The Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War (Burmese: ကုန်းဘောင်-ဟံသာဝတီ စစ်) was the war fought between the Konbaung Dynasty and the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom of Burma (Myanmar) from 1752 to 1757. The war was the last of several wars between the Burmese-speaking north and the Mon-speaking south that ended the Mon people's centuries-long dominance of the south.
The war began in April 1752 as independent resistance movements against Hanthawaddy armies which had just toppled the Toungoo Dynasty. Alaungpaya, who founded the Konbaung Dynasty, quickly emerged as the main resistance leader, and by taking advantage of Hanthawaddy's low troop levels, went on to conquer all of Upper Burma by the end of 1753. Hanthawaddy belatedly launched a full invasion in 1754 but it faltered. The war increasingly turned ethnic in character between the Burman (Bamar) north and the Mon south. Konbaung forces invaded Lower Burma in January 1755, capturing the Irrawaddy Delta and Dagon (Yangon) by May. The French defended port city of Syriam (Thanlyin) held out for another 14 months but eventually fell in July 1756, ending French involvement in the war. The fall of the 16-year-old southern kingdom soon followed in May 1757 when its capital Pegu (Bago) was sacked. Disorganized Mon resistance fell back to the Tenasserim peninsula (present-day Mon State and Tanintharyi Region) in the next few years with Siamese help but was driven out by 1765 when Konbaung armies captured the peninsula from the Siamese.
The war proved decisive. Ethnic Burman families from the north began settling in the delta after the war. By the early 19th century, assimilation and intermarriage had reduced the Mon population to a small minority.
Background
The authority of Toungoo Dynasty with the capital at Ava (Inwa) had long been in decline when the Mon of Lower Burma broke away in 1740, and founded the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom with the capital at Pegu (Bago). The "palace kings" at Ava had been unable to defend against the Manipuri raids, which began in 1724 and had been ransacking increasingly deeper parts of Upper Burma. Ava failed to recover southern Lan Na (Chiang Mai) that revolted in 1727, and did nothing to prevent the annexation of northern Shan states by Qing China in the mid-1730s. King Mahadhammaraza Dipadi of Toungoo made feeble efforts to recover Lower Burma in the early 1740s, but by 1745, Hanthawaddy had successfully established itself in Lower Burma.
In 1742, the Hanthawaddy forces started raiding annually up the Irrawaddy river as far as Ava. By 1745, Hanthawaddy controlled much of Lower Burma, and parts of Upper Burma up to Prome and Toungoo. The low-grade warfare between Ava and Pegu went on until late 1750, when Pegu launched its final assault, invading Upper Burma in full force. By early 1752, Peguan forces, equipped with French arms, had reached the gates of Ava. Upayaza, the heir apparent of Hanthawaddy throne, issued a proclamation, summoning the administrative officers in the country north of the city to submit, and swear allegiance to the king of Hanthawaddy. Many regional chiefs of Upper Burma faced a choice: whether to join the Hanthawaddy forces or resist occupation. A few chose to cooperate. But many others chose to resist.
Upper Burma (1752–1754)
By late March 1752, it was clear to everyone that Ava's fate was sealed. Hanthawaddy forces had breached Ava's outer defenses, and pushed Avan defenses inside the palace walls. At Moksobo in the Mu valley about 60 miles northwest of Ava, one village headman named Aung Zeya persuaded 46 villages in home region to join him in resistance. Aung Zeya proclaimed himself king with the royal style of Alaungpaya (the Future Buddha), and founded the Konbaung Dynasty. He prepared the defenses by stockading his village, now renamed Shwebo, and building a moat around it. He had the jungle outside the stockade cleared, the ponds destroyed and the wells filled.
Konbaung was only one among many other resistance forces, at Salin along the middle Irrawaddy and Mogaung in the far north, which had independently sprung up across panicked Upper Burma. Fortunately for the resistance forces, the Hanthawaddy command mistakenly equated their capture of Ava with the victory over Upper Burma, and withdrew two-thirds of the invasion force back to Pegu, leaving just a third (less than 10,000 men) for what they considered a mop-up operation. Moreover, the Hanthawaddy leadership was concerned by the Siamese annexation of the upper Tenasserim peninsula (present-day Mon State) while Hanthawaddy troops were laying siege to Ava.
