No More Learning

A band of lords went to Ava asking
for intervention; perhaps they were patriots desiring to see their
land at rest; perhaps they merely desired the sweets of office. Their
request was granted with a vengeance, for Bodawpaya was now king
in Burma. Many a village came out with bands of music to greet
his armies as deliverers. But the methods of the Burmese were such
that soon the very men who had invited them into the country were
leading insurgents against them. "
THE TOUNGOO DYNASTY (1531-1752)
The Shan migration, lasting two centuries, had now ended, leaving
Burma split into chieftainships. Tabinshwehti 2 set himself to revive
the overlordship. Toungoo was thronged with refugees, so that he
had no lack of men; he was in control of Kyaukse, the richest area
in upper Burma and the key to Ava; and, to crown all, his opponents
were Shans, a race which could not unite.
First he advanced against lower Burma. It was the richest part
of the country and also it contained Portuguese adventurers who were
willing to be hired. Sometimes he had as many as seven hundred. To
1 See vol v, p. 558.
See vol. II, p. 558.


## p. 483 (#523) ############################################

1
BURMAN TALAING UNION
483
obtain their services was to win the day, for they had firearms, hitherto
unknown in Burma, and no race in Indo-China could stand up to them.
By 1541 he had annexed the Pegu state. He was able to enter
Pegu city without a siege because the Talaings, after suffering several
defeats, lost heart, and their king Takayutpi," instead of putting heart
into them, took to distrusting his officers and executing them; instead
of leading his men to the end, Takayutpi deserted the city and lived
in a stockade at Ingabu, Maubin district; a year later he died while
hunting elephants and the fishermen there still worship a nat spirit
called Po Yutpi. Martaban, a thriving port, rich with the accumu-
lated stocks of merchants of many races, gave more trouble; it fought
to the end, aided by seven Portuguese ships; these were small craft,
manned largely by Eurasians and slaves, and Tabinshwehti drove
them off with fire-rafts, while other rafts, with scaffolding higher
than the ramparts, were run alongside the fortifications facing the
river; the sack raged for three days. ?
Tabinshwehti exercised his royal privilege of putting spires on the
great Talaing pagodas; to the Shwedagon he offered his queen and
redeemed her with 10 viss (1 viss = 3. 65 lb. ) of gold. In 1542 he
took Prome, although the Raja of Arakan and the chiefs of upper
Burma, headed by the Ava sawbwa, attacked him while he was
besieging the town. In 1544 he annexed upper Burma as far as
Minbu and Myingyan; he had already been crowned at Pegu as king
of lower Burma, and now while halting at Pagan he was crowned
as king of upper Burma. On returning home in 1546 he was crowned
as king of both, using Talaing as well as Burmese rites. Only half
his task was done, but the rest was sure, and men again beheld the
glory of the ancient ritual; after three centuries of sawbwas (Shan
chiefs) there was once more a king in Burma.
In the cold weather of 1546–47 he attacked Arakan. Many of his
war-canoes were wrecked on the west coast. All his land forces
arrived but Mrohaung was a strong town, and the only chance of
taking it was when the walls were in disrepair. But Arakan was
under an energetic raja (p. 477) who saw that his defences were in
repair, and after a short time under the walls Tabinshwehti accepted
the intercession of the monks and returned home.
He returned the more quickly because Siam, hearing that he and
all his valiant men were away in Arakan, had raided Tavoy; and
in 1547-48 the Burmese advanced against Siam. " The hosts crossed
1 See vol. II, p. 558.
2 Pin
Voyages and Adventures.
8 Halliday, “Slapat Rajawan Datow Smin Ron", in Journal Burma Research
Society, 1923.
* When, in 1767, the Burmese sacked Ayuthia (p. 515), they destroyed the
palace archives, so that Siamese chronology before the eighteenth century is va-
gue. Until recently the Siamese dates for the Burmese invasions of the six-
teenth century were a decade or two earlier than the Burmese dates, which
I follow. Recent research by Siamese gentlemen has, however, confirmed the
Burmese dates, which are also borne out by contemporary Burmese inscriptions


