Minyekyawswa of Ava

Minye Kyawswa I of Ava (, ; also known as Hsinbyushin Minye Kyawswa Gyi (ဆင်ဖြူရှင် မင်းရဲကျော်စွာကြီး, ; –) was king of Ava (Inwa) from 1439 to 1442. In less than three years of rule, the second king from the royal house of Mohnyin (မိုးညှင်းဆက်) had recovered four major former vassal states of Ava: his native Mohnyin, Kale (Kalay), Taungdwin and Toungoo (Taungoo), and was about to capture a fifth, Mogaung, which was achieved shortly after his death. Despite the successes farther afield, his attempt to capture the closer districts of Pinle and Yamethin failed.

His reign marked Ava's first attempt to forcefully reclaim the former vassal states that it had lost since the mid-1420s. As king, Minye Kyawswa implemented a more aggressive policy against the rebel states, which he had advocated for since his days as crown prince of Ava (1426–1439) but could not get his father King Mohnyin Thado to prioritize. He launched a major military campaign in every dry season of his short reign. Ava's campaigns in the kingdom's north benefited greatly from Ming China's campaigns against the powerful Shan-speaking state of Mong Mao.

Early life The future king was the eldest child of a minor noble family of Shin Myat Hla and Thado (from present-day Mandalay Region, Myanmar). He was born in Mohnyin (present-day Kachin State) , about eight months after his parents had relocated to the northern Shan-speaking frontier state, following his father's appointment as sawbwa (lord governor) of the state by King Minkhaung I of Ava. He grew up in Mohnyin with his younger brother, and two younger sisters. Unlike his brother, who spent time at the capital Ava (Inwa) as a page of King Thihathu from 1421 to 1425, chronicles have no record of Minye Kyawswa spending his early years outside of Mohnyin. He apparently remained alongside his father to his early teens when he was appointed sawbwa of Moshwe, a small district of Mohnyin.

Thado's rebellion His small town life ended in February 1426. That month, his father formally revolted against King Min Nyo's regime, and the 15-year-old sawbwa and his 12-year-old brother, sawbwa of Wuntho, became active participants in the rebellion. Despite the success, their father, a former co-commander-in-chief of the Ava military, would not put his eager but inexperienced sons in the vanguard again for the rest of the campaign. The brothers' next assignment came only in May as Thado's forces closed in on Ava: the brothers dutifully marched to the east of Ava (Inwa) to block a possible escape route of King Nyo but saw no action. Thado entered the royal capital unopposed on 16 May 1426.

On 20 May 1426, Thado formally ascended the throne, and made his eldest son einshei min (အိမ်ရှေ့မင်း, lit. "Lord of the Front Place", heir apparent) with the title of Minye Kyawswa, and gave Salin, Sagu, and Legaing districts (all three in modern Minbu District) in fief. The new crown prince also married his double first cousin Min Hla Nyet, daughter of his paternal aunt Shin Myat Hla and his maternal uncle Thiri Zeya Thura.

Crown prince years

Throughout his father's 13-year reign, Minye Kyawswa would prove a loyal deputy albeit with policy differences. The royal chronicles portray the crown prince as far more distrustful of the vassal rulers, and more eager to use force against the rebel states. But he failed to significantly alter the policies of Thado, who never made a sustained effort to establish his authority outside the core zone. The first such episode took place just a few months into Thado's reign when Minye Kyawswa urged Thado to arrest the governors of Toungoo (Taungoo) and Taungdwin, who purportedly had come to Ava to pledge their allegiance. The son argued that the governors—Thinkhaya III of Toungoo and Thihapate III of Taungdwin—had probably come to assess Ava's military strength but the father disagreed. The son's suspicion soon proved correct: the two governors revolted right after they got back to their respective regions.

