Fa ngum biography

The traditional court histories of Lan Xang begin in the Year of the Nāga 1316 with the birth of Fa Ngum.^[15] Fa Ngum's Grandfather Souvanna Khampong was king of Muang Sua and his father Chao Fa Ngiao was the crown prince.

As a youth Fa Ngum was sent to the Khmer Empire to live as a son of King Jayavarman IX, where he was given princess Keo Kang Ya. In 1343 King Souvanna Khampong died, and a succession dispute for Muang Sua took place.^[16] In 1349 Fa Ngum was granted an army known as the "Ten Thousand" to take the crown.

At the time the Khmer Empire was in decline (possibly from an outbreak of the Black Death and the combined influx of Tai peoples),^[16] both Lanna and Sukhothai had been established in what had been Khmer territory, and the Siamese were growing in the area of the Chao Phraya River which would become the Ayutthaya Kingdom.^[17] The opportunity for the Khmer was to create a friendly buffer state in an area they could no