## p. 484 (#524) ############################################

484
BURMA (1531-1782)
from Martaban to Moulmein on a bridge of boats over which they
could ride their ponies at a gallop. His Majesty's elephant was ferried
across on a raft, but the other elephants were sent upstream where the
fords were shallow. Jingals were mounted on many of these elephants.
The cannon were kept close to the king, and he moved in great state,
surrounded by the choicest elephants, richly attired lords, and 400
Portuguese guards whose helmets and muskets were inlaid with gold,
for they provided a bodyguard as well as artillery. Hundreds of work-
men went ahead every day to pitch the wooden camp palace, richly
painted and gilded, and at each halt there was a pwe festival.
The Burmese advanced up the Ataran river, through Three
Pagodas Pass and down the Meklawng river to Kanburi. Thence
they struck at Ayuthia. The Siamese possessed cannon, made of the
copper which was annually imported from China. The weakest part
of the wall was defended by fifty Portuguese; Tabinshwehti tried
to bribe them, but they treated the officer with derision and one of
the Siamese commanders, flinging open the gate, dared Tabinshwehti
to bring the money. After a month the Burmese withdrew and tried
to plunder Kampengpet, a wealthy town; but here again were
Portuguese, who used flaming projectiles so that the guns had to be
kept under shelters of damp hide. Tabinshwehti, saying the Siamese
were devils who, when their own weapons failed, used new ones
never known since the beginning of the world, retreated, and it
would doubtless have gone hard with him had he not captured the
Siamese king's son and brothers in some open fighting. At once
Siamese envoys came with red and green woollen cloths, longyis
(men's shirts), and aromatic woods, offering friendship in return for
the captive princes. Tabinshwehti released not only them but also
his other prisoners, and was thereupon left unmolested in his retreat
through Raheng.
Tabinshwehti dreamed of a united Burma. When conquering the
Talaing kingdom he made no attempt to administer his new subjects
by Burmese governors. Any Talaing lord who made timely sub-
mission could count on being left in his fief. Consequently from the
first he had a large Talaing following; fully half his levies and best
officers were Talaings. He left the beautiful buildings of the Talaing
kings standing when he captured Pegu. Talaings had their full say
in his councils, he took care to be crowned with the ritual of a
Talaing king, and he gave way to the importunities of his Talaing
princesses, letting them dress in their own fashion instead of the
Burmese court dress. Finally, hearing an old prophecy that no king
with a Burmese hairknot should rule the Talaing land, he bobbed
his hair like a Talaing and wore the diadem of a Talaing king.
and European travellers. See the discussion in Harvey, History of Burma,
p. 343; and Wood, History of Siam, pp. 23-25.
1 Faria y Sousa (Stevens), The Portuguese Asia, 1, 135.
? Hmannan, , 240.


## p. 485 (#525) ############################################

TABINSHWEHTI'S DEATH
486
On returning from Siam Tabinshwehti took to hunting with a
young Portuguese captain, who had a gun and seldom missed his
mark. Tabinshwehti thought a gun a miraculous thing, and in admi-
ration gave him a royal handmaid to wife. The feringhi taught his
bride to cook feringhi dishes for the king to eat, and gave him juice
of the grape to drink, also spirits sweetened with honey. The king
drank and his heart was glad, but he lost his wits, respecting not
other men's wives, listening to evil tales and executing innocent men.
Bayinnaung, his foster-brother and principal commander, remonstra-
ted with him but he answered: "I have made friends with drink.
Brother, do thou manage the affairs of state. Bring me no petitions.
Leave me to my jollity. ” Sometimes he attended levees, sometimes
he could not. The Burmese, Shan and Talaing lords at court com-
bined to ask Bayinnaung to take the throne, but he was faithful,
and would not.
The king went to stay at Pantanaw, Maubin district, in the care
of Talaing chamberlains, and Bayinnaung went to deal with a
rebellion headed by a monk, a descendant of the fallen Talaing
dynasty, who, flinging off the robe, assumed the title Smim Htaw, and
occupied Dagon (Rangoon) and Dalla. The Talaing chamberlains
enticed Tabinshwehti into a jungle saying a white elephant had been
traced, and there they cut off his head; 2 they then raised the Talaings,
seized Pegu, and set the leading chamberlain on the throne.
Bayinnaung (1551-81). The fiefs of central Burma all shut their
gates and never lifted a finger to help Bayinnaung; his own brothers
and kinsmen tried to set up as independent kings in such important
charges as Prome and Toungoo itself. There he was, a king without
a kingdom, grappling with one Talaing rebel in the west while
another sat on his throne in the east, his Burmese people looked on
with folded hands, and his own brothers seceded. At once he sent
overseas for his Portuguese guards, who had rejoined their own people
in Malaya; they came in haste, and in his unfeigned relief he greeted?
their leader with the words : "Ah, brother Diogo, brother Diogo, we
two, we happy two, I on my elephant and thou on thy horse, we
could conquer the world together! ” With them, and the few faithful
levies that stood by him, he was safe, although little better than a
fugitive in the jungles. But many joined him, including even Talaings,
for men recognise character when they see it. As the months went by,
he regained Toungoo and Prome, and finally he advanced on Pegu.
Smim Htaw had overthrown the usurping chamberlain and occu-
pied the Pegu palace. When Bayinnaung's host came near the walls,
the Talaings went out to meet it. The two chiefs fought hand to hand
and finally Bayinnaung, freeing his elephant, drew back and charged,
1 Hmannan, , 268-70.
2 He is worshipped as the Tabinshwehti Nat spirit, Temple, Thirty-Seven
Nats, p. 64.
3 Couto, Da Asia, vol. IV, part I, p. 136.


