Binnya Dala (minister-general)
Agga Maha Thenapati Binnya Dala အဂ္ဂမဟာသေနာပတိ ဗညားဒလ | |
---|---|
Chief Minister-General[note 1] | |
In office 1559–1573 | |
Monarch | Bayinnaung |
Preceded by | Binnya Law |
Succeeded by | Binnya Law |
Minister | |
In office 1555–1559 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 1518 Siam (1568–69) Lan Xang (1569–70) Lan Xang (1572–73) |
- This article about the Toungoo minister-general. See Binnya Dala for the last king of Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom.
Agga Maha Thenapati Binnya Dala (
Early life and career
Little is known about his early life except that he was an ethnic
Rise (1556–1559)
His rise to the upper echelons of Toungoo command was rapid. In 1556, he was a minister at the court at Pegu, which was considering its policy toward the cis-
The overwhelming success gained him the king's ear. In November 1557, Bayinnaung listened to Binnya Dala, and rejected his son Crown Prince Nanda's proposal to acquire the neighboring Chinese vassal Shan states in the north. The king took the advice of Binnya Payan and Binnya Dala to attack the kingdom of Lan Na instead.[12] After Lan Na was acquired in April 1558, the king left Binnya Dala and Binnya Set at Chiang Mai.[13] But their thousand-man garrison was unable to prevent the occupation of eastern Lan Na provinces by King Setthathirath of Lan Xang, a former monarch of Lan Na trying to reclaim his throne at Chiang Mai. They had to wait for reinforcements to arrive in November 1558 before driving out Lan Xang forces later in the year.[14]
Chief Minister-General (1559–1573)
Military campaigns (1560–1565)
Pleased with Binnya Dala's intellect, versatility and battle-field performance, the king recalled him from Chiang Mai, and made him his primary adviser, general, and administrator in 1559. The general's first assignment as commander-in-chief was to lead the invasion of Manipur. Binnya Law and Binnya Set were appointed as his deputies. The trio left Pegu on 2 December 1559 to take command of the invasion force (10,000 troops, 500 horses, 30 elephants, 50 ships), chiefly drawn from Upper Burma and Shan states.[15] The Burmese forces entered the Manipuri capital with little resistance, and received the allegiance of the raja there. The generals arrived back at Pegu on 27 May 1560.[15]
After Manipur, Bayinnaung put Binnya Dala in charge of the intelligence operations to keep track of Siam's defensive preparations. In 1562, Binnya Dala recommended that trans-Salween Shan states be reduced to secure the rear before starting the Siam campaign. He drew up the invasion plans, and participated in the four-pronged invasion which acquired the states in March/April 1563.[16]
He immediately returned to the capital to continue the war preparations. In July 1563, he wrote Bayinnaung's ultimatum to King
Binnya Dala was also instrumental in acquiring Lan Xang but the success there proved illusory. In January 1565, Crown Prince Nanda's army group easily took Vientiane, the capital of Lan Xang.[21] But King Setthathirath escaped. Nanda and Binnya Dala chased the Lan Xang king all the way to what is now Vietnam but failed to find the renegade king.[22][23] (The Lan Xang king remained active in the countryside, and would retake Vientiane three years later.[20])
Reconstruction of Pegu
In August 1565, Binnya Dala returned to a still charred
Reconquest of Ayutthaya (1568–1569) and Lan Xang (1569–1570)
Binnya Dala was again called to duty when both Lan Xang and Siam revolted in 1568. While his official role again was Nanda's deputy,[27] he was the one the king depended on for advice. When the Toungoo command learned that a Lan Xang army was on its way to break their siege of Ayutthaya, Binnya Dala devised a plan to lure the Lan Xang army to an area suitable for numerically superior Burmese forces. The king left him in charge of the siege and left with half of the army to meet the Lan Xang army.[28] On 8 May 1569, Bayinnaung decisively defeated Setthathirath northeast of the city, after which Lan Xang ceased to be of concern to the siege operations.[29]
Two months after Ayutthaya's fall, the king himself led a two-pronged invasion of Lan Xang in October 1569. Setthathirath again retreated to the jungle to conduct his tried-and-true guerrilla warfare. The Burmese armies spent months combing the Lan Xang countryside. Setthathirath was nowhere to be found but many Burmese troops were dying of starvation and from long marches. The task of telling the king to call off the search fell to Binnya Dala, as Nanda and the king's own brothers were unwilling to tell the king. Upon Binnya Dala's advice, Bayinnaung grudgingly agreed to call off the search in April 1570.[1][30] Very few men of the original armies survived to reach their own country.[1]
