The First Toungoo Empire (TOW-NG-oo; Burmese: တောင်ငူခေတ်, [tàʊɴŋù kʰɪʔ], lit. "Toungoo Period"), also known as the Second Burmese Empire in traditional historiography, or simply the Taungoo dynasty, was the dominant power in mainland Southeast Asia in the second half of the 16th century. At its peak, Toungoo "exercised suzerainty from Manipur to the Cambodian marches and from the borders of Arakan to Yunnan" and was "the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia." The "most adventurous and militarily successful" dynasty in Burmese history was also the "shortest-lived."
The empire grew out of the principality of Toungoo, a minor vassal state of Ava until 1510. The landlocked petty state began its rise in the 1530s under Tabinshwehti who went on to found the largest polity in Myanmar since the Pagan kingdom by 1550. His more celebrated successor Bayinnaung then greatly expanded the empire, conquering much of mainland Southeast Asia by 1565. He spent the next decade keeping the empire intact, putting down rebellions in Siam, Lan Xang and the northernmost Shan states. From 1576 onwards, he declared a large sphere of influence in westerly lands—trans-Manipur states, Arakan and Ceylon. The empire, held together by patron-client relationships, declined soon after his death in 1581. His successor Nanda Bayin never gained the full support of the vassal rulers, and presided over the empire's precipitous collapse in the next 18 years.
The First Toungoo Empire marked the end of the period of petty kingdoms in mainland Southeast Asia. Although the overextended empire proved ephemeral, the forces that underpinned its rise were not. Its two main successor states—Restored Toungoo Burma and Ayutthaya Siam—went on to dominate western and central mainland Southeast Asia, respectively, down to the mid-18th century.
Background
Name of the period
The polity is known by a number of names. The prevailing terms used by most international scholars are the "First Toungoo Dynasty"; the "First Toungoo Empire"; and/or the "Second Burmese Empire". In traditional Burmese historiography, however, the period is known as either the "Toungoo–Hanthawaddy Period" (တောင်ငူ–ဟံသာဝတီ ခေတ်), or simply the "Toungoo Period" (တောင်ငူ ခေတ်).
Furthermore, in international usage, the terms "Toungoo Dynasty/Empire" cover both "First Toungoo Dynasty/Empire" and "Restored Toungoo Dynasty/Empire". Traditional Burmese historiography treats the Restored Toungoo Dynasty/Empire period as a separate era called the Nyaungyan period (ညောင်ရမ်း ခေတ်).
Place names
This article, for the most part, uses prevailing academic names for place names, not the current official English transliterations in use in Myanmar since 1989. For example, the official English spelling of the city after which the dynasty is named since 1989 has been "Taungoo", replacing the older spelling of Toungoo; likewise, the older spellings such as Ava, Pegu, Martaban are now Innwa, Bago and Mottama; and so on. However, the changes have not been adopted in international publications on Burmese history.
History
Principality of Toungoo
The earliest known record of administration of the region dates to the late Pagan period. In 1191, King Sithu II (r. 1174–1211) appointed Ananda Thuriya governor of Kanba Myint. In 1279, two great-grandsons of Ananda Thuriya—Thawun Gyi and Thawun Nge—founded a new settlement of 370 households, about 40 km farther south. It was named Toungoo (Taungoo) (တောင်ငူ, "Hill's Spur") because of its location by the hills in the narrow Sittaung river valley between the Bago Yoma range and southern Shan Hills.
The narrow valley at the southern edge of the dry zone was not easily accessible from Central or Upper Burma; the best access to the region was from the south, via the Sittaung. Its hard-to-reach location would shape much of its early history. In the 14th century, the settlement grew to be the principal city of the frontier region, which remained a lawless place. Toungoo's first rebellion of 1317–18 failed but its nominal overlord Pinya had little control over it. Usurpers routinely seized office by assassinating the governor—in 1325, 1344 and 1347—without incurring any reprisals by Pinya. In 1358, Toungoo outright revolted. Pinya's successor Ava (Inwa) regained Toungoo in 1367 but gubernatorial assassinations continued: 1375, 1376 and 1383, at times with Ava's own permission. Only in 1399 could Ava impose tighter control.