## p. 486 (#526) ############################################

486
BURMA (1531_1782)
breaking the tusk of his foeman's elephant and driving him off the
field followed by all his men. He then sacked Pegu, killing men,
women, children and even animals.
Talaing opposition collapsed. Smim Htaw could get few more
followers, but he made a gallant fight, hunted as he was throughout
the Delta. Many a jungle there has its tradition of his hiding. Some-
times he would catch the Burmese boats stranded at low tide in a
creek, and wipe them out, sometimes he would surprise an outpost.
But as the months passed, the end drew near. His family fell into
the hands of his pursuers. He fled alone in a canoe along the coast
to Martaban. Once they fell on him during the evening meal, but
he slipped away leaving his clothes in their hands. He hid in the hills
round Sittaung, poor and unknown, till he took a village girl to wife
and told her his secret; she guilelessly told her father, who reported
to the village officer. Bayinnaung had him paraded through the
jeering streets, and saying he had done evil put him to an evil death.
Thus ended the lineage of Wareru. '
Having thus regained the position from which he should have
started, Bayinnaung set out on his career of conquest. The size of
his armies varied with the area of his kingdom for the time being.
At its maximum, when it included upper Burma, the Shan States,
and Siam, it supplied with a mass levy approaching possibly one
hundred thousand. His efforts were on a bigger scale than had
hitherto been known to Burma. Long records of faithful service, and
the ties of ancient friendship, were pleaded in vain by officers who
failed; the least they had to fear was deprivation of all titles and
property, and exile to some fever-stricken spot. As for the rank and
file, the severity they suffered was provoked by the fact that many
of the levies were like herds of driven cattle, and the only way of
keeping them together and bringing them to action was to use
methods of frightfulness.
By 1555 he had annexed Ava, and by 1559 the whole of upper
Burma, the present Shan States, Manipur, Chiengmai and Vieng-
chang (Linzin). From this time dates Burmese suzerainty over the
Shans; the Pagan monarchy had controlled little more than the foot.
hills, and even now Burmese suzerainty was seldom more than
nominal until the time of Alaungpaya (1752-60).
It is characteristic that while Bayinnaung was proceeding down
1 See vol. m, p. 551.
2 Elizabethan travellers who say they actually saw half a million men march
out of Pegu are only repeating bazar talk. The Burmese chronicles give a list
of Bayinnaung's levies totalling over a million men, but in the Anglo-Burmese
wars of the nineteenth century our troops found Burmese commanders habitu-
ally overestimating numbers by at least one decimal. Even in the early nine-
teenth century the population of Burma can hardly have exceeded four millions.
Harvey, History of Burma, p. 333, and Burney, "Population of Burman Empire",
in Journal Statistical Society, 1842.


## p. 487 (#527) ############################################

FUNERAL SACRIFICE SUPPRESSED
487
the Salween against Chiengmai, his garrison in Mone was murdered
and the bridge he had built across the Salween was destroyed by
Mone, Yawnghwe and Lawksawk. Revolts were continuous. In
1562, 1572, 1574–76 he was campaigning against Mohnyin and Mog-
aung, and even to the north, wearing out his men in pursuits over
snow-clad hills; finally the chiefs submitted, tired of starving in the
wilderness. The Mogaung chief was exhibited for a week in fetters
at the gates of Pegu; as for some scores of his principal followers,
Bayinnaung, saying he was very merciful, refrained from executing
them and sent them to be sold as slaves in the Ganges delta.
As was invariably the case, the Burmese no sooner occupied an
arra than they required levies, and the Burmese Shans were at once
employed against the Siamese Shans. The chiefs presented daughters
to the rival harem, sent their sons to be brought up in the palace,
and paid periodic tribute; Momeik, the most valuable of all, paid
rubies; Chiengmai paid elephants, horses, lacquer and silks. Every-
where he deported numbers of the people in order to populate his
homeland. From Chiengmai he took artisans, especially her famous
lacquer workers; it is probably these who introduced into Burma
the finer sort of lacquer ware called yun, the name of the Yun or
Lao Shan tribes round Chiengmai. ?
In the 1556 campaign he went by river as far as Katha district,
accompanied by his harem and worshipping at the principal pagodas
on the way. On the return journey in 1557 he set up at the Shwezigon
pagoda, Pagan, the great bronze bell bearing in Pali, Burmese and
Talaing an inscription every line of which breathes imperial pride
in his conquests and in the steps he took to promote religion among
the Shans, building monasteries, and suppressing funeral sacrifice.
It had been customary to bury with a major sawbwa (Shan chief)
as many as ten elephants, a hundred horses, and a hundred each of
men and women slaves, the numbers being less for minor sawbwas.
He also suppressed the sacrifice of white animals (buffaloes, kine,
goats, pigs, fowls) to the Mahagiri spirit on Popa Hill;3 hitherto
these animals had been killed for a feast, and their skulls were hung
in strings all round the shrine; the worshippers drank intoxicants at
the feast, and once a year the king and court shared in it as an act
of state worship. Bayinnaung introduced prohibition and punished
drunkenness with death. He enforced the divine command against
taking life even to the extent of abolishing the Baqr 'Id among Muslim
settlers.
The king of Ayuthia, styled Lord of the White Elephants, had
recently possessed no fewer than seven; it was the glory of these
1 See vol. II, p. 555.
2 Morris, “Lacquerware industry of Burma", in Journal Burma Research
Society, 1919; Kyaw Dun, "Lacquerware called Yun", in ibid. 1920.
3 Hmannan, I, 312; Wawhayalinatta, p. 69.


