role of local feudatories thus consolidating chola power and creating the infrastructure necessary to maintain a large well-run empire but it was this man rejendra chola the first who would put them on the world stage as crown prince rejendra led campaigns against neighboring rivals under the command of his father rajaraja chola he conquered the western gaga dynasty the charas and the pandyas together they extended the boundaries of the empire over much of south india entry lanka defeating their enemies and forging deep political and familial alliances with the delegates of vengi thus by the time rejendra chola the first ascended to the throne in 1014 CE he had inherited an empire on the precipice of historical greatness freshly coronated and no doubt influenced by his father's expansionary policies rejendra began to shape into being a true cross-regional empire rejendra was a busy man in less than a decade he used his navy to blockade and subdue rebellious lords along the malabar coast carved out territories belonging to the western chalukyas supported his nephew's succession claims in thalagu country finished his father's conquest of Sri lanka occupied the maldives and established chola dominance over the andaman islands thus securing a foreign base into southeast asia that's a long way he also installed his sons as regional viceroy to further entrench central control over these dominions but even after all of this he was just getting started in 1023 CE rejendra decided to raid northern india he marched with his armies to the northeast all the way up to the banks of the river ganges on the way he defeated the forces of kalinga and with the path clear to bangal descended upon the polyking them and defeated them too rejendra was so pleased with himself that when he defeated the polyking them he filled up large tanks with water from the river ganges and transported them all the way back to the chola heartland to commemorate the victory he constructed a formidable temple at the center of a new capital city gangaikonda chola puro meaning conqueror of the ganges and blessed it with his pillaged holy water but why all this warmongering why risk everything to subdue distant enemies see the indian subcontinent lies at the center of an oceanic trade superhighway known as the maritime silk road the importance of the maritime silk road cannot be overstated for thousands of years ancient powers move significant cargo along these routes early writings in tamo country described streets packed to the brim with goods from around the world while government records in tang dynasty china indicate that the quantity of goods entering through his license ports generated a large portion of the country's total tax revenues control over the maritime silk road was invaluable military and administrative dominance gave major powers the ability to position their economic machinery such as trade guilds more favorably in the global markets the chola military offenses were part of a strategy to suppress rivals that might otherwise compromise their supremacy over the maritime silk road trade it's hardly a coincidence that nearly a half century of conflict led to chola control over most of the prominent trade centers along india's coasts we've mentioned trade guilds a few times so what role did they play in all of this for most of tamal history trade guilds were influential in both the economic and political spheres by the medieval era trade guilds had grown extremely powerful with some wielding greater defacto authority than local feudatories like sag there were many trade guilds the 500 boards of avalu the anjavanam and the money among others each had their own specialty history and supply networks an 11th century inscription describing the 500 said the following about the guild famed throughout the world having 18 cities of the four points of the compass born to be wanderers over many countries by land routes and water routes penetrating into the regions of the six continents with superior elephants well bred horses large sapphires moonstones pearls rubies diamonds cardamoms clothes sandal camphor musk saffron and other perfumes and drugs selling wholesale or hopping about on their shoulders preventing the loss of customs duties filling up the emperor's treasury of gold and his armory of weapons the guilds likely wielded significant behind-the-scenes influence we know that the trade guilds would maintain their own flag standards as well as their own private armies and fleets we also know that some trade guilds lent money to kings including roger roger tola and regender tola it was a risky proposition to go against the demands of the trade guilds if regender were to get on their bad side he might find his rivals suddenly equipped and funded to stage a takeover to put it bluntly the trade guilds benefited from the trade guilds benefited from chola dominance of the maritime silk road trade whether they actively pushed for war remains a mystery but it's fair to say yeah they probably did having secured their dominance over the maritime silk road vis-a-vis other Indian powers one would think that the cholas could finally sit back and enjoy their hard-earned rewards but that was not the case sri vijaya a powerful thalysocracy based in the malay archipelago was actively interfering with trade and damaging chola interests see by the turn of the 11th century the maritime silk road was undergoing some significant changes the decline of the abyssin caliphate and baghdad was matched by the rise of the fatima dynasty in Egypt ships leaving from the fatima territories would scoot past the horn of africa and toward chola ports where goods would be sold and re-transported by tamil crews headed towards southeast asia and china meanwhile on the other side of asia the song dynasty ushered in an era of unprecedented economic prosperity everyone was lining up for an egg from the song dynasty golden goose including of course the fatimids thanks to the creation of powerful pro-trade dynasties on both ends of the maritime silk road the sea trade was booming in a way that it had not for several centuries normally ships would stop at both south indian and southeast asian ports but advancements in shipbuilding technology meant that ships could travel farther faster and more safely than ever before making two stops unnecessary soon the central region of the maritime silk road played host to an intense and