Page 366 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

364 CONTEXTS History
Raiders from Manipur began encroaching along the Upper Chindwin valley, while
Taungoo’s Thai provinces in Lan Na (Chiang Mai) also rebelled, and Qing-dynasty
forces from China seized parts of Shan and Kachin states. Then, in 1740, the Mon also
cast off the Taungoo yoke, founding the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom (with the
support of the French). Not content with reasserting their own independence, Mon
forces invaded northern Myanmar in 1751, assisted by Portuguese and Dutch
mercenaries and using weapons supplied by the French. In 1752 they captured Ava
itself, ending two and a half centuries of Taungoo rule.

The Konbaung dynasty
Scarcely had the Taungoo dynasty been erased from the face of Myanmar when the last
of Myanmar’s three great pre-colonial empires appeared in the shape of the Konbaung
dynasty – which would eventually go on to wield control of the second-largest empire
in Burmese history. The dynasty was founded in Shwebo, northwest of Mandalay, in
1752 by one Aung Zeya, a village chief who refused to accept the authority of the new
Restored Hanthawaddy rulers in Ava. His initial territory was small – just 46 villages
– but Aung Zeya had himself crowned nonetheless, taking the name King Alaungpaya
(ruled 1752–60). Three attempts by Hanthawaddy forces to capture Shwebo were
repulsed and growing numbers of recruits arrived to fight for Alaungpaya’s anti-
Hanthawaddy cause. By early 1754 he had acquired sufficient forces to recapture Ava
and to drive out all Hanthawaddy forces from northern Myanmar.
The conflict had by now acquired an increasingly ethnic dimension: a possibly decisive
battle between the Mon south and the Bamar north. Hanthawaddy persecution of
Bamar living in Mon lands played directly into Alaungpaya’s hands, and in 1755 he
struck south, taking control of the Ayeyarwady all the way down to the small town of
Dagon, which he renamed Yangon – only to be brought to a halt by French forces
defending the port city of Thanlyin. A fourteen-month siege ensued before the city
finally capitulated, after which Konbaung forces marched to Bago, capturing and
sacking the city in 1757, signalling the demise of the Hanthawaddy dynasty – and,
indeed, the end of the very last independent Mon kingdom in Myanmar, a blow from
which the Mon people, culture and language have yet to recover.
Following the capture of Bago, various territories including Chiang Mai and other Thai
provinces that had once formed part of the Taungoo Empire sent tribute to Alaungpaya,
as did the governor of Mottama in the south. Konbaung forces also recaptured former
Taungoo territory in the northern Shan and eastern Kachin states taken by the Qing
dynasty in the 1730s, while Manipur was overrun in 1756. Scarcely had Alaungpaya
finished fighting in the north, however, when a Mon rebellion broke out in the south,
with Thai backing. In 1759 Alaungpaya led an army of forty thousand men into southern
Myanmar before heading east, eventually reaching and laying siege to the Thai capital at
Ayutthaya in April 1760. Just a few days into the siege, however, Alaungpaya suddenly
fell ill and died, and Konbaung forces retreated back into Myanmar.

Ayutthaya again
The brief reign of Alaungpaya’s son and successor Naungdawgyi (ruled 1760–63) was
plagued by further rebellions – in Ava, Taungoo, Mottama and Chiang Mai – and it

1555 1599 1606–28
Taungoo dynasty forces King Min Razagyi of Mrauk U sacks the Armies of the Restored Taungoo
conquer and destroy the Taungoo Empire capital of Bago; the Dynasty under King Anaukpetlun
Kingdom of Ava Taungoo dynasty establishes a new reconquer large areas of the former
capital at Ava Taungoo Empire

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