## p. 488 (#528) ############################################

188
BURMA (1531-1782)
elephants which attracted white merchants from the ends of the
carth and brought Siam unprecedented prosperity; there could be
no other cause, for in the days of his predecessors, who had far fewer,
there was less trade and European merchants had not come. He
still had four, and Bayinnaung's soul was stirred to its depths at not
having so many himself. He was considering not only his own glory
but also the interests of his people; he believed it to be essential to
their prosperity that he should acquire these elephants. Therefore
he invaded Siam. As he had a much larger area from which to get
levies, his task was easier than Tabinshwehti's.
In 1563–64 the huge host captured Kampengpet and Sukhotai and
then swarmed down on Ayuthia, losing considerably from the Siamese
and their feringhi gunners, but capturing stockades, war canoes and
three foreign ships. The city quickly yielded in quite unnecessary
terror of Bayinnaung's Portuguese artillery, which though noisy
was too light to do real damage to the walls. The terms were the
surrender of four white elephants, the captivity of the king and some
princes as hostages, the presentation of a daughter, the cession of
Tenasserim shipping tolls, and annual tribute of thirty war elephants.
Bayinnaung left the Siamese king's son to rule as vassal with a
Burmese garrison of 3000 men, and went home with the captive
king and court, and with thousands of the population roped together
in gangs with wooden collars; among them were actors and actresses,
and it is probably these who introduced into Burma the songs and
dances called Ayuthia. The loot included thirty crude images of
men and elephants in bronze.
The captive princes of Ayuthia, Ava and Chiengmai were kept
at Pegu and given reasonable treatment, even being allowed to live
in double-roofed houses painted white, the prerogative of royalty. ?
But Siam was not settled with the fall of Ayuthia. Till the end of
the reign the armies were constantly campaigning all over the
country from the northern Laos downwards. Year after year Bayin-
naung led a weary chase through trackless hills where his men were
reduced to eating grass and died in thousands of starvation and
disease. Year after year there was cruel fighting against the Siamese
stockades, against their war-canoes and flaming rafts. He usually
succeeded in occupying towns, setting his puppet with a Burmese
garrison on their little thrones, and dragging away the population
when it had not hidden in the jungle, to work as slaves in Burma
if they survived the long march. But he could do little more than
this, he could give no settled government to the surviving victims,
and some of the chiefs he never caught. He generously allowed the
captive king of Siam, who had become a monk, to return home on
1 For the significance of the White Elephant, see Harvey, History of Burma,
2 For Burmese sumptuary laws, see Shway
Yoe, The Burman, his Life and Notions.
p. 274.


## p. 489 (#529) ############################################

THE CEYLON TOOTH
489
pilgrimage; no sooner had he arrived than he flung off the robe and
so another siege of Ayuthia became necessary. It lasted ten months
(1568-69). The Burmese losses were so heavy that the men used to
take shelter under the piles of their comrades' corpses. The troops
sickened of the carnage and officers were executed right and left
for failure. The town could not be taken by storm and, although
short of food, held its own until Bayinnaung employed treachery.
He promised large rewards, and one of his prisoners, a Siamese lord,
entered the town saying he had escaped from the Burmese. The
Siamese gave him high command, and one night he opened the gates.
In 1560 the Portuguese captured the Buddha Tooth of Ceylon 1 and
took it to Goa. Bayinnaung sent envoys on a Portuguese ship to
Goa, offering, in return for the Tooth, eight lakhs of rupees and,
whenever needed, shiploads of rice to provision the fortress of
Malacca. Other Buddhist and Hindu kings made offers. The Portu-
guese wished to accept but were overridden by their archbishop who,
in the presence of a large assembly including the Burmese envoys,
ground the Tooth to powder, burnt the powder, and cast the ashes
into the river. But soon men said that the Tooth was miraculously
restored to its temple at Kandy.
Learning from his astrologers that he was destined to wed a prin-
cess of Ceylon, Bayinnaung sent envoys to find her. They went to
Colombo and told of their master's glory. The chief there had no
daughter, but his chamberlain had one whom the chief cherished
as his own. He had no authority over the Temple of the Tooth at
Kandy, where another chief ruled, but he showed the envoys a
shrine which he said contained the Tooth. The envoys took the
daughter and the Tooth. Bayinnaung sent gorgeous presents in
return. The Tooth reached Bassein in 1576. Bayinnaung went to
meet it in a great procession of magnificent canoes crowded with
lords and ladies clad in court dress. He bathed ceremonially, scented
himself, and bowed before the shrine. Princes waded into the river
and bore it ashore at Pegu, walking over the state vestments which
the lords took off and spread before them. It was encased in a
golden casket studded with the gems of Dammazedi and the kings
of old, and of Momeik and of Ayuthia, the vassal kings, and finally
it was deposited at the Mahazedi pagoda, Pegu. This was the day
of days in Bayinnaung's life; his wide conquests, even the white
elephants from Siam, faded into insignificance; he said: "Heaven is
good to me.
Anawrahta could obtain only a replica Tooth from
Ceylon, Alaungsithu went to China in vain, but Ī, because of my
piety and wisdom, I have been granted this ! ”2
1 See vol. II, p. 548.
2 Linschoten, Voyage to the East Indies, I, p. 293; Faria y Sousa (Stevens),
The Portuguese Asia, II, 207-9, 251-2; Hmannan, m, 8, 33-35; Gerson da Cunha,
“Memoir on the History of the Tooth Relic of Ceylon", in Journal Bombay
branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1875.