underhanded competition between shri vijaya and the cholas for years shri vijaya bribed orang lau colloquially known as sea gypsies to stop them from engaging in piracy and interfering with trade the sea gypsies were aboriginal communities who lived along the coastlines of shri vijaya territory like most pirates in history they were frustrating and useful in equal measure the sea gypsies received a portion of customs proceeds from shri vijaya and in turn promised to do something less violent with their time once the trade conflict with the cholas heated up power shri vijaya do something that's why yeah why do you have to kill just go fish this time on their behalf okay the sea gypsies began to make sense all passing ships to dock at shri vijaya ports and pay customs resupply and more as a result chola ports were being made redundant there's also evidence that tamal trade guilds were being actively suppressed in southeast asian ports due to shri vijaya's influence oh interference with maritime silk road trade no doubt prompted rejendra to attack the shri vijaya and normalize the situation after all he and his father had not spent decades warring and subduing their maritime rivals in india simply to have the fruits of their labor wrought on the vine shri vijaya would have to be punished the chola invasion involved three major southeast asian players shri vijaya of course but also tamalinga a malay kingdom based out of what is now southern thailand and angor an ambitious peninsula kingdom based out of what is now cambodia in the early 11th century the cholas were a staunch ally of angor while shri vijaya was allied with tamal inda it's possible that religion played a part in this diplomatic route tamalinga and usually does while angora and the chola empire were hindu shea fight in the year 1025 ce the kingdom of angora was embroiled in a conflict with tamalinga and requested military assistance from the cholas the cholas agreed to help angora likely knowing what would happen next when the cholas formally declared war on tamalinga yeah they wanted it came to the aid of its ally right declared war on the cholas and angora with their inevitable conflict now made real regender chola gathered his navy and prepped for the subsequent invasion the chola navy was on the leading edge of naval technology for their time in years past regender's father had imported the talents of chinese and arab shipbuilders to work on research and development for the chola navy with their help the cholas implemented critical naval technologies including watertight haul innovations that allowed their fleet to traverse rougher seas a mariners compass and further advancement of a flamethrower weapon not unlike the legendary greek fire utilized by the Byzantine fleets wow oh wow we got flamethrowers when the world take that ilan musk regender split his fire breathing fleet into two groups the main invasion fleet and our auxiliary force the auxiliary force that's just one boat so the streets of malacca do a lot of that fleet was waiting position to take on what they assumed would be the bulk of the chola fleet uh-huh shri vj and know that the chola main invasion fleet was sent south of sumatra positioned behind the island i keep thinking they're saying bokeh chola side the chola fleet circled around the island and made their way to palm bong the southern capital when they arrived they seized and sacked the city afterwards the combined chola forces pincered the shri vj fleet in the straits defeating them easily why would you stay there idiots why was this decisive maneuver allowed to happen they watched brave heart well shri vj did not anticipate that some that's a maneuver in brave heart had been outfitted with technology that allowed them to traverse the rough waters south of sumatra it wasn't an unreasonable blind spot moving an entire fleet south of sumatra in the monsoon season had never been done before and was seen as impossibly risky after steamrolling the shri vj and navy the chola forces laid siege to katharum the northern capital of shri vj and captured this important administrative and trade center for themselves for the cholas conquest seems to have been uncompromising they plundered countless treasures and took the shri vj king maharaja sangramah as their prisoner with shri vj effectively subdued the cholas finally moved a portion of their fleet to barrel with tumberlinga and helped to quickly bring back kingdom under angora's control the southeast asian invasion was an unequivocal success in just a few months the cholas had defeated the mighty shri vj and ended a prosperous multi-century dynasty that's so awesome though the invasion brought an end to the shri vj assailant their dynasty its impact was manifold success emboldened chola ambitions in southeast asia for the next 100 years they became intimately involved in southeast asian politics the cholas formed new alliances performed raids and generally used their influence to bully the weaker players so to create an economically favorable situation something of a pseudo-colonial approach sorry i'll show you themselves further the cholas established permanent military garrisons in shri vj and angora that's probably smart to serve as remote forces for promoting their interest and starbucks the soft and those same spot increased too tamel trade guilds came to dominate in the major commercial centers of southeast asia and southern china and the chola sent regular political envoys to china angora bagan pegoo shri vijaya and other asian power i'll take you establishing closer diplomatic relations in the wake of the invasion chola elite intermarried with southeast asian royalty regentera for example his beliefs have taken onan q the daughter of the captured shri vijaya king sangrama as his wife since that time malay royalty claimed and continue to claim chola heritage and their princes have been variously named raja chulan an attempt to recall this unique past but intermarriage was more than just a historical curiosity close family relations method the chola could more legitimately prop up claims of royalty that would be friendly to their interests in 1077 ce for example a succession dispute in katharama led to direct chola intervention regender his grandson kulo tunga conquered katharama on behalf of the chola descended claimant to the crown putting him on the throne as a sort of puppet king but familial connections would not