It was not an isolated incident. The crown prince could not get his father to take a harder stance against Prince Minye Kyawhtin either. Although the second-most senior prince of the previous dynasty had never renounced his claim to the Ava throne, and by 1427 had occupied Pinle, only 70 km away from the capital, Thado was unwilling to send the full force against the prince, grandson of his deceased lord, King Minkhaung. Indeed, Thado had even freed the prince back in August 1426, only to see him revolt again just a few months later. ) In 1431, Thado formally ceded the southernmost districts of Tharrawaddy and Paungde to King Binnya Ran I of Hanthawaddy Pegu without putting up a fight. In late 1433, Minye Kyawswa managed to get his father's permission to lead an expedition to Pinle and other southeastern states in revolt. Although his army was larger (5000 infantry, 300 cavalry and 120 elephants), it still was not enough to take any rebel-held town. He again came back empty handed in early 1434.

The failed campaign was the last one Thado would authorize. Over the next five years, the king continued to focus on his pagoda building spree, and little else. Even when Pegu openly seized Toungoo in 1436, his response was not to launch a punitive campaign but to order a recalibration of the Burmese calendar, over the objection of the court.

Reign Political map of Myanmar 1450. The map in the first half of the century was similar except in Arakan which was disorganized until 1429. The nearer Shan states in light yellow, including Mohnyin, Mogaung, Thibaw (Hsipaw/Onbaung) and Nyaungshwe (Yawnghwe), were sometime tributaries of Ava during the first half of the 15th century.

Thado died in April 1439, and Minye Kyawswa succeeded without incident. The two key vassals who could challenge the new 28-year-old king—his brother Prince Thihathu of Prome and his uncle Gov. Nawrahta I of Myedu—both acknowledged him. Even with their support, the realm he inherited was a rump polity that extended only along the narrow north-south axis of the Irrawaddy river between Myedu in the north to Prome in the south.

The following major former vassal states remained out of Ava's orbit:

Region Ruler Notes Pinle Minye Kyawhtin Backed by Le Than Bwa of Onbaung Onbaung Le Than Bwa In revolt and supporter of Minye Kyawhtin since 1426 Toungoo (Taungoo) Saw Oo II of Toungoo In revolt 1426–1436 / vassal of Hanthawaddy 1436–1441 Taungdwin Thihapate III of Taungdwin In revolt since 1426 Yat Sauk Naung Mun unnamed Occupies Yamethin in 1433 Kale (Kalay) unnamed Mohnyin unnamed Vassal of Mogaung since 1427 Mogaung Tho Ngan Bwa of Mogaung (Si Renfa in Chinese) In revolt since 1427

The new king immediately instituted a policy to reclaim the rebel states. (Chronicles attribute this urgency to the two competing prophecies given by the court astrologers at his accession. The story goes that all but one predicted that the new king would reign three years while a lone astrologer predicted that the new king would conquer three (unspecified) countries; Minye Kyawswa is said to have preferred the lone astrologer's prophecy. He may have believed in the larger group's prophecy as well. He as king would not go to the front in any of the campaigns during his reign although he as crown prince did so in at least three campaigns.) At any rate, Minye Kyawswa shifted much of the resources of his narrow realm, which nonetheless did include the most productive granaries of the kingdom, Mu valley, Minbu and a large portion of Kyaukse, away from his father's expensive pagoda building projects, and ordered the court to prepare for war in the upcoming dry season. and Mohnyin itself was in a fight with Kale (Kalay), another former vassal state of Ava.

In 1440, Minye Kyawswa launched a campaign to conquer the southeastern states. With the northern front still in a stalemate, he could allocate only a smaller army (7000 men, 400 cavalry, 20 elephants) to the operation, which was led by his uncle Nawrahta I of Myedu. The results were decidedly mixed. The small army still could not take heavily fortified Pinle and Yamethin. Indeed, its capture of the next two states Taungdwin and Toungoo may have been helped by the decision of the rulers of those regions to engage the army in open battle. (The Toungoo army fell apart after their leader Min Saw Oo was killed atop his war elephant by Yazathingyan, one of the commanders of the Ava army. He also gave Taungdwin to the portfolio of his brother-in-law Thiri Zeya Thura, the sawbwa of Kale. ) His two brothers in-law, the sawbwas of Mohnyin and Kale, went on to lay siege to Mogaung, about 90 km northeast of Mohnyin. During the siege, the king died in Ava in December 1441/January 1442, (probably in early January 1442). The 31-year-old king had reigned less than three years.