## p. 490 (#530) ############################################

490
BURMA (1531-1782)
2
3
Bayinnaung's great Talaing officer, the wungyi (minister) Binnya
Dala, compiled the Razadarit Ayedawpon chronicle. Bayinnaung
introduced a measure of legal uniformity by summoning distinguished
monks and officials from all over his dominions to prescribe an
cfficial collection of law books; they prescribed the Wareru dham-
mnathat ? and compiled the Dhammathatkyaw and Kosaungchok. The
decisions given in his court were collected in the Hanthawaddy
Hsinbyumyashin pyatton. He also tried to standardise weights and
measures, such as the cubit, tical, and basket, throughout the realm.
Styling himself the king of kings, he governed only Pegu and the
Talaing country directly, leaving the rest of the realm to vassal
kings with palaces at Toungoo, Prome, Ava and Chiengmai. He
regarded Chiengmai as the most important, having fifty-seven pro-
vinces; these, like the thirty-two provinces of Pegu,' were big villages.
Chiengmai was a Shan state, and when he spoke of having twenty-
four crowned heads at his command, he was referring to sawbwas.
Each of the twenty gates of his new city at Pegu was named after
the vassal who built it, such as the Prome gate, the Chiengmai gate,
the Toungoo gate, the gates of Salin, Dalla, Mohnyin, Tavoy, Hsenwi,
Linzin, Tenasserim, Ayuthia, Martaban, Pagan—it was the men of
Pagan who had to plant the toddy palms all along the walls and at
the street corners. As a model Buddhist king he distributed copies
of the scriptures, fed monks, and built pagodas in Chiengmai, Koshan-
pye and other conquered states. Some of these pagodas are still
to be seen, and in later ages the Burmese would point to them as
proof of their claim to rule those countries still. He supervised mass
ordinations at the Kalyani thein. " Following a royal custom he would
break up his crown and use its jewels to adorn the spire of a pagoda;
he did this for the Shwedagon, the Shwemawdaw, and the Kyaiktiyo
in Thaton district. Again, as at the Shwemawdaw, he would build
as many surrounding monasteries as they were years in his life
at the time, fifty-two; or he would bear the cost of ordaining a
similar number of monks. After the 1564 earthquake, which coin-
cided with his queen's death, he repaired the Shwedagon, and added
a new spire. His chief foundation was the Mahazedi at Pegu, at
which he enshrined a begging bowl of supernatural origin sent him
in 1567 by some Ceylon kinglet, the Tooth (p. 489) and golden images
of himself, the royal family, and such of the great officers of state
as were in his inner circle.
Bayinnaung made no distinction of race in appointment to office.
His best commander was a Talaing, Binnya Dala. As his predecessors
had doubtless done for ages, he entered into artificial blood-brother-
hood (thwethauk) with over a score of his principal officers, and the
1 See vol. m, p. 553.
2 See vol. m, pp. 551-2.
8 Forchammer, Jardine Prize Essay on Burmese Law,
4 See vol. I, p. 553.
o Ibid. p. 556.


