Алаунпая: Основатель империи Конбаун и объединитель Бирмы

Founder of the Konbaung Empire
He is considered one of the three greatest monarchs of Burma alongside Anawrahta and Bayinnaung for unifying Burma for the third time in Burmese history.

The future king was born Aung Zeya ( "Successful Victory") at Moksobo, a village of a few hundred households in the Mu River Valley about northwest of Ava (Inwa) on 24 August 1714 to Min Nyo San and his wife Saw Nyein Oo He was the second son of a lineage of gentry families that had administered the Mu Valley for generations. His father was a hereditary chief of Moksobo and his uncle, Kyawswa Htin , better known as Sitha Mingyi , was the lord of the Mu Valley District. Alaungpaya claimed descent from kings Mohnyin Thado, Narapati I and Thihathura of Ava, and ultimately the Pagan royal line. He came from a large family and was related by blood and by marriage to many other gentry families throughout the valley. In 1730, Alaungpaya married his first cousin Yun San , daughter of chief of a neighboring village, Siboktara They went on to have six sons and three surviving daughters. (The fourth daughter died young.)

Aung Zeya grew up during a period in which the authority of Taungoo Dynasty was in rapid decline. The "palace kings" at Ava had been unable to defend against the Manipuri raids that had been ransacking increasingly deeper parts of Upper Burma since 1724. Ava had failed to recover southern Lanna (Chiang Mai), which had revolted in 1727, and did nothing to prevent the annexation of northern Shan States by the Manchu Qing dynasty in the 1730s. The Mu Valley was directly on the path of Manipuri raids year after year. Although Burma was far larger than Manipur, Ava had been unable to defeat the raids or organize a punitive expedition to Manipur itself. The people watched helplessly as the raiders torched villages, ransacked pagodas, and took away captives. It was during these troubled times in the absence of royal authority that men like Aung Zeya came forward. He assumed his father's responsibilities as chief of his village in his early twenties. A tall man for the times, (5 feet (2 m) as described by an English envoy), the solidly built, sunburnt Aung Zeya displayed his natural ability to lead men and was viewed as a leader by his gentry peers throughout the valley. They began to take matters into their own hands to defend against the raids.

The authority of Ava continued to decline in the following years. In 1740, the Mon of Lower Burma broke away and founded the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom with the capital at Bago. Ava's feeble attempts to recover the south failed to make a dent. Low grade warfare between Ava and Bago went on until late in 1751, when Bago launched its final assault, invading Upper Burma in full force. By early 1752, Hanthawaddy forces, aided by the French East India Company supplied firearms and Dutch and Portuguese mercenaries, had reached the gates of Ava. The heir apparent of Hanthawaddy, Upayaza, summoned all administrative officers in Upper Burma to submit. He found a ready audience in "an exceptionally proud group of men and women" of Upper Burma who longed to redress the numerous humiliations that their once proud kingdom had suffered.

Konbaung was only one among many other resistance forces that had independently sprung up across a 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 Bago, leaving just a third (less than 10,000 men) for what they considered a mop up operation.

The conflict increasingly turned into an ethnic conflict between the Bamar north and the Mon south. The Hanthawaddy leadership escalated "self defeating" policies of persecuting southern Bamars. They also executed the captive king of Taungoo in October 1754. Alaungpaya was only happy to exploit the situation, encouraging remaining Bamar troops to come over to him. Many did. Swelled by levies from throughout Upper Burma, including Shan, Kachin, and Kuki contingents, he launched a massive invasion of Lower Burma in a blitzkrieg in January 1755. By May, his armies had conquered the entire Irrawaddy Delta and captured Dagon, which he renamed Yangon. However, his advance came to a sudden halt at the French defended main port city of Thanlyin, which repelled several Konbaung charges. Alaungpaya sought an alliance with the East India Company and also sought out more arms, but no alliance or arms materialized. Konbaung forces finally took the city after a 14 month siege in July 1756, ending the French intervention in the war. The Konbaung forces then overcame determined but vastly outnumbered Hanthawaddy defenses, and sacked Bago in May 1757. The 17 year old kingdom was finished. Afterwards, Chiang Mai and other states in present day northwest Thailand, which had been in revolt since 1727, promptly sent in tribute. In the south too, the governors of Mottama and Dawei also sent tribute.