Aftermath Minye Kyawswa did not leave a male heir. In fact, he had only one daughter, Min Mya Hnit. ) The ministers rushed a messenger on horseback to the outskirts of Mogaung, 500 km north of Ava, where Thihapate was besieging the town, to invite him to be king. But he refused, saying that he was neither a son or younger brother of the king, and that the court should give the throne to the rightful heir, Thihathu. Only then did the court send a royal flotilla down the Irrawaddy to Prome (Pyay) to invite Thihathu to Ava. Thihathu accepted, and arrived at Ava on 11 March 1442. He formally ascended to the throne with the reign name of Narapati on 6 April 1442. Meanwhile, Thihapate had captured Mogaung, and presented Tho Ngan Bwa to the new king at the coronation ceremony.

Legacy Minye Kyawswa's legacy was his policy to restore Ava's former borders. In a marked change from his father's policy, Minye Kyawswa used Ava's still considerable resources to expand his authority outside the core narrow zone he inherited. His goals of reestablishing a "miniature Pagan" were reflected in a 1440 inscription from his reign, which according to Aung-Thwin "used, perhaps for the first time, amyo-tha [အမျိုးသား] ("sons of the race, or countrymen") as a reference to the people in the Kingdom of Ava. Although it was likely a reference mainly to the dominant Burmese speakers of the kingdom, the context also suggests that it included many who were not originally born Burmese speakers, but belonged to other ethnolinguistic groups, who had become "citizens" of the kingdom." In all, in his short reign of less than three years, Minye Kyawswa successfully had brought four key vassal states (Mohnyin, Kale, Taungdwin and Toungoo) back into the fold, and begun the eventual capture of Mogaung, which was achieved shortly after his death. His expansionist policy would be continued by his brother under whose reign Ava reached its "apogee". Pyinzi Core Thiri Zeya Thura the younger (1434–1442?) His first cousin and brother-in-law Sagaing Core Yazathingyan (1413–1450) Singu Central-North Baya Gamani (1412–1426, 1427–) Older brother of Yazathingyan Myedu Central-North Nawrahta I (1429–?) His paternal younger uncle, and Commandant of the Northern Cavalry Prome (Pyay) South Thihathu III of Prome (1429–1442) His younger brother Toungoo (Taungoo) Southeast Tarabya (1441–1446) Also governor of Toungoo (1459–1466); Kale (Kalay) Northwest Thiri Zeya Thura the younger (1439–1450/51) Mohnyin North Thihapate (1439–1450/51) Battle of Pakhan against Tarabya II of Pakhan 1426 1 regiment Commanded one regiment (1000 infantry, 150 cavalry, 10 elephants) Siege of Pinle 1428–1429 5 battalions Led a force of 1500 infantry, 300 cavalry, and 20 elephants against the fortified town of Pinle held by Prince Minye Kyawhtin Pinle, Yamethin, Taungdwin 1433–1434 5 regiments Led an army of 5000 infantry, 300 cavalry and 20 elephants. Failed to take a single rebel town. Zatadawbon Yazawin (Horoscopes Section) [sic] – 1441/42 Thursday born 1438 – 1441/42 Maha Yazawin 1401 [sic] – December 1441/January 1442 Thursday born 1439 – December 1441/January 1442 Yazawin Thit 1410/11 – 1441/42 Thursday born 29 (30th year) [sic] 1439 – 1441/42 [early 1442 (late 803 ME) death implied] Hmannan Yazawin 1410/11 – December 1441/January 1442 Thursday born 31 (32nd year) 1439 – December 1441/January 1442 Ancestry The king was descended from a distant branch of the Pinya and Pagan royal lines from his father side, and from the maternal line, a two times great grandchild of King Thihathu of Pinya.