## p. 491 (#531) ############################################

MAJESTY OF BAYINNAUNG
491
list includes Talaings. They penetrated his entourage to such an
extent that the word used by European travellers for a court grandee
is semini, an Italianisation of smim, the Talaing for lord. Such being
his methods, he might have reconciled both races and founded a
national dynasty. He failed to do so because he alienated human
nature by his wars. The brunt fell on Talaings; hence while at first
they followed him because they believed he could give them settled
government, at last the only ones who followed him were hardy
spirits desirous of foreign loot.
Unlike most Burmese kings, who lived in the backwoods (pp. 496,
513), Bayinnaung lived in a seaport and came into contact with the
outer world. The extent to which overseas traders frequented the
Delta indicates that his trade regulations were reasonable. Merchants
sailing from India first sighted Negrais and saw there, as we see now,
the superb Hmawdin pagoda flashing on the headland, a landmark
for a whole day's sail. They went upstream to Bassein and then,
turning east, passed through the Myaungmya creeks to Pegu. Those
creeks were, at least on the main route, crowded with villages almost
touching each other, a teeming hive of happy people. Customs
officers, though strict, were not obstructive, and there was free export
of such commodities as jewels and rice, a thing subsequently forbid-
den by the benighted kings of Ava (p. 501). Bassein is scarcely men-
tioned, the chief ports being on the eastern side, Syriam, Dalla,
Martaban, and above all Pegu, where the merchants were allowed,
by special privilege, to have brick warehouses, the populace being
restricted to houses of bamboo or timber. Ralph Fitch and the
merchants of Venice never tire of describing Pegu city, the long moat
full of crocodiles, the walls, the watch-towers, the gorgeous palace, the
processions with elephants and palanquins and grandees in shining
robes, the shrines filled with images of massy gold and gems, the
unending hosts of armed men, and the vision of the great king himself
receiving petitions as he sat throned on high amid his lords.
Yet despite its splendour, the kingship was not loved. Bayinnaung
and the princes risked their lives freely at the head of the hosts con-
spicuously on elephants, and Bayinnaung shared many a hardship
with his men. But what was sport to him was death to the common
people. The disorganisation caused by his wars was such that Pegu
sometimes starved. Even the fertile Delta cannot grow rice without
men to plant it, and they were not there to plant it, having all been
dragged away on foreign service. Of those that went, few returned,
for if battle casualties were great, the wastage from hunger and
dysentery was even greater. Even if they were not sent to fight,
they were herded together and led away in one of the everlasting
deportations which the kingship found necessary to re-populate
ravaged areas.
1 Hakluytus Posthumus, x, 150.


## p. 492 (#532) ############################################

492
BURMA (1531–1782)
a
At least once Bayinnaung had to hurry home from a Siamese
campaign to deal with rebellion at his own capital. He had settled
in the neighbourhood some twenty thousand Shans and Siamese.
Talaings made common cause and led them when in 1564 they rose
and burnt his palace, the palace which the Portuguese regarded as
in itself a city, with roofs of solid gold. He penned thousands of the
rebels in bamboo cages to be burnt alive according to immemorial
custom, but ended by burning only seventy leaders, with their
families, because the monks protested and popular feeling supported
them.
His campaigns were the price men had to pay for the unification
of Burma. Thus far he succeeded. Beyond that he failed, because,
like his age, he was not constructive. Every other year throughout
his reign he was hastening somewhere to maintain himself in power.
A ruler without an administration, he could not be everywhere at
once, and no sooner did he turn his back than the chances were even
that a rebellion would break out. The unity he gave was artificial
and within a few years of his death it collapsed. If it rose again and
endured for another century and a half, this was because his im-
mediate successors happened to be men of character and because
the listlessness of the people prevented organised opposition.
Bayinnaung died at the age of sixty-six leaving ninety-seven
children. Although he already had more territory than he could
hold, he was actually sending an expedition to annex Arakan when
he died.
Rebellion at home compelled his son, Nandabayin (1581-99), to
recall the expedition against Arakan. There was scarcely a year in
which he was not campaigning from Mogaung in the north to Hmawbi
in the south. He used his father's methods of terrible executions and
wholesale conscription. Life was unbearable and men flocked to
become monks, partly to seek religious consolation in their misery,
partly to evade conscription.
The crown prince used Talaings for forced labour on his land,
stored the crop, and made people buy from him alone. The king
deported people from all over the country to populate Pegu. Dis-
trusting the Talaings, he executed them in numbers; he branded
them on the right hand with their name, rank and village, and sent
those who were too old for service to be exchanged for horses in
upper Burma; he exiled their monks to Ava and the Shan States.
It is at this period that the periodic migrations of the Talaings to
Siam begin, migrations which lasted until the English conquest in
1824 and were due to the sustained severity of the Burmese.
1 Hakluytus Posthumus, x, 160; Hmannan, m, 78.
2 Halliday, The Talaings; and his "Immigration of the Mons [Talaings) into
Siam", in Journal Siam Society, 1913; Ravenswaay, “Translation of Van Vliet's
description of Siam", in ibid. 1910.