In 1758, Alaungpaya dispatched an expedition to the northern Shan and Tai states (present day northern and eastern Kachin State, northern Shan State, and Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture) which had been annexed by the Qing since the mid 1730s. By early 1759, the Burmese had successfully reestablished their authority. A later Qing attempt to reconquer the region would lead to the Sino Burmese War (1765–69).)

Alaungpaya then turned his attention to the East India Company (EIC) outpost at Cape Negrais at the southwestern tip of the Irrawaddy Delta. The British, concerned with the success of French backed Hanthawaddy, had landed the island back in 1753, constructing a fort there. During the war with Hanthawaddy, Alaungpaya offered to cede the island to the British in return for military help. However, the British turned down Alaungpaya's offer, as they claimed they could not spare any arms because they too were engaged in their own war against the French. In 1758, Alaungpaya got the news that the East India Company's agents had sold ammunition and arms (500 muskets) to Mon rebels. (Historian GE Harvey claims that the news was a fabrication of Alaungpaya's advisers and that the arms provided were five muskets, not 500.) On 6 October 1759, a 2000 strong Konbaung battalion overran the fort, demolishing it as they withdrew.

Alaungpaya, who grew up watching Manipuri raids ransacking his home region year after year, was determined to return the favor as soon as he was able. While most of his forces were laying siege to Syriam, he sent an expedition to Manipur to "instill respect". In early 1756, the Burmese army defeated the Manipuri army and ransacked the entire country, which the Manipuris call the First Devastation. After Lower Burma was defeated, Alaungpaya himself led another expedition in November 1758, this time to place the Burmese nominee to the Manipuri throne. His armies invaded by the Khumbat route in the Mainpur valley, and overcame fierce Manipuri resistance at Pallel, on their march to Imphal, the Manipuri capital. After Pallel, the Burmese entered Imphal without firing a shot. The Konbaung armies, according to the Manipuris, committed "unspeakably cruel" crimes against the populace, inflicting "one of the worst disasters in its history". But historian GE Harvey writes: Alaungpaya "was only doing unto them as they had done unto his people". Alaungpaya raised his nominee to the Manipuri throne and returned with his army. He also brought back many Manipuri cavalry, who became elite cavalry corps (known as Cassay Horse) in the Burmese army. (This was the start of Konbaung dynasty's long, draining involvement in Manipur. The small kingdom would prove a troublesome tributary, regularly putting up rebellions in 1764, 1768–1770, and 1775–1782. The Burmese involvement ceased after 1782 until they came back in 1814.)

The Ayutthaya Kingdom was one of Southeast Asia's most wealthiest and most cosmopolitan polities in the 18th century. Prior to the Konbaung dynasty's rise, Ayutthaya Siam and Taungoo Burma had been relatively peaceful for over 150 years, with a brief period of hostilities when King Narai of Ayutthaya launched an ill fated expedition to vassalize Burmese aligned Lan Na in the mid 17th century. The Konbaung dynasty had harbored to seize Ayutthaya's wealth and resources for the benefit of its own rulers. Siamese and Burmese interests in the Tenasserim have clashed on and off since the 16th century. Since the Burmese reconquest of Northern Tenasserim in the early 17th century, control of the economically lucreative Tenasserim coast was shared between Siam and Burma: Burma controlling the Northern Tenasserim ports of Mawlamyine and Tavoy while Siam controlled the Southern Tenasserim ports of Mergui and Tenasserim. Ayutthaya's support of the Mon rebels against Upper Burma, particularly in the aftermath of the fall of Lower Burma encouraged Alaungpaya to attempt an all out attack on Ayutthaya in order to end Ayutthaya as a formidable opponent against Alaungpaya's interests for internal security and in an attempt to recreate Bayinnaung's conquests.

