Lovek was chosen by Boromaracha III after the sacking of Angkor by Boromaracha II as a new capital because of its more readily defensible terrain. As a result there was a time when Cambodia was often referred to as "Lovek" by foreign travellers.
History
Duri
ng the 14th and 15th centuries Cambodia was in a state of eclipse. Following the almost total destruction of Angkor, Lovek was chosen as the new capital of the now minor state of Cambodia. Lovek was located halfway between Phnom Penh and the southern end of the Tonle Sap and it was chosen by King Ang Chan (1516–66) as his official capital. King Ang Chan ordered his palace to be built in Lovek in 1553.
Lovek became the nation's capital in the 16th century a
King Naresuan of Siam conquered Lovek in 1593. This conquest marked a downturn in the kingdom's fortunes. In the historical period that followed Cambodia became a pawn in power struggle between its two increasingly powerful neighbours, Siam and Vietnam.
In 1618, the capital of Cambodia was once again relocated and was moved to Oudong.
More than their conquest of Angkor a century and a half earlier, the Siamese capture of Lovek marked the beginning of a decline in Cambodia's fortunes. One possible reason for the decline was the labor drain imposed by the Siamese conquerors as they marched thousands of Khmer peasants, skilled artisans, scholars, and members of the Buddhist clergy back to their capital of Ayutthaya. This practice, common in the history of Southeast Asia, crippled Cambodia's ability to recover a semblance of its former greatness. A new Khmer capital was established at Odongk (Udong), south of Lovek, but its monarchs could survive only by entering into what amounted to vassal relationships with the Siamese and with the Vietnamese. In common parlance, Siam became Cambodia's "father" and Vietnam its "mother."
By the late fifteenth century, the Vietnamese - who, unlike other Southeast Asian peoples, had patterned their culture and their civilization on those of China - had defeated the once powerful kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam. Thousands of Chams fled into Khmer territory. By the early seventeenth century, the Vietnamese had reached the Mekong Delta, which was inhabited by Khmer p
eople.Loss Mekong Delta 1620
In 1620 the Khmer king Chey Chettha II (1618-28) married a daughter of Nguyen Phuc Nguyen, one of the Nguyen lords (1558- 1778), who ruled southern Vietnam for most of the period of the Le dynasty (1428-1788). Three years later, Chey Chettha allowed the Vietnamese to establish a custom-house at Prey Nokor, near what is now Ho Chi Minh City (until 1975, Saigon). By the end of the seventeenth century, the region was under Vietnamese administrative control, and Cambodia was cut off from access to the sea. Trade with the outside world was possible only with Vietnamese permission.
In 1623, King Chey Chettha II allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trinh-Nguyen War in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor, and to set up a custom House at Prey Nokor. Increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers, which the Cambodian kingdom, weakened because of war with Thailand, could not impede, slowly Vietnamized the area. In time, Prey Nokor became known as Saigon.
In 1698, Nguyen Huu Canh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyen rulers of Hue to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus detaching the area from Cambodia, which was not strong enough to intervene. Since 1698, the area has been firmly under Vietnamese administration. The Vietnamese became the majority population in most places
There were periods in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, when Cambodia's neighbors were preoccupied with internal or external strife, that afforded the beleaguered country a breathing spell. The Vietnamese were involved in a lengthy civil war until 1672 (see the Trinh-Nguyen War for details), but upon its conclusion the Nguyen Lords, who ruled in the south, promptly annexed sizable areas of Cambodian territory in the region of the Mekong Delta. For the next one hundred years they used the alleged mistreatment of Vietnamese colonists in the delta as a pretext for their continued expansion. By the end of the eighteenth century, they had extended their control to include the area encompassed in the late 1980s by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnam).
Siam, which might otherwise have been courted as an ally against Vietnamese incursions in the eighteenth century, was itself involved in a new conflict with Burma. In 1767 the Siamese capital of Ayutthaya was besieged and destroyed. The Siamese quickly recovered, however, and soon reasserted their dominion over Cambodia. The youthful Khmer king, Ang Eng (1779-96), a refugee at the Siamese court, was installed as monarch at Odongk by Siamese troops. At the same time, Siam quietly annexed Cambodia's three northernmost provinces. In addition, the local rulers of the northwestern provinces of Batdambang and Siemreab (Siemreap) became vassals of the Siamese king, and these areas came under the Siamese sphere of influence.
A renewed struggle between Siam and Vietnam for control of Cambodia in the nineteenth century resulted in a period when Vietnamese officials, working through a puppet Cambodian king, ruled the central part of the country and attempted to force Cambodians to adopt Vietnamese customs. Several rebellions against Vietnamese rule ensued. The most important of these occurred in 1840 to 1841 and spread through much of the country. After two years of fighting, Cambodia and its two neighbors reached an accord that placed the country under the joint suzerainty of Siam and Vietnam. At the behest of both countries, a new monarch, Ang Duong (1848-59), ascended the throne and brought a decade of peace and relative independence to Cambodia.
But the Siamese and the Vietnamese had fundamentally different attitudes concerning their relationships with Cambodia. The Siamese shared with the Khmer a common religion, mythology, literature, and culture. The Chakri kings at Bangkok wanted Cambodia's loyalty, tribute and land, but they had no intention of challenging or changing its people's values or way of life. The Vietnamese viewed the Khmer people as barbarians to be civilized through exposure to Vietnamese culture, and they regarded the fertile Khmer lands as legitimate sites for colonization by settlers from Vietnam.
Reference : Biography khmer in english and web: wikipedia biography khmer
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