Majapahit's Rice Economy: Feeding the Empire of Nusantara

Majapahit: The Empire That Once Ruled Indonesia — Fexingo History · Jul 1, 2026 · 8m · transcript

While Majapahit's military campaigns and royal intrigues often steal the spotlight, the empire's true strength lay in its rice paddies. This episode dives into the agricultural backbone that sustained Trowulan's population of perhaps 200,000 and funded Gajah Mada's Palapa campaigns. We explore the sophisticated irrigation networks of the Brantas River basin, the role of tax-collecting villages (dharmmas), and how the wet-rice surplus enabled Majapahit to project power across Nusantara. Lucas and Luna also discuss the annual cycle of the Saka calendar—the planting and…