on the defenses of Ayutthaya, perhaps thinking that the Burmese would not be able to lay siege beyond the dry season. According to the Burmese chronicles, the southern Burmese army faced an easier time than in 1760. (They faced token opposition until it reached Nonthaburi, dangerously close to Ayutthaya. In contrast, the Siamese put up several spirited defensive stands in 1760, greatly slowing down the Burmese advance). The Burmese would not make any progress against a better-led Siam, now based in Bangkok, in the future. This was the last war in which the Burmese were able to get near Ayutthaya, and achieve territorial gains. Burmese prowess progressively worsened over the next decades, and lost territory. They managed to penetrate to central Siam in 1775–1776, but were decisively defeated at the border in 1785–1786, after which the Burmese would no longer attempt another full-scale invasion. Significance Resurgent Siam Perhaps the most important legacy of the war was the reemergence of Siam as a major military power in mainland Southeast Asia. The war replaced the ancien régime of Ayutthaya and brought in a new energetic dynasty. In the following years, the new Siamese leadership would go on to challenge the Burmese in Tenasserim, Laotian states, Lan Na and Kengtung, and redress Siam's "historical military inferiority to Burma". A resurgent Siam assembled an empire, swallowing western Cambodia as well as Burmese vassals/tributaries of southern Lan Na (1776), Vientiane (1778), Chiang Saen (1786), and Luang Phrabang (1792–1794). The confident Siamese even attempted to acquire Kengtung and Sipsongpanna, lands so far away from their Bangkok base, from the Burmese in 1803–1804. By the early 19th century, Siam, under the Rattanakosin dynasty, was one of three main powers in mainland Southeast Asia, along with Burma and Vietnam, and had the second largest empire in all of Southeast Asia after the Burmese empire. After the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824–1826 removed the Burmese threat to Siam, the Siamese empire expanded eastwards unchecked, annexing all Laotian states and western Cambodia until they ran into Vietnamese forces in the middle of Cambodia in 1840. Siamese influence on Burmese culture The Siamese captives carried off from Ayutthaya went on to have an outsize influence on traditional Burmese theatre and dance. In 1789, a Burmese royal commission consisting of Princes and Ministers was charged with translating Siamese and Javanese dramas from Thai to Burmese. With the help of Siamese artists captured