Rule-of-one or rule-of-many inpre-1558 Lanna(Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai)

Looking at Grabowsky's online working paper on Lanna (Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai before the Burmese invasions of 1558) again at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore [Paper, Abstract].

Its thesis of a Lanna region split effectively between two polities, one in Chiang Mai and one in Chiang Rai/Chiang Saen has analogues elsewhere in early modern Southeast Asia: 1. the split in the Shin-saw-bu and Dhammazedi's polity (c. 1456-1472) [previous entry] and 2. between Ayutthaya and her northern provinces proposed by Chris Baker [previous entry].

There's also the question of: 3. whether Lower Burma was more fragmented with greater localized power before Razadarit's unification [collection of entries], 4. the prior state of polities along the Tai-Yunnan frontier was fragmented with localized power and not the highly unified state of Mong Mao that many propose [collection of entries].