## p. 493 (#533) ############################################

SACK OF PEGU
493
The one hope of keeping the country together was to evacuate
Siam and retrench in every direction. But neither Bayinnaung nor
his son could see it. The only method by which the king could control
remoter areas was by fighting them periodically, a process which
used up the only people he could really call his own, the population
round the capital. There were not sufficient left alive to till the soil
there, and remoter areas would not send food. In 1596 a plague of
field rats destroyed what little crop had been planted; there was a
terrible famine, and it was only one of a series; wide stretches of
country in lower Burma became a desert.
Nandabayin might have held the rest of his kingdom, but it was
Ayuthia that ruined him. She found a leader in the famous prince
Pra Naret. Year after year Nandabayin led his men into Siam; each
incursion further reduced his remaining man-power but none suc-
ceeded in taking Ayuthia. He could never raise 25,000 men-a mere
third of the number his father had led-and these were too few to
surround Ayuthia, so that instead of the besieged it was the besiegers
who starved. In 1593 his son was killed in hand-to-hand combat with
Pra Naret; the Burmese fled in panic at the sight and were once more
cut to pieces in a long and terrible retreat. After that there were no
men left to invade Siam; indeed it is Ayuthia which invades Pegu. 1
And now, in the hour of his utmost need, not one of the king's sons
or brothers rallied to his side. If the king was not satisfactory they
could have combined to set up someone who was; but instead of
trying to keep the country together, each was out entirely for him-
self-it is dubtful how far the concept of a kingdom ever penetrated
in a country where any brigand, who levied blackmail as far as eye
can reach, was, within living memory, styled a king. The prince
of Toungoo, first cousin to the king, actually wrote to Arakan pro-
posing a joint attack on the king and a division of the spoil. He chose
Arakan because it was farthest, and after getting its loot it would
return home and not be a rival for the throne. The Arakanese
shipped a force which occupied Syriam, effected a junction with the
Toungoo levies, and with them besieged Pegu in 1599. The townsfolk
and officers deserted. The king and a faithful son surrendered on a
promise of good treatment and were put to death.
Hearing that there was a carcass, the king of Ayuthia came swoop-
ing down to see what he could get. As the victors would not share
with him, he ravaged the country up to Toungoo and went home.
The Arakanese deported 3000 households of the wretched Pegu
folk and went off with a white elephant and a daughter of the fallen
1 Faria y Sousa (Stevens), The Portuguese Asia, 11, 120; Peter Floris (More-
land, Hakluyt Society, 1934), pp. 52-5; Frankfurter, "Events in Ayuddhya 686-
966", in Journal Siam Society, 1909; Jones, “Siamese History", in the Chinese
Repository, 1836-38; Saulière, “Jesuits on Pegu", in Bengal Past and Present,
1919; Hmannan, m, 97.


## p. 494 (#534) ############################################

494
BURMA (1531-1782)
king for their royal harem; they also took brazen cannon and the
thirty bronze images of Ayuthia (p. 488); and retaining Syriam they
left it in charge of one of their Portuguese mercenaries, De Brito.
The prince of Toungoo took away the Ceylon Tooth and begging
bowl (p. 490) with more than twelve caravan-loads of loot.
Pegu was burnt. Bayinnaung's palace, his radiant buildings decked
with the spoil of conquered kings, went up in flames. It was a pitiful
ending. The misery in lower Burma beggared description : the bodies
of those who died of wounds or starvation filled the rivers and im-
peded the passage of boats, and men ate human flesh.
The country south of Martaban paid homage to Ayuthia. Burma
was once more a series of petty states, held by princes of the royal
house. The best was the prince of Ava; a son of Bayinnaung, he
reduced upper Burma and the Shan States; he induced China to
extradite the fugitive Bhamo sawbwa, and the Chinese themselves
admit that after 1628 Burma sent no more "tribute" missions. His
son Anaukpetlun (1605-28), having the north on which to draw for
levies, found little difficulty in annexing the depopulated land of
lower Burma. In 1607 he took Prome. In 1610 he took Toungoo,
carrying home to Ava the Ceylon Tooth and begging bowl, two-thirds
of the cattle, and many people, including all who had been deported
from Pegu, Prome and Ava.
De Brito (p. 478) had made himself independent at Syriam,
defeating all attacks whether by his old Arakanese master or by other
chiefs. He had a hundred Portuguese, some negro and Indian slaves,
and the Talaings who came in from the neighbourhood. He was
liked, because he gave folk settled government. He had several ships
cruising round the coast to prevent merchant vessels from putting
in save at Syriam, where he could make them pay customs duty.
He became so successful that the Portuguese viceroy at Goa acknow-
ledged him as official Portuguese governor of Syriam. But he con-
tinued to do as he pleased, and he did wrong in pillaging pagodas.
He would scrape the gold off images and beat it into gold-leaf for
sale to pilgrims; and he melted down some of the beautiful bronze
bells at the Shwedagon to save himself the expense of_importing
bronze to make cannon. He was allied to Martaban and Toungoo.
In 1613 Anaukpetlun advanced on Syriam. Success had made
De Brito so careless that he had allowed himself to run out of powder
when the king arrived with 12,000 men. However, the stockade was
strong and the defenders beat off all attacks with boiling oil.
Natshinnaung, the fallen prince of Toungoo and cousin to the king,
was inside, having taken refuge with De Brito. The king especially
desired to capture him, and offered De Brito friendship if he would
surrender him. But De Brito replied: “We Portuguese keep faith.
1 Burney, “Wars between Burma and China", in Journal Asiatic Society of
Bengal, 1837.


