Alaungpaya

Alaungpaya (Burmese: အလောင်းဘုရား, pronounced [ʔəláʊɰ̃ pʰəjá]; also spelled Alaunghpaya or Alaung-Phra; 24 August [O.S. 13 August] 1714 – 11 May 1760) was the founder and first emperor of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma. By the time of his death from illness during his campaign in Siam, this former chief of a small village in Upper Burma had unified Burma, subdued Manipur, conquered Lan Na and launched successful attacks against the French and British East India companies who had given help to the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom. He added settlements around Dagon, and called the enlarged town Yangon.

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 (အောင်ဇေယျ "Successful Victory") at Moksobo, a village of a few hundred households in the Mu River Valley about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ava (Inwa) on 24 August 1714 to Min Nyo San (မင်းညိုစံ) and his wife Saw Nyein Oo (စောငြိမ်းဦး). 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 (ကျော်စွာထင်), better known as Sitha Mingyi (စည်သာမင်းကြီး), 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 (ယွန်းစံ), daughter of chief of a neighboring village, Siboktara (စည်ပုတ္တရာ). 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-foot-11-inch in height (1.80 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 sickly regime at Ava was wary of any potential rivals. In 1736, Taungoo Yaza, commander-in-chief of the army of Ava, summoned Aung Zeya to Ava to check if the village headman was a potential threat to the regime. Satisfied that the 22-year-old had no designs on the throne, Taungoo Yaza on behalf of the king bestowed the title Bala Nanda Kyaw (ဗလနန္ဒကျော်) to Aung Zeya. Aung Zeya became deputy to his uncle the lord of Mu Valley, and the administrative officer kyegaing (ကြေးကိုင်, [tɕéɡàɪɰ̃]), responsible for tax collection and for the preservation of order.

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. Some chose to cooperate, but others, like Aung Zeya, chose to resist.