Cambodian Heroes: Meas, Yort, and Srean (1738-1779) - The Great Khmer Empire

General Meas, General Yort, and Lady Srean are Cambodian most respected national heroes. They served under three emperors from 1738 to 1779. They were renounced for their kindness and cleverness that always out-maneuvered any and all enemies.

The Beginnning
The story of them started in 1723. A 16 years old man had just finished his education from a pagoda near the province of Sureen in the Region of Malaka. Just before this young man named Meas were about to leave the pagoda to go back to his parents' farm, his teacher, who was a monk famous for his future reading, saw that Meas would eventually became a great general. Thus, in the morning of his student leaving, he told Meas to go north and his future awaits him there. Meas boarded a ship from Sureen with the goal of arriving at Prey Nokor then up the river to the capital. However, with the power of fate, the ship was diverted to Chanapura with no reason.

In Chanapura, Meas asked to be allowed to stay for one night in a pagoda just outside the city. At that night, he dreamed that a deity came to tell him to find the tallest tree near the pond of the pagoda he was staying and dig under it to find a great treasure. The next day, Meas found a golden coin under the base of the tallest tree. Meas continued his journey until he reach the capital city of Yasodharapura in 1724. Three years later, Meas married, but the couple divorced in 1729 as he was infertility.

Meas joint the Imperial court in 1729. He quickly rose through the rank and was appointed a position of deputy governor of the capital, a sign of growing favor. In 1734, Meas voluntarily accepted a governorship of a desolated province of Sokour Tey. Meas later claimed that Sokour Tey needed him more than the capital, but even at the time people thought this might be a result of rivalry between Meas and another high ranking official which forced the Emperor to separate both of them.

Along the way to Sokour Tey, Meas came across a band of traders near Champar Sak. He noticed a 12 years old boy was chained naked and covered with dirt. Curious, Meas asked the traders about the boy and learnt that the boy was a Pnorng (Cambodian small minority living in deep forests in the province of Kompong Siem). The boy's parents sold his for a bag of salt. Meas, as fate would have it, fell sorry for the boy and bought his freedom then adopted the boy as his apprentice. The boy's name was Yort.

The relation between Cambodia, India, and China during this time was not roses and sunshine. Between 1680s and 1740s, the two northern provinces Pulleav and Nokor Neyok in the Region of Pachempura were the most dangerous places to live. Both provinces were like wedge shape, with an average of 50 miles across, between Cambodian two main hostile nations, India and China. Constant raids from both nations caused millions of Riels in damages annually.

Meas distinguished himself as a good governor. He slowly improved the quality of life in Sokour Tey. Tax revenues steadily increased, and the border were fortified. His reputation spread. All the while, his apprentice Yort was always beside him. Both had become very close friends.

In 1738, during one night, an urgent message from the Emperor arrived at Meas's house in Sokour Tey ordering him to come to the capital. After arriving at Yasodharapura, Meas learnt that a governor of Pulleav was killed while leading a counter strike to a Chinese raid. Meas was asked to take charge of the province immediately. Meas agreed to the order.

After arriving at Pulleav, governor Meas fortified the defense of the border bringing it to true readiness. He repaired the damages left from several raids that followed after the dead of the previous governor. In 1740, he engineered a trap after learning of a plot of raid from Indian army. He lured them into Cambodian territory and fell on them with a ferocity they had never seen before. Since than, his name struck fear into everyone's heart. As his reward, the Emperor managed a married between him and the beautiful widow Lady Srean.

Lady Srean was a beautiful and incredibly smart woman of noble birth. In 1739 at the age of 16, she was forced to married to a prince in the imperial family. She became widow just after three months when her husband died of dysentery. The Lady Srean would one day became the most respected woman in the history of Cambodia.

Meas created a unique defense system which he called the Water Walls. The Water Walls ingenious idea was that it wasn't depend mainly on stationary defend systems like forts or castles. Instead, it was a flexible system where light cavalry and artillery were the core. Small outposts were build to serve as early warning system using bells or light, and a quick-reaction-force would rode out and met the enemy. Meas abandoned the old tactic of arranging troops evenly along the border, but instead concentrated them into strong-points. He built new fortified positions to create artificial choke-points.

Slowly but surely, the situation in the province of Pulleav was improving. Better roads were built connecting the province to major cities for ease of reinforcing the front. In 1743, Meas was also appointed to be a governor of a nearby province of Nokor Neyok. In more than a decade of serving the Emperor, Meas was known far and wide as a great man. He was honored many times with titles and rewards from the Emperor.