Last campaign in Lan Xang (1572–1573)
The calm did not last. In early 1572, Setthathirath overran the Burmese garrison at Vientiane but the Lan Xang king was killed shortly after. A senior minister and general named Sen Soulintha seized the throne.[31] Much to the surprise of the Toungoo court, Soulintha refused to submit. At Pegu, Binnya Dala advised the king that Soulintha, a non-royal usurper was unlikely to be accepted as king by the Lan Xang court, and that a small expedition should remove the pretender.[31] The king and the court agreed with the assessment. Bayinnaung appointed Binnya Dala to lead the expedition.[32]
In late 1572, Binnya Dala, now styled as Agga Maha Thenapati (
Death
It would be the last time the king would see Binnya Dala, one of the few principal officers with whom the king had "entered into thwethauk blood-bond, a sacramental brotherhood of some round table as it were".[2] Binnya Dala had written in an earlier memoir that "All [of us], his chosen men, in fact, whether Shans, Mons or Burmans... declared ourselves willing to lay down our lives [for him]."[35]
Binnya Dala fell ill soon after he arrived at the malarial infested remote outpost. Concerned, King
Scholar
Notwithstanding his complex duties of his high office, Binnya Dala also wrote many literary works, the most well known and significant of which is the chronicle
Binnya Dala's writing has been praised as a model of good Burmese prose of the early Toungoo period, and the text was prescribed for Burmese literature students at one time.[note 5]
Commemorations
- Binnya Dala Road: A road in Tamwe Township, Yangon
- Binnya Dala Hall: One of the main campus buildings in the University of Mawlamyine.
List of military campaigns
Campaign | Duration | Troops commanded | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Ava | 1554–1555 | 1 regiment | Not listed as a commander at the outset of the invasion. But after Ava fell, he appeared as one of the commanders who followed up on the forces of the saopha of Thibaw up to Singu in early 1555. He was under the command of Thado Dhamma Yaza II of Prome. Other commanders to Singu were Binnya Law, Binnya Ran, Binnya Kyanhtaw.[8]
|
Shan states | 1557 | 1 regiment | Principal architect of strategy to acquire the cis-Salween Shan states.[9] |
Mone | 1557 | 1 regiment | Led a regiment in the Mone campaign (under the command of Nanda).[10] |
Lan Na | 1558–1559 | 1 regiment | Co-commanded the garrison at Chiang Mai, along with Binnya Set, after Lan Na's surrender in April 1558.[13] |
Manipur | 1559–1560 | 10,000 | Commander-in-chief of the campaign. His deputies were Binnya Law and Binnya Set. The three left Pegu on 2 December 1559 to take command of the invasion force (10,000 troops, 500 horses, 30 elephants, 50 ships), chiefly drawn from Upper Burma and Shan states. Entered the Manipuri capital with little resistance. Arrived back to Pegu on 27 May 1560.[15] |
Trans-Salween Chinese Shan states | 1563 | 1 regiment | Principal architect of the strategy to acquire trans-Salween Shan States and designer of the invasion plan. Led a regiment under the command of Nanda.[38] At the outset of the campaign, he advised the four royals leading the four-pronged invasion: Nanda, Thado Minsaw, Thado Dhamma Yaza II, Minkhaung II.[39] |
Siam | 1563–1564 | 1 regiment | Led the intelligence effort to discover the defensive preparations being made in Siam. Principal architect of the invasion plan. Served in Nanda's army that took Sukhothai.[18] |
Lan Na | 1564 | 1 regiment | Led a regiment in Nanda's army. Saw no action.[40] |
Lan Xang | 1565 | 1 regiment | Left Chiang Mai with Nanda, Thado Minsaw and Minye Kyawhtin to Vientiane in December 1564.[21] Took Vientiane after a one-day battle. Followed up on Lan Xang forces to Lao countryside but could not find them.[23] |
Siam | 1568–1569 | 1 regiment | Served under Nanda's command.[27] Led the siege of Ayutthaya in April–May 1569.[28][29] |
Lan Xang | 1569–1570 | 1 regiment | Combed the Laotian countryside in search of Setthathirath but failed to find the Lan Xang king.[30] |
Lan Xang | 1572–1573 | 6,000 | Commander-in-chief of the campaign. Stopped at the fort leading to the capital Vientiane.[5] |
Notes
- ^ (MSK Vol. 7 1963: 333–334): ဝန်ကြီး ဗိုလ်မှူး Wungyi Bohmu = Minister-General
- ^ 880 ME = 30 March 1518 to 29 March 1519
- ^ He was preceded and followed by others with the same title Binnya Dala. Per (Hmannan Vol. 2 2003: 188–192), a Hanthawaddy general named Binnya Dala opposed Gen. Kyawhtin Nawrahta at the Battle of Naungyo in 1538. After the minister-general's fall from office in 1573, another minister succeeded him with the same title Binnya Dala in 1576 as seen in (Hmmanan Vol. 3 2003: 35).
