The Forty Years' War ( my, အနှစ်လေးဆယ်စစ်; 1385 – 1424; also Ava-Pegu War or the Mon-Burmese War) was a military war fought between the
Burmese-speaking
Kingdom of Ava
The Kingdom of Ava ( my, အင်းဝခေတ်, ) was the dominant kingdom that ruled upper Burma (Myanmar) from 1364 to 1555. Founded in 1365, the kingdom was the successor state to the petty kingdoms of Myinsaing, Pinya and Sagaing ...
and the
Mon-speaking
Kingdom of Hanthawaddy. The war was fought during two separate periods: 1385 to 1391, and 1401 to 1424, interrupted by two truces of 1391–1401 and 1403–1408. It was fought primarily in today's
Lower Burma
Lower Myanmar ( my, အောက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Lower Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar and includes the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta ( Ayeyarwady, Bago and Yangon Regions), as well as coastal regions of the ...
and also in
Upper Burma
Upper Myanmar ( my, အထက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Upper Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar, traditionally encompassing Mandalay and its periphery (modern Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway Regions), or more broadly spe ...
,
Shan State, and
Rakhine State
Rakhine State (; , , ; formerly known as Arakan State) is a state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region to the east, the Bay of Bengal ...
. It ended in a stalemate, preserving the independence of Hanthawaddy, and effectively ending Ava's efforts to rebuild the erstwhile
Pagan Kingdom
The Kingdom of Pagan ( my, ပုဂံခေတ်, , ; also known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire; also the Bagan Dynasty or Bagan Empire) was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-da ...
.
First half
In the first phase,
Swa Saw Ke of Ava began the hostilities by invading Pegu during the latter kingdom's dynastic succession struggles. The war began in some time between 1384 and 1386.
[According to Mon records (Pan Hla 2005: 164–165) the war began within a year after Razadarit's accession, meaning late 1384/early 1385. However, Burmese chronicles (Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 416–417) say the war began in 1386.] Pegu's new young king
Razadarit
Razadarit ( mnw, ရာဇာဓိရာတ်,The spelling "ရာဇာဓိရာတ်" per ''Slapat Rajawan'' (Schmidt 1906: 118) and the 1485 Shwedagon Pagoda inscription (Pan Hla 2005: 368, footnote 1). Nai Pan Hla's ''Razadarit Ayedawb ...
aided by able commanders
Byat Za
SminSmin is a transliteration of the Mon language title သ္ငီ. The title is also transliterated into English as Smim. Byat Za ( my, သမိန်ဗြာဇ္ဇ, ; also spelled in Burmese, သမိန်ဖြတ်စ,The name repor ...
,
Dein Mani-Yut
Dein Mani-Yut ( mnw, ဒိန်ၝိတ်ရတ်;Pan Hla 2005: 370 my, ဒိန်မဏိရွတ်, ; commonly known as Amat Dein (အမတ်ဒိန်, "Minister Dein") or as Amat Tein (အမတ်တိန်, "Minister Tein") ...
,
Lagun Ein and
Emuntaya defeated Ava's multiple invasions. In 1391, Ava had to agree to a truce, which lasted until 1401.
Second half
The second half of the war was initiated by Pegu. To take advantage of Ava's dynastic succession crisis, Razadarit invaded Upper Burma in full force with a large flotilla in 1401.
Ava's defenses held, and Razadarit and
Minkhaung I of Ava agreed to another truce in 1403. The second truce lasted less than five years as Ava quickly went on an expansion spree, swallowing up the Shan states of
Kale
Kale (), or leaf cabbage, belongs to a group of cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') cultivars grown for their edible leaves, although some are used as ornamentals. Kale plants have green or purple leaves, and the central leaves do not form a hea ...
and
Mohnyin
Mohnyin ( my, မိုးညှင်း, ; Shan:မိူင်းယၢင်း) is a town in Kachin State, Myanmar. It is the administrative center for both Mohnyin Township and Mohnyin District and it has a population of 33,290.