The Sorm Rea Rebellion
Roughly around this time, a peasant claimed that he was born with a special pattern on both his palms in a shape of a throne. Many people thought he was a sacred person and followed him. He proclaimed himself king Sorm Rea. In 1746, king Sorm Rea announced that he would took the citadel of the province Lovipura in just one afternoon the next day, which he successfully did so. Many people in the city started to believed that this person can do miracles. The supports for king Sorm Rea grew. In 7 months, king Sorm Rea easily repelled several attempts to retake the province including inflecting twice a defeat to the Imperial Army. These defeats only served to fuel king Sorm Rea's propaganda that he was better to protect the people than the Emperor could.

In early 1747, the Emperor Indravarman VI sent an order to Meas to deal with this rebellion and restored people's fate in the Imperial family. Upon receiving the order, Meas sent a letter to a governor of Norkorpura. Meas planned for a two simultaneous attacks from Nokor Neyok and Norkorpura. Unfortunately, the message was intercepted. Upon learning the exact plan, king Sorm Rea planned to lure Meas into a trap of him own. Unaware of this, Meas and Yort leaded 5,000 troops to retake Lovipura. Once he crossed into Lovipura, his forces was abused and routed. Meas and Yort barely escaped with their lives.

After the defeat, Meas was furious. He had never known defeat. Meas sent an urgent request for reinforcements. Three months later, 10,000 Imperial Army arrived and placed under his command. They made camps some distance from the citadel of Lovipura. That night, king Sorm Rea placed thousands of hay-fashion-human with torches around the Imperial Army's camps. He then ordered his men to hit the war drums and shouts as if they were to attack the camps. Upon hearing the noise and seeing what appeared to be thousands of enemy troops about to make an attack, the Imperial Army fired their artillery and arrows the whole night until the supplies were exhausted. At dawn, Meas and his troops realized their mistakes. At that exact point, the enemy attacked. With no heavy artillery and long range weapons, Meas ordered a retreat. Although the Imperial Army suffered least damaged, Meas was furious. He refused to eat and drink for several days.

When he arrived back to his home in Pulleav, Meas was so upset that he drafted a resignation and prepared to send it to the Emperor. However, his wife, the Lady Srean, stopped him. She said, "[…] My husband, if you were to resign because you had just been beat, you would be the foolish man I know. Now if swords cannot kill him, let me use the brain to do so. […]". The next day, Meas and the Lady Srean pretended to have a heated argument in which she appeared to blame him as a weak coward infertile man. The Lady Srean walked away telling everyone that she had divorced a coward man. She moved to the city of Lovipura where king Sorm Rea was based and set up a shop. She instructed her people to greet king Sorm Rea's troops and servants with utmost hospitality and always sold to them at cost.

The news of Lady Srean leaving Meas and had setting up shop in Lovipura was spreading everywhere even to king Sorm Rea himself. Intrigued by this, king Sorm Rea sent a message to Lady Srean asking her to dine with him at which she agreed. Lady Srean used her beauty to weaken king Sorm Rea and bought up many people closed to him. King Sorm Rea fell in love in her so much so that after 5 months he asked her to marry him in which she told him she would thought about this.

A month later, Lady Srean sent an invitation to king Sorm Rea asking him to attend a wedding of her two employees while secretly told her husband to send Yort and a handful of men to the wedding as well. In the invitation to king Sorm Rea, Lady Srean wrote a note that she would told him her decision to accept the marriage to him or not at the night of the wedding. King Sorm Rea immediately agreed and anxiously awaited the day of this wedding.

During the wedding reception, Lady Srean leaded king Sorm Rea into a gorgeously decorated room for private dining with her. She lavished him with drinks and music while slipping a sleeping drug into his drinks. After he was unconscious, Yort personally roped the rebellion king. King Sorm Rea was executed and his head was put on a spike near the main gate of the citadel of Lovipura. The province was incorporated at last. Lady Srean was ordered to come to the capital where she received a hero welcome. She was remarried to Meas.

King Sorm Rea wrote a note to Lady Srean just before he was executed. It read, "Oh mighty warrior who won countless battles, and a mighty king who countless kneel at his feet. Is there any thought that he would died under a girl's skirt?"

Meas's Death
Meas's death occurred in 1750 after 21 years of services to two emperors. During the evening of one day in 1750, Meas sat down with his second wife who he was just married a couple months ago. She was knitting a new shirt for her husband. Meas was being playful to his new wife until she "playfully" pointed her niddle to his wrist. Meas reflectively bended his body as if he was afraid of this niddle. His new wife jokingly said, "My husband. You had been through several bloodshed, fought off several swords and spears, dodging several arrows and musket balls. You have never fear those, but now you are afraid of my small niddle?".