After the rainy season of 1759, Alaungpaya and his armies returned to the south to deal with the still unstable Lower Burma. One year back, a major Mon rebellion broke out, temporarily driving out the Konbaung governor of Pegu (Bago). Although the rebellion was put down, Mon resistance was still operating in the upper Tenasserim coast (present day Mon State), where Konbaung control was still largely nominal. Siam provided shelter to the rebel leaders and their resistance troops. Alaungpaya sought assurances from the Siamese king that they would not intervene in the Burmese affairs and to surrender rebel leadership. But the Siamese king refused Burmese demands and prepared for war. In December 1759, Alaungpaya's 40,000 strong Burmese army left Martaban to invade Siam via Tenasserim. His second son, Hsinbyushin was his deputy. The Burmese occupied the town of Tenasserim, moved eastward over the Tenasserim Hills to the shore of the Gulf of Siam, turned north and captured the coastal towns, Kuwi, Pran Buri, and Phetchaburi. Siamese resistance stiffened as the Burmese approached the capital of Ayutthaya, but nonetheless, they were driven back with heavy losses in men, guns, and ammunition. but Burmese sources state clearly that he fell ill, and given the inglorious nature of death by illness it is unlikely they were trying to hide the truth. The Burmese began their retreat on 17 April 1760 (3rd waxing of Kason 1122 ME). Only Minkhaung Nawrahta's 6000 men and 500 Cassay cavalrymen remained as the rearguard, successfully fending off Siamese attacks along the route of retreat.

Alaungpaya died on Sunday, 11 May 1760 (12th waning of Kason 1122 ME) at the dawn, at Kinywa, near Martaban, after being rushed back from the Siamese front by the advance guard. He had longed for the sights and sounds of home, Shwebo for one last time but it was not to be. His death was made public at Yangon, and his body was taken upstream on a state barge. At Kyaukmyaung landing stage near Shwebo, the whole court came out to meet it, and bore it solemnly through the Hlaingtha Gate of Shwebo. He was buried with the ritual of the kings in the palace city, which once had been his lowly village, amid the mourning of an entire people. He had reigned only eight years, and was not yet 46 when he died. Historian Harvey writes that "men are remembered by the years they use, not by the years they last". In accordance with the Taungoo policy, he allowed hereditary viceroyships only in the peripheral regions like the Shan States and Lan Na. (Later Konbaung kings would gradually reduce the number of hereditary viceroyships even in the Shan States.) One key policy change that Alaungpaya initiated, and followed by latter Konbaung kings, was the establishment of military colonies and civilian settlement in Lower Burma. This policy would prove instrumental in eclipsing the Mon civilization by the early 19th century.

Most of the non military work he commissioned came during a few brief hiatuses between campaigns. In 1752, he designated Shwebo as the capital of his kingdom and enlarged what once was a mid size village into a sizable city. He built a palace on the model of those erected by the ancient kings. In 1758, he built the Mahananda Lake to supply Shwebo with water. He also built canals by damming the Mu river for agriculture but the work decayed after his death. His most significant and enduring work was the founding of Yangon. After he conquered the pagoda town of Dagon in 1755, he added settlements with people from his home region. (The Mu valley place names like Ahlon and Kyaukmyaung still endure to this date in Yangon.) By the eve of the First Anglo Burmese War, Yangon had replaced Syriam (Thanlyin) as the chief port city of the kingdom.

For the land of the law, in 1755 he commissioned the Manu Kye dhammathat (lit. Manu Kye Law Book), a compilation of existing laws and customs, and of the rulings preserved in previous law books. Although the law book was poorly arranged and offered little explanations on contradictory passages, it attained enormous popularity, owing to its encyclopedic nature and to its being written in simple Burmese with little Pali.

The most important legacy of Alaungpaya was the restoration of central rule in Burma for the first time in four decades, and the rise of the Konbaung Dynasty. Alaungpaya, according to the Burmese historian Htin Aung, led a people "divided and broken, humiliated and ashamed" and "left to his successors a people united and confident, holding up their heads again in pride and in glory". But Htin Aung also cautions that Alaungpaya "had led his people in waging war but his leadership was still sorely needed to wage a peace. He had roused his people to the fever heat of nationalism but he was denied the time and the opportunity to calm them down to tolerance and restraint". Indeed, overconfident Konbaung kings that followed him would go to war with all the neighbors in the next seven decades on their way to founding the second largest Burmese empire, until they were defeated by the British in present day northeastern India.