Toungoo Empire

The Toungoo Empire was a Burmese dynasty that twice unified the Irrawaddy basin and, at its height, assembled the largest empire in the history of mainland Southeast Asia.

It was founded in 1510 by Mingyi Nyo, who established an independent kingdom at Taungoo, a frontier town that had taken in refugees amid the fragmentation of the earlier Ava kingdom. The dynasty's transformation into an empire came under Mingyi Nyo's son Tabinshwehti and his brilliant successor and brother-in-law Bayinnaung. Tabinshwehti conquered the wealthy Mon kingdom of Hanthawaddy (Pegu) in the south, uniting Lower and Upper Burma, while Bayinnaung, reigning in the mid-sixteenth century, launched an extraordinary series of campaigns that brought under his suzerainty an enormous swath of territory, including the Shan states, Lan Na, the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang, and the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya, creating a sprawling but loosely held empire. Bayinnaung's conquests, sustained by gunpowder weaponry and large armies, made him one of the most powerful monarchs in Asia of his time. This first Toungoo empire, however, proved overextended and unstable. After Bayinnaung's death the empire rapidly disintegrated under the strain of constant warfare, rebellions, and the difficulty of governing such vast and diverse territories, and the original capital fell. The dynasty was revived in a more consolidated form, the Restored Toungoo or Nyaungyan period, by rulers based in Upper Burma who rebuilt a more compact and durable state focused on the Burmese heartland and instituted administrative reforms that brought a long period of relative stability. Over time, however, this restored dynasty also weakened, losing control of frontier regions and facing internal decline. The end came in 1752, when forces of a resurgent Mon kingdom of Hanthawaddy captured the Toungoo capital of Ava (Inwa), toppling the dynasty, which was soon succeeded by the Konbaung dynasty, the last royal house of Burma.

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