meantime, much of the Burmese gains of 1765–1767 in Siam had gone to waste. An energetic leader had emerged to reunify Siam, and make her a formidable power in the following decades. Siamese civil war and emergence of Taksin (1767–1771) After the fall of Ayutthaya, the Burmese had little control over the Siamese countryside. After the Burmese left, five Siamese polities—Phitsanulok, Sawankhalok, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phimai, and Chanthaburi (later Thonburi)—vied to fill the power vacuum. Of the five, Taksin, based in Chanthaburi since June 1767, was to reunify Siam in the next three years. He emerged the main contender by late 1768. According to Thai history, Taksin defeated a "sizable" Burmese force at Ayutthaya garrison in November 1767. The Burmese chronicles do not report this although they usually report any battle of significance even if they tend to downplay those with an unfavorable outcome. For example, the Burmese chronicles mention the 1774 Lan Na rebellion despite the outcome. If the battle truly was in Ayutthaya and in November, the chronicles should have mentioned it. To be sure, the lack of corroborating Burmese sources does not mean the battle did not take place. After all, the Burmese chronicles do not mention the looting of Ayutthaya either. Still, other contemporary events indicate that storming a fortified garrison was no easy task. The Chinese army could not take the Burmese garrison at Kengtung in 1765–1766. The Burmese themselves spent 14 months outside Ayutthaya. Taksin could not take Phitsanulok in May 1768. At any rate, the sheer difference in reporting indicates a need for further verification of the event, which is taught in Thai schoolbooks as fact. In general, much of the reporting of the war, which still includes two different dates (28 March 1767 and 7 April 1767) for the sack of Ayutthaya—arguably the important date of the war, requires more detailed studies that consult both sides, without the nationalist bravado from either. Taksin's first attempt at reunification—an expedition to Phitsanulok in May 1768—was unsuccessful. He captured Phimai at the end of 1768. By late 1769, he had defeated Nakhon Si Thammarat. In mid-1770, he finally defeated Phitsanulok, and became the sole ruler of Siam. It would take until 1771 with Taksin's capture of Hà Tiên (Banteay Mas) that saw him successfully eliminate all immediate threats to his rule over Siam. Territorial changes For all the fighting and destruction, the Burmese gained only