The decision to redeploy turned out to be an epic miscalculation as the Siamese threat was never as acute as the threat from Upper Burma, the traditional home of political power in Burma. The Siamese takeover of Upper Tenasserim was an opportunistic land grab taking advantage of Hanthawaddy's preoccupations with Ava. It is unclear whether the Siamese ever planned or had the means to extend their influence into mainland Lower Burma. It was much more probable that any existential threat to Hanthawaddy would come from Upper Burma.
Battle of Shwebo (1752)
The Hanthawaddy command nevertheless was confident that they could pacify the entire Upper Burma countryside. At first the strategy seemed to work. They established outposts as far north as Wuntho and Kawlin in present-day northern Sagaing Region, and the Gwe Shans of Madaya in present-day northern Mandalay Region joined them. The Hanthawaddy officer stationed at Singu, about 30 miles north of Ava, sent a detachment of 50 men to secure allegiance of the Mu valley. Alaungpaya personally led forty of his best men to meet the detachment at Halin, south of Shwebo, and wiped them out. It was 20 April 1752 (Thursday, 4th waxing of Kason 1114 ME).
As Upayaza prepared to ship the main body of his troops downstream, leaving a garrison behind under his next-in-command, Talaban. Before leaving he received the unpleasant news that one of his detachments, sent to demand the allegiance of Moksobo had been cut to pieces by the inhabitants. He ought to have enquired more carefully into the nature of the incident, but made the fatal mistake of treating it as trivial. With the parting injunction to Talaban to make an example of the place, he set off home with his troops.
Another larger detachment was sent. It too was defeated, with only half a dozen got back to Ava alive. In May, Gen. Talaban himself led a force of several thousand well-armed troops to take Shwebo. But the army lacked cannon to overcome the stockade, and it was forced to lay siege. A month into the siege, on 20 June 1752, Alaungpaya burst out at the head of a general sortie and routed the besiegers. The Hanthawaddy forces withdrew in disarray, leaving their equipment, including several scores of muskets, which were "worth their weight in gold in these critical days".
Consolidation of Upper Burma (1752–1753)
The news spread. Soon, Alaungpaya was mustering a proper army from across the Mu valley and beyond, using his family connections and appointing his fellow gentry leaders as his key lieutenants. Success drew fresh recruits every day from many regions across Upper Burma. Alaungpaya then selected 68 ablest men to be the commanders of his growing army. Many of the 68 would prove to be brilliant military commanders in Konbaung's domestic and external campaigns, and form the core leadership of Konbaung armies for the next thirty years. They include the likes of Minhla Minkhaung Kyaw, Minkhaung Nawrahta, Maha Thiha Thura, Ne Myo Sithu, Maha Sithu and Balamindin. Most other resistance forces, as well as officers from the disbanded Palace Guards, had joined him with such arms as they retained. By October 1752, he had emerged the primary challenger to Hanthawaddy and driven out all Hanthawaddy outposts north of Ava, and their allies Gwe Shans from Madaya. He also defeated a rival resistance leader, Chit Nyo of Khin-U. A dozen legends gathered around his name. Men felt that when he led them they could not fail.
Despite repeated setbacks, Pegu incredibly still did not send in reinforcements even as Alaungpaya consolidated his gains throughout Upper Burma. Instead of sending every troop they had, they merely replaced Talaban, the general who won Ava, with another general, Toungoo Ngwegunhmu. By late 1753, Konbaung forces controlled all of Upper Burma except Ava. On 3 January 1754, Alaungpaya's second son, Hsinbyushin, only 17, successfully retook Ava, which was left ruined and burned. The whole of Upper Burma was clear of Hanthawaddy troops. Alaungpaya then turned to nearer Shan States to secure the rear, and to draw fresh levies. He received homage from the nearer sawbwas (saophas or chiefs) as far north as Momeik.