- ^ Chronicles ((Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 198) and (Hmannan Vol. 2 2003: 259)) mention a Binnya Dala leading a vanguard battalion in 1550. It may have been the same Binnya Dala. In any case, he was not yet a senior commander since the name does not appear in any of the commander lists of the campaigns between 1550 and 1554. Chronicles (Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 222) list Binnya Dala as a commander in 1555. The Burmese encyclopedia Myanma Swezon Kyan (MSK 1963: 333) accepts 1555 as the first known date of the Binnya Dala.
- ^ Assessment attributed to Zawgyi in (Thaw Kaung 2010: 26, 39).
References
- ^ a b c Phayre 1967: 114–115
- ^ a b Harvey 1925: 178
- ^ a b c d Aung-Thwin 2005: 133–134
- ^ a b c Aung-Thwin and Aung-Thwin 2012: 137
- ^ a b c d Maha Yazawin Vol. 3 2006: 34–35
- ^ Thaw Kaung 2010: 25
- ^ MSK 1963: 333
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 222
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 229–230, 236
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 240
- ^ Harvey 1925: 165
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 243–244
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 248–249
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 250–251
- ^ a b c Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 257–258
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 260–262
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2: 266
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 268–269
- ^ Hmannan Vol. 2 2003: 355
- ^ a b Harvey 1925: 167–168
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 278–279
- ^ Thaw Kaung 2010: 138–139
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 285–287, 292
- ^ Harvey 1925: 171
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 2006: 295–296
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 298–299
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 308
- ^ a b Phayre 1967: 114
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 319
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 328–331
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 3 2006: 32
- ^ a b Maha Yazawin Vol. 3 2006: 33–34
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 3 2006: 34
- ^ Phayre 1967: 116
- ^ Lieberman 2003: 154
- ^ Harvey 1925: xviii
- ^ Pan Hla 2004: 6–7
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 260–261
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2006: 262
- ^ Maha Yazawin Vol. 2 2010: 276
Bibliography
- Aung-Thwin, Michael A. (2005). The Mists of Rāmañña: The Legend that was Lower Burma (illustrated ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2886-8.
- Aung-Thwin, Michael A.; Maitrii Aung-Thwin (2012). A History of Myanmar Since Ancient Times (illustrated ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-1-86189-901-9.
- Harvey, G. E. (1925). History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
- Htin Aung, Maung (1967). A History of Burma. New York and London: Cambridge University Press.
- Lieberman, Victor B. (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7.
- Pan Hla, Nai (1968). Razadarit Ayedawbon (in Burmese) (8th printing, 2004 ed.). Yangon: Armanthit Sarpay.
- Phayre, Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur P. (1883). History of Burma (1967 ed.). London: Susil Gupta.
- Royal Historical Commission of Burma (1832). Hmannan Yazawin (in Burmese). Vol. 1–3 (2003 ed.). Yangon: Ministry of Information, Myanmar.
- Thaw Kaung, U (2010). Aspects of Myanmar History and Culture. Yangon: Gangaw Myaing.