always lead to a loyal service to the crown at the turn of the 12th century shri lume chola a half tamel half malay prince from sumatra was sent with the chola expeditionary force to the philippines to scout the country ahead of a potential invasion sensing an opportunity to make himself into a king shri lume suddenly decided to defect from the chola empire and conquer the island of sebu under his own banner establishing the long-lived raja nate of sebu though the cholas lay forgotten by the bulk of humanity their legacy survives in the blood and culture of their descendants in india and in southeast asia for far too long the world has lived in quiet ignorance of the great power that once emerged from across the sea and now you know that's great very informative very informative um and yeah i had never heard about that um if i did in school it was one of those classes i just didn't pay attention to this is what i want to say to the cholas your brain is melting your did it uh yeah i think it's actually this has to be different because the other the other one that we listen to even though it's similar animation it's uh it's a different voice and different kind of yeah a lot more comedy with the the other ones yeah there was more there was comedy and this had no comedy but that's fine and i'm guessing that um money rottendom's film is more a fictional story with them as the main characters you guys tell me from i don't know specifically and i would imagine i mean don't know the scope of it but that's a lot of history to cover my suspicion is that it would cover one giant navel or two not multiple this was uh one this is the first part we don't know how many films oh that's true they could do a lot of films well that we know they're at least doing two yeah it could do a lot of films on that um but uh yeah it's uh it's it's cool to have that information and um and also a lot of people said that um if you've read the book of that what ps1 or whatever whatever right thing is um even though it looked like this giant epic and there there's some action it's a lot more small story oriented than a rr right right or something like that more true historic epic than giant blockbuster my guess you're like beginnings of game of thrones right right in terms of um just got the people got so mad when i said game of thrones i'm not comparing it obviously i know y'all were around way before game of thrones i'm saying in terms of how they did it in terms of it was all story oriented right right right oriented then there was some good action action that was added that that came much later in the series really absolutely when they could afford it yeah yeah because it cost a lot of money to do what they wanted a lot of times like they often like there was a battle and they would just cut yes like tearing would get knocked out and there would have been an entire battle that had gone on and they didn't see it yeah that's happens with them when the lannisters go to fight and he gets knocked down you don't see that fight nope because they didn't have the money to do it oh no uh but yeah and that's what makes that such a great show is because they focused on story and it's i'm amazed every time we learn something historical because it's the same thing every time history at least when we were growing up and i don't know if it's changed at all because i can't imagine it has we don't learn about this you know what we learn about we learn about history from the western perspective we learn about alexander the great and we learn about ivan the terrible and we learn about the expansion that happened through greece and roam and we might go back to sparta and you know we we don't hear much asian history when we talk about what's going on here because except tom cruise and last samurai that's true which is all 100 accurate and the most important story to come out of asia got a love wide saviors did you see that movie no oh it's actually quite good that's right here but it's also um isn't they whitewash it uh i have to see it again it's i haven't seen it since it came out asian story i feel like it's yeah but has to be whitewash no not at all because he he actually is it's it's more like um oh what was that film with dustin hoffman and then it also happened rain man no no it was early in dustin hoffman's career it was it was rain man little little brig house little prairie no little big horn little big dick that's it little big dick no he plays an american cowboy who gets captured by a native american tribe and winds up it's very um uh dances with wolves it preceded dances with wolves by 25 years but that's last samurai is that he is a a drunk white awful guy who ends up being brought in by this community and ends up wanting to fight for them without giving you too many spoilers it's it's it's one of my favorite among many and there was actually variety in hollywood reporters just did lists of the 15 best tom cruise films since maverick did so well last samurai is always in the list of the top 15 of tom cruz's best films but it amazes me how little we know of eastern history because in the west we're basically like up doesn't matter to us i don't get it well i should it it's not a humanity we are human beings not western beings or eastern beings your mom's a being it's all humanity anyways if there's other videos that can edger mckades before the film comes out yes i i'm debating on actually because there's apparently an english translation audio book of the books that's supposed to be pretty good no i bet it is but people say it's good but i'm also do i want to read that and have everything even though it's probably really good not being able to see it first on the screen that's always my thing i don't mind reading a book and then finding out it's going to be made into a movie but when i find out a book is being made into a film i typically don't read the book and want to see the film first because almost always the the the films don't live up to the book almost always yeah one of the best adaptations i think is the lord of the rings films that that's that's one of the best book yeah yeah yeah and that's why i say that there's a lot more in the books but it's it's one of the best i think you can never cover every one page can give you what that's why a book can be 400 pages in a script is only 120 so anyways if there's other videos we can react to please let us know what they are down below