"...Power struggles within ruling houses are a classic problem causing the weakening of dynasties and inviting foreign invasions. The Tai polities in pre-modern Asia were no exception. This recurrent problem is documented not only in contemporary Chinese sources, but also in the various versions of the Tai chronicles that the present writer has investigated. The present article focuses on the example of the Tai L? polity, namely Moeng L? (better known as Sips?ng Panna), which was founded in the twelfth century in present-day southern Yunnan along what Jon Fernquest has called the ?Tai Frontier.?2 When waging fratricidal wars or committing fratricide to gain the throne was concerned, the traditional Tai polities in this frontier between China and the large lowland polities of mainland Southeast Asia were no better than the ruling houses of medieval Europe and China...The Chronicles of Moeng L? (CML) is replete with killings and civil wars. Recorded above are seven major conflicts involving disputes related to succession to the throne of Saenwi Fa. The CML?s coverage of the successive reigns is not equal. The records of about one third of the reigns are very brief but that does not mean that there was no fighting during these reigns. Moeng L? or Cheli was not a unified Tai kingdom. As recorded in the ?Basic Annals? of the History of the Yuan Dynasty (Yuanshi), as early as around 1297/98 there were the Greater Cheli and Lessser Cheli. Moeng L? was partitioned into two by the Mekong River long before Burmese expansion in the sixteenth century."