From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the period now know as “the Age of Commerce”, the Thai capital emerged as a flourishing entrepot in Southeast Asia. The kingdom had convenient access, to the Bay of Ben gal and the Coromandel Cost, by the way of Mergui and Tenasserim, and to the great Chinese markets by way of the South China Sea. The capital city was undoubtedly one of the most powerful port-polities in this part of the world