Hanthawaddy counter-offensive (1754)
In March 1754, Hanthawaddy did what they should have done two years before, and sent the entire army. It would have been 1751–1752 all over again except that they had to face Alaungpaya instead of an effete dynasty. At first, the invasion went as planned. The Hanthawaddy forces led by Upayaza, the heir-apparent, and Gen. Talaban defeated the Konbaung armies led by Alaungpaya's sons Naungdawgyi and Hsinbyushin at Myingyan. One Hanthawaddy army chased Hsinbyushin to Ava, and laid siege to the city. Another army chased Naungdawgyi's army, advancing as far as Kyaukmyaung a few miles from Shwebo, where Alaungpaya was residing. The Hanthawaddy flotilla had complete control of the entire Irrawaddy River.
But they could not make further progress. They met heavy Konbaung resistance at Kyaukmyaung and lost many men trying to take a heavily fortified Ava. Two months into the invasion, the invasion was going nowhere. The Hanthawaddy forces had lost many men and boats, and were short on ammunition and supplies. In May, Alaungpaya personally led his armies (10,000 men, 1000 cavalry, 100 elephants) in the Konbaung counterattack, and pushed back the invaders to Sagaing, on the west bank of the Irrawaddy, opposite Ava. On the east bank, Hsinbyushin also broke the siege of Ava. With the rainy season just a few weeks away, the Hanthawaddy command decided to retreat.
Meanwhile, Burman refugees who had escaped general slaughter by the delta Mons seized Prome (Pyay), the historical border town between Upper Burma and Lower Burma, and shut the gates to the retreating Hanthawaddy armies. Knowing the importance of Prome for the safety of his kingdom, King Binnya Dala of Hanthawaddy ordered his forces to retake Prome at any cost. Led by Talaban, the Hanthawady forces consisted of 10,000 men and 200 war boats laid siege to Prome.
Turning into an ethnic conflict
By late 1754, the siege of Prome was going nowhere for Talaban's men. The besiegers had been able to fight off Konbaung attempts to lift the siege but they could not take the fortified city either. At Pegu, some of the Hanthawaddy commanders now feared Alaungpaya's full-scale invasion of the south, and looked for an alternative. Preferring the loose rule of a weak king, they attempted to free the captive king, Mahadhammaraza Dipati on the throne of Hanthawaddy. The plot was discovered by Binnya Dala, who executed not only the conspirators but also the former king himself and other captives from Ava in October 1754. This shortsighted action removed the only possible rival to Alaungpaya, and allowed those who had stayed loyal to the former king to join Alaungpaya with an easy conscience.
The conflict increasingly turned into an ethnic conflict between the Burman north and the Mon south. It was not always so. When the southern rebellion began in 1740, the Mon leaders of the rebellion welcomed southern Burmans and Karens who despised Ava's rule. The first king of Restored Hanthawaddy, Smim Htaw Buddhaketi, despite his Mon title, was an ethnic Burman. Burmans of the south had served in the Mon-speaking Hanthawaddy army although there had been episodes of purges of Burmans throughout the south by their Mon compatriots since 1740. (About 8000 ethnic Burmans were massacred in 1740.) Instead of persuading their Burman troops to stay, when they needed every last soldier, the Hanthawaddy leadership escalated "self-defeating" policies of ethnic polarization. They began requiring all Burmans in the south to wear an earring with a stamp of the Pegu heir-apparent and to cut their hair in Mon fashion as a sign of loyalty. This persecution strengthened Alaungpaya's hand. Alaungpaya was only happy to exploit the situation, encouraging remaining Burman troops to come over to him. Many did.
Konbaung invasion of Lower Burma (1755–1757)
While the Hanthawaddy leadership alienated their Burman constituency in the south, Alaungpaya gathered troops from all over Upper Burma, including Shan, Kachin and Chin levies. By January 1755, he was ready to launch a full-scale invasion of the south. The invading army now had a considerable manpower advantage. Hanthawaddy troops still had better firearms and modern weaponry. (Hanthawaddy's firearm advantage would claim many Konbaung casualties in upcoming battles.)