History ...
in the north, and
Arakan
Arakan ( or ) is a historic coastal region in Southeast Asia. Its borders faced the Bay of Bengal to its west, the Indian subcontinent to its north and Burma proper to its east. The Arakan Mountains isolated the region and made it acces ...
in the west, between 1404 and 1406. Pegu could not allow Ava to get too strong, and renewed the war. In 1408, Peguan forces dislodged Avan troops from Arakan. Pegu also found an ally in the Shan state of
Theinni (Hsenwi), which too wanted to check Ava's ambitions.
Between 1408 and 1413, Ava was forced to fight on multiple fronts: Theinni in the north, and Pegu in the south and in the west (Arakan). Nonetheless, by 1412, Avan forces, led by Crown Prince
Minye Kyawswa, had begun to gain an upper hand. Minye Kyawswa defeated Theinni and its
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
allies in 1412. He invaded the Hanthawaddy country in full force in 1414, and conquered the
Irrawaddy delta
The Irrawaddy Delta or Ayeyarwady Delta lies in the Irrawaddy Division, the lowest expanse of land in Myanmar that fans out from the limit of tidal influence at Myan Aung to the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, to the south at the mouth of th ...
in 1415, forcing Razadarit to flee Pegu for
Martaban
Mottama ( my, မုတ္တမမြို့, ; Muttama mnw, မုဟ်တၟံ, ; formerly Martaban) is a town in the Thaton District of Mon State, Myanmar. Located on the west bank of the Thanlwin river (Salween), on the opposite side ...
. But Minye Kyawswa was killed in battle in March 1415.
End
After the death of Minye Kyawswa, the enthusiasm for war dissipated on both sides. Only three more campaigns (1416–1417, 1417–1418 and 1423–1424) were fought half-heartedly. In 1421–1422, two bitter rivals Minkhaung I and Razadarit died.
The last campaign of the war came in November 1423 when Ava's new king
Thihathu
Thihathu ( my, သီဟသူ, ; 1265–1325) was a co-founder of the Myinsaing Kingdom, and the founder of the Pinya Kingdom in today's central Burma (Myanmar).Coedès 1968: 209 Thihathu was the youngest and most ambitious of the three brothe ...
invaded the Hanthawaddy country during Hanthawaddy's succession struggles. Pegu's Crown Prince
Binnya Ran I
Binnya Ran I ( mnw, ပထမ ဗညာရာံ; my, ပထမ ဗညားရံ, ; 1393–1446) was king of Hanthawaddy Pegu from 1424 to 1446. As crown prince, he ended the Forty Years' War with the rival Ava Kingdom in 1423. He came to th ...
made peace with Ava by giving his elder sister
Shin Sawbu
Shin Sawbu ( my, ရှင်စောပု, ; mnw, မိစဴဗု; 1394–1471) was queen regnant of Hanthawaddy from 1454 to 1471. Queen Shin Sawbu is also known as Binnya Thau ( mnw, ဗညားထောဝ်; mnw, ဨကရာဇ� ...
to Thihathu. Ava forces withdrew in early 1424, ending the four-decade-long war.
[Kala Vol. 2 2006: 58]
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
* {{cite book , author=Royal Historical Commission of Burma , author-link=Royal Historical Commission of Burma , title=
Hmannan Yazawin
''Hmannan Maha Yazawindawgyi'' ( my, မှန်နန်း မဟာ ရာဇဝင်တော်ကြီး, ; commonly, ''Hmannan Yazawin''; known in English as the '' Glass Palace Chronicle'') is the first official chronicle of Konbaung ...
, volume=1–3 , year=1832 , location=Yangon , language=Burmese , edition=2003 , publisher=Ministry of Information, Myanmar
Ava dynasty
Hanthawaddy dynasty
Wars involving Myanmar
14th-century conflicts
15th-century conflicts
14th century in Asia
15th century in Asia
1385 in Asia
1424 in Asia
Wars of succession involving the states and peoples of Asia
1385 establishments
1424 disestablishments