Meas had no respond. He was not very upset with his wife but himself. He, like king Sorm Rea, lost to a girl. Meas sent a letter to the Emperor Indravarman VI informed that he was no longer capable of commanding troops in battles, and his apprentice Yort should be his replacement. He also explained the whole situation and asked for forgiveness for his second wife. Later that day, Meas sat on a pile of wood and burned himself to death. He had no children to survive him.

A massager arrived with an imperial order to stop Meas's suicide, but it was far too late. Three months after his death, the Emperor Indravarman VI came to pay a respect to his stupa. The Emperor uttered the word, "Oh, great man. You chose to die rather than be defeated by a girl. It was a noble act. Yet, you left me and the people of this country without a great leader of man."

Yort's Governorship and the invasion of the Spanish
The Lady Srean retired to a retreatment house near a lake, while Meas's second wife has disappeared from historical record after his death. Meanwhile, Yort was promoted to governor of both the province of Pulleav and Nokor Neyok. Life in the provinces went on normally under the new management. Yort governed as Meas would have.

In 1757, two years after Meas's death, there was a development in the south. A Spanish conquistador in the Philippine set his mind on conquering Cambodian region of Bour. Spanish troops landed and captured the province of Meshor. They pushed far north before the Imperial Army were be able to stop their advance. Between 1757 and 1759, the Imperial Army repeatedly tried to push the invader out with very little success.

The present of Spanish troops on Cambodian soil for two long years was a national disgrace. No one understand how the best army in south and east Asia could not retake one province from an invader of whom fought thousands of miles from their homeland. Without much option left, a new Emperor Jayavarman XIII call Yort from the north. Yort agreed to take up command, but he asked the Emperor to ensure that there would be no distraction to him from the "rear battlefield". Without much understanding of what Yort meant, the Emperor gave him an imperial degree to ensure Yort about the "rear battlefield".

The distraction from the "rear battlefield" was referred to a favorite wife of the Emperor. During this time, emperors typically had several wives beside his formally marriage partner, the empresses. They were given a title of Snorm, while the title Snorm Ek (main Snorm) was the second only to the empress. The Emperor Jayavarman XIII had a young and beautiful Snorm Ek who everyone knew was his favorite wife. This Snorm Ek used her influence and position to elevate several incompetent men to important positions in the government including the army. Many commanders and sub-commanders of the Imperial Army fighting the Spanish were not up to the tasks needed of them. The discipline, morals, and confident of the army was low. They repeatedly lost to the Spanish times and times again.

Yort set sailed to the front in 1759. He was very aware of the situation that the army were facing. After arriving at the main army camp at the front, Yort immediately set to bring the army back to its full potential. He famously ordered all enlisted men and officers to chop down bamboo trees and dragged those bamboo from the top several miles to build barracks. In common sense, bamboo trees should be dragged by holding the bottom as the branches were shape and pointing upward. Those branches and all the leaves would caused terrible nuisance to those who were ordered dragged it from the top.

One officer, who was a younger brother of the Snorm Ek, was very angry with this order as he has never been exposed to strict military hardships due to his sister influence. He refused the order and instead dragged bamboos from the bottom side. After learning of this, Yort ordered this man executed for disobeying orders in time of war.

Once the news reached Snorm Ek, she was very upset with the lost of her brother. She went to the Emperor and talked bad about Yort. She explained that this non-sense exercise would made the men viewed Yort as a crazy commander and would soon deserted to join the Spanish. The Emperor, without considering properly, ordered Yort to come back to the capital.

Yort arrived in the capital city with 10 of his men. He was charged with improper leadership in time of war. The Snorm Ek also accused Yort of killing her brother without trial. On the day of the hearing, Yort was face to face with the Snorm Ek along with several judges. During the hearing, Yort unexpectedly leaped to the Snorm Ek and killed her with a knife hidden on him. Yort then told the stun judges with one of the most famous speech in Cambodian history, "To win at the front, a commander must conquer the rear. To drive out the Spanish and restore national pride, I must do what I see fit. Tell His Majesty that I am sorry, and I will come back here on charge of murder a member of the Imperial family after I defeat the Spanish."