By then, Toungoo, along with Prome (Pyay), had received waves of Burmese-speaking migrants, driven out of Upper Burma by the successive Shan raids in the second half of the 14th century, and both southern vassal states had emerged as new centres of economic activity as well as of Burman (Bamar) culture. Toungoo's growth continued especially after the Forty Years' War (1385–1424) left Ava exhausted. From 1425 onwards, Ava regularly faced rebellions whenever a new king came to power, who then had to restore order, often by war. Toungoo's “relentlessly ambitious leaders” repeatedly tested Ava's resolve by staging assassinations (in 1440, 1452, and 1459) and rebellions (in 1426–40, 1452–59 and 1468–70) at times with Pegu's help.
Start of Toungoo dynasty
In 1470, King Thihathura of Ava (r. 1468–80) appointed Sithu Kyawhtin, the general who put down the latest Toungoo rebellion, viceroy-general of the restive province. A distant member of the Ava royalty, Sithu Kyawhtin remained loyal to Thihathura's successor Minkhaung II (r. 1480–1501), who was greeted with a wave of rebellions by lords of Yamethin (1480), Salin (1481) and Prome (1482). Sithu Kyawhtin died in action at Yamethin in 1481, and was succeeded by his son Min Sithu.
In 1485, Min Sithu became the eleventh ruler of Toungoo to be assassinated in office. The assassin was none other than his nephew Mingyi Nyo (r. 1510–30). It would be yet another rebellion except that Nyo won Minkhaung's acquiescence by offering his full support to the embattled king. Nyo turned out to be an able leader. He quickly brought law and order to the region, which attracted refugees from other parts of Central and Upper Burma. Using increased manpower, he sponsored a series of elaborate reclamation and irrigation projects to compensate for the Sittaung valley's modest agriculture.
By the 1490s, Toungoo had grown, and a more confident Nyo began to test the limits of his authority. He built a new “palace”, replete with royal pretensions, in 1491. He then, without Ava's permission, raided Hanthawaddy territory, during the southern kingdom's succession crisis. It was a disaster: Toungoo barely survived the 1495–96 counterattack by King Binnya Ran II (r. 1492–1526). At Ava, Minkhaung ignored Nyo's transgressions for he needed Nyo's support against Yamethin.
Break from Ava
Toungoo's inevitable break with Ava came soon after the death of Minkhaung II in 1501. The new king Narapati II (r. 1501–27) was greeted with a new round of rebellions. By 1502, Mingyi Nyo had already decided to break away despite Narapati's desperate attempt to retain his loyalty by granting the all-important Kyaukse granary. In 1503, Nyo's forces began surreptitiously aiding ongoing rebellions in the south. In 1504, he openly entered into an alliance with Prome with the intention of taking over all of Central Burma. But Ava was not yet a spent force. It decisively defeated the alliance's raids in 1504–05 and in 1507–08.
The setbacks forced Mingyi Nyo to recalibrate his ambitions. He formally declared independence from Ava in 1510 but also withdrew from participating in the internecine warfare. Ava could not and did not take any action. It was facing an existential threat in the ongoing war with the Confederation of Shan States, and would ultimately fall in 1527. In the meantime, Nyo focused on strengthening the economy and the stability of his kingdom. His policy of non-interference attracted refugees to the only region in Upper Burma at peace. By his death in 1530, Mingyi Nyo had successfully turned Toungoo into a small but strong regional power. History shows that the former vassal was about to "overawe the metropole".
Rise
The period between 1526 and 1533 saw power change hands in all of the major states of Burma. Three of the states were succeeded by weak rulers: Taka Yut Pi (r. 1526–39) at Hanthawaddy; Bayin Htwe (r. 1527–32) and Narapati (r. 1532–39) at Prome; and Thohanbwa (r. 1533–42) at Ava (Confederation). Two of the states were succeeded by ambitious and able rulers: Tabinshwehti (r. 1530–50) at Toungoo, and Min Bin (r. 1531–54) at Mrauk-U (Arakan). Though Arakan would become a power in its own right, its geographic isolation meant it would remain a marginal player in mainland affairs. This left the tiny Toungoo, which would bring war to much of mainland Southeast Asia till the end of the century.