## p. 495 (#535) ############################################

DE BRITO
495
I have given my word to Natshinnaung and do not break it. ” The
king cut off a prisoner's ears and sent him to De Brito saying: "Look
at this, and consider whether it will pay thee to harbour mine enemy. "
But De Brito never wavered. Once, when all the Portuguese were
in church, the Burmese broke into the stockade, but the Portuguese
came rushing out and none of the Burmese escaped alive. At the
end of six weeks the Burmese mined the stockade and managed to
pull out two of the posts; they poured in and captured the town.
The king offered the two leaders their lives if they would beg pardon,
but they refused, Natshinnaung saying: "You can kill my body, but
my soul never. De Brito and I are brothers for we have entered into
the thwethauk (p. 490) bloodbond. We have lived one life. Let us
die one death. ” His wish was granted. De Brito was crucified and
lingered three days. Perhaps he was still alive when some Portuguese
relief ships arrived but went back, seeing that the town had fallen.
The Portuguese, with Eurasians, women, and children, a total of
400, were enslaved and sent to live in the Shwebo villages called,
after them, bayingyi (feringhi) villages. They were used as hereditary
gunners to the king and were in charge of such cannon as he possessed.
Their numbers were occasionally increased, as every white man who
came into the power of the Burmese was sent there (p. 506), and by
1800 their descendants numbered two thousand, including women
and children. Their chaplains were Goanese until 1721, when Italian
Barnabites founded the European mission.
From about 1627 the Dutch, from 1647 the English, East India
Companies had branches in Burma under junior representatives.
These branches were closed from time to time, and, although profits
were occasionally considerable, the disturbed state of the country
made steady trade impossible. Both factories were at Syriam, and
in 1677 the Dutch finally withdrew. ?
Anaukpetlun tried to take Tenasserim, but the Siamese, aided by
forty Portuguese, drove him off with heavy loss. He regained control
down to Chiengmai and to Ye in Moulmein district. His methods
were those of Nandabayin, and of many an energetic Burmese king.
His people in delighted terror said that he had only to wave his sword
and the tide would stop. Yet outside his palace at Pegu there hung
a bell with an inscription in Burmese and Talaing calling on all who
had a grievance to strike the bell and he would hear (p. 479).
When in his palace on the west side of the river at Pegu he detected
his son Minredeippa in a love intrigue with one of the harem ladies,
and told him he deserved roasting alive. Such punishment was not
unusual, and Minredeippa, fearing it would really be inflicted, col.
1 Faria y Sousa (Stevens), The Portuguese Asia, m, 191; Pawtugi Yazawin
and Furnivall, “A Forgotten Chronicle", in Journal Burma Research Society,
1912; ibid. 1926, pp. 101 sqq. ; Hmannan, 1, 118; Dinnyawadi Yazawinthit, p. 210.
7 Hall, Early English Intercourse with Burma.


## p. 496 (#536) ############################################

496
BURMA (1531-1782)
lected some friends, entered the king's room at night, and did him
to death.
At once the ministers summoned a general assembly of the court.
Early action was necessary, and they took it: they elected the parri-
cide to the throne. Their reasoning was that the king's brothers, his
natural successors, were away campaigning in the Shan States-at
one time they had gone as far as Kenghung north-east of Kengtung-
and the kingdom would be in turmoil before they could be recalled.
Public morality apart, the reasoning was invalid, for young Minre-
deippa had not the wit to hold a throne, whereas his two uncles were
mature men, each in command of an army, and the news reached
them easily in nine days. So far from avoiding disorder, the court's
decision caused it. The country respected the uncles, for they were
men of authority; it knew nothing of Minredeippa, and half a dozen
governors took the opportunity to revolt. Deprived of support from
lower Burma, the two uncles had to waste sixteen months reducing
the north country. Meanwhile they seized the families of the upper
Burma companies in the palace guard, making the fact known in
Pegu, and thus shaking the allegiance of Minredeippa's guards. He
had not the courage to leave his palace and attack them. Town after
town in upper Burma fell to them, and when they surrounded Ava,
Minredeippa, foreseeing their success, decided to flee to Arakan; but
his own followers, in disgust at his cowardice and tyranny, seized
him and sent a deputation to Ava asking Thalun, one of the uncles,
to take the throne. He did so, and immediately on arriving in Pegu
executed Minredeippa, sternly rejecting his plea to be allowed to
become a monk.
Thalun (1629–48) reigned with the help of his brother until the
latter's death some years later. His coronation was scarcely over
when Talaings rushed the palace; they were driven out, fled to
Moulmein, and held it for some time before they migrated to Siam
in large numbers. He moved the capital back to Ava and there it
stayed. The Delta had lost its advantages now that the idea of
attacking Ayuthia was dead, and Pegu ceased to be a seaport when,
about 1600, the silting up of the river was complete. The proper site
to move to was Syriam, but the court did not realise that the country's
future lay on the sea coast (p. 513). The return to Ava signified the
abandonment of Tabinshwehti's dream of a national kingship. The
attempted union with the Talaings had failed, and the court relapsed
into its tribal homeland, upper Burma.
The return to upper Burma restored Kyaukse to the importance
it had lost so long as the kingship was situated among the Delta rice
fields. Instead of dedicating prisoners of war as slaves to pagodas,
Thalun found a new use for them : he settled them as tenants at
Kyaukse, where their families supplied labour for the canals and
they themselves served in the guard at court.