Back at the front, Yort continued to discipline the troops. He wiped his sub-commanders into shapes, and instilled in them a confident that they would prevail. In 1760, 6 months after the fateful murder, Yort was ready for a decisive battle with the Spanish. He would destroyed the Spanish stronghold in the province of Meshor and drove them out once and for all.

Yort ordered one of his sub-commander to take a small detachment of men to assault the far side of the energy stronghold at night. He famously told the sub-commander, "Tell your men to say out of the ranges of muskets, order them to make a lot of noise and tell them not to die." With this detachment, Yort also sent with them 3,000 hay-fashion-human. During the night, this small company created an illusion that thousands of Cambodian troops were attacking. Near dawn, they got rid of all the hay, so that when day break, the Spanish would seem to see that thousands of Cambodian troops were reduced to just a few hundreds.

During this same night, Yort relocated a bulk of his troops to hide on a far side of the enemy position. Spain thought they had inflicted huge damage on Cambodian army. After seeing just a few hundreds of Cambodian withdraw after the night attack, they felt confident to chase with intention to annihilate their enemy. They were drawn very far from their stronghold and were ambushed. Yort was very careful that the news of this defeat would not reached the Spanish stronghold. Later that night, Yort matched his men to the main gate of the stronghold and forced several Spanish captives to shout to their comrade to open the gate. With darkness, Spanish guards could not see Cambodian uniform. Once the gate was open, the Imperial Army under Yort busted into and quickly captured the position. With their stronghold captured, the remaining Spanish boarded their ships and went back to the Philippine.

After the victory, Yort appointed his second-in-command to take over the men. He striped himself of his armor and uniform and put on prisoner cloth. He chained himself and asked three of the men to tie him to a horse and dragged him to the capital. Even on a ship, he asked the men to tie him to a mask on the deck of the ship. After arriving in the capital, Yort kneeled in front of the imperial palace and asked to be prosecuted for his crime of murder.

Moved by this incredible act, the Emperor pardoned Yort, and rewarded his loyalty and achievement. The Emperor declared that no other Snorm and Snorm Ek could voiced on any matter regarding the operation of the government. Yort returned to Pulleav a national hero.

Yort's Marriage
After arriving at Pulleav and resumed his governorship, Yort was thinking of starting a family. For so long, he had developed feeling for the Lady Srean, but he had never acted on it since she was already married to Meas.

One day in 1761, Yort organized a party to ask the Lady Srean for her hand in marriage. Lady Srean was surprised, but she refused. She cited that Yort was a Porng. He would had been a slave if not for her husband. Because of this, she could never respected him. Several parties was sent, but the Lady Srean always refused. The last party was asked to bring her letter to Yort. In her letter, she wrote a poem in which she compared Yort to a rung which she stepped on.

Yort came up with an idea to beat she at her own game. He took a lowest rung of Meas's old house and got it sculpted into a status of the Buddha. He then announced that he would organized a memorial service to Meas. The Lady Srean was invited. Yort instructed a band, upon his signal, to play a wedding melody and shouted out "The Lady Srean agreed to married our governor. Let us marry you both right now."

On the day of the memorial, a mass of people came to pay respect to a great leader. When the Lady Srean arrived, she spotted a decorated wooden Buddha sculpture at the center of the ceremony. She kneeled down and bowed toward the sculpture. Yort, who had stood there, said to the Lady Srean, "My Lady. Do you recognize this sculpture? It was previously a rung of the main house where you had stepped upon it. Now, it was being made into a golden Buddha statue, and you bow before the statue. How about me? I was once a Porng, but now I am a governor with title and a complete trust from the Emperor. Why couldn't you respect me as you respect the statue?"

The Lady Srean could not form any respond. At that moment, the band played a wedding music and shouted out as commanded by Yort. Being defeated at her own argument, the Lady Srean ran from the ceremony and traveled to the capital. She requested a meeting with the Emperor and accused Yort of ill-treated her. Amazed by how this had unfolded, the Empress asked the proud Lady Srean to concede defeat to Yort and accepted him. After several persuasions, the Lady Srean agreed to give her hand in marriage.

The Empress requested that the marriage between General Yort and Lady Srean should take place here in the Imperial Palace. Since no parents of either the bride and the groom was alive, the Emperor and the Empress decided to represent for Yort and Srean respectively. Their marriage was the first civilian one to be held in the Imperial Palace.

Yort continued to serve as a governor until 1779. He and Lady Srean retired to a quite place in the province of Korkhan. He died in 1791 at the age of 69 years old. Lady Srean followed him two years later. Their remains along with Meas's were relocated in 1799 to a special stupa in the capital city of Yasodharapura.