The initial impetus for Toungoo's military campaigns was defensive. The landlocked state was being encircled by the powerful Confederation, which by 1533 had defeated its erstwhile ally Prome. Fortunately for Toungoo, the Confederation's paramount leader Saw Lon was assassinated a few months later, and the coalition suddenly ceased to be a coherent force. Tabinshwehti and his court decided to take advantage of the lull, and break out of their increasingly narrow realm by attacking Hanthawaddy, the larger and wealthier but disunited kingdom to the south. In 1534, Toungoo forces began annual raids into Hanthawaddy territory. They finally broke through in 1538, capturing Pegu (Bago) and the Irrawaddy delta. In 1539, Tabinshwehti moved the capital to Pegu where it would remain until the end of the century.
Toungoo went on to conquer all of Lower Burma by 1541, gaining complete control of Lower Burma's manpower, access to Portuguese firearms and maritime wealth to pay for them. And Tabinshwehti would quickly exploit these newfound assets for further expansions. By incorporating Portuguese mercenaries, firearms and military tactics as well as experienced former Hanthawaddy military commanders to the Toungoo armed forces, the upstart kingdom seized up to Pagan (Bagan) from the Confederation by 1545. The campaigns against Arakan (1545–47) and Siam (1547–49), however, fell short. In both campaigns, Toungoo forces won all major open battles but could not overcome the heavily fortified defences of Mrauk-U and Ayutthaya.
Despite the setbacks, Tabinshwehti had founded the most powerful polity in Burma since the fall of Pagan in 1287. The king attempted to forge a "Mon–Burman synthesis" by actively courting the support of ethnic Mons of Lower Burma, many of whom were appointed to the highest positions in his government and armed forces.
Expansion
But the nascent empire fell apart right after Tabinshwehti was assassinated in 1550. Several vassal rulers immediately declared independence, forcing Tabinshwehti's chosen successor Bayinnaung (r. 1550–81) to reunify the kingdom in the next two years. Bayinnaung then pushed up the Irrawaddy in an effort to join Upper Burma and Lower Burma for the first time since Pagan. Victory in the north "promised to strengthen control over interior gems and bullion, and to supply additional levies." In 1555, Upper Burma fell to the southern forces. Over the next decade, a series of “breathtaking campaigns” reduced Manipur and the entire Tai-Shan world to tributary status: cis-Salween Shan states (1557), Lan Na (1558), Manipur (1560), Keng Tung (1562), the Chinese Shan States (1563), Siam (1564) and Lan Xang (1565).
The victories were enabled by a more martial culture and greater military experience of Toungoo armies, Portuguese firearms, and the greater manpower that came with each successive victory. The conquests ended at a stroke, over two centuries of Shan raids into Upper Burma, and "extended lowland control much farther than Pagan had dreamed possible:" Pegu now “exercised suzerainty from Manipur to the Cambodian marches and from the borders of Arakan to Yunnan.”
Bayinnaung's authority would be vigorously contested in the following decade. His forces never quite vanquished the Lan Xang resistance in the Laotian hills and jungles, and in 1568, Siam, the most powerful vassal state, revolted. Leveraging the manpower of much of the western and central mainland, he managed to defeat the Siamese rebellion with great difficulty in 1569. Yet defeating the guerrilla resistance at the remote hill states—Mohnyin and Mogaung in the extreme north also revolted in 1571—proved far more difficult. Toungoo armies suffered heavy casualties from disease and starvation in their fruitless annual campaigns in search of elusive bands of rebels. Pegu reestablished some semblance of control over Lan Xang only in 1575 and Mohnyin and Mogaung in 1576.
No sooner than the Tai-Shan world finally became quiet, the king turned his attention to Portuguese Goa and the advancing Mughal Empire in the west. In response to competing requests by the Ceylonese kingdoms of Kotte and Kandy for military aid, he finally sent an elite army in 1576 to Kotte, which he considered a protectorate, ostensibly to protect Theravada Buddhism on the island from the Portuguese threat. Goa considered it was technically at war with Pegu although no war ever broke out. Closer to home, he responded to the Mughals' 1576 annexation of Bengal by claiming the entire swath of lands in present-day northeast India, as far west as the Ganges and by sending an invasion force to Arakan in 1580.