Bayinnaung forges the largest empire in Southeast Asian history
- Date
- 1565
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Mainland Southeast Asia
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
By 1565 King Bayinnaung of the Toungoo dynasty had assembled the largest empire ever seen in mainland Southeast Asia, the culmination of a decade and a half of relentless military expansion from his base at Pegu (Bago).
Following his reunification of Burma and conquest of the Shan states, he subjugated Lan Na (Chiang Mai) in 1558, Manipur in 1560, and the powerful Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya in 1564, before his armies captured Vientiane and overran Lan Xang (Laos) by early 1565. At its zenith the empire exercised at least nominal suzerainty from Manipur in the northwest to Lan Xang in the east and from the Chinese Shan states in the north toward the central Malay Peninsula. Held together largely through personal allegiance to Bayinnaung as a chakravartin, or universal monarch, rather than durable institutions, the empire began to fragment soon after his death in 1581 and had collapsed by 1599. His reign nonetheless reshaped the region and his integration of the Shan states into lowland administration served as a model for later Burmese monarchs.
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Empires active in 1565
- Songhai Empire1464 CE – 1591 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Defenestration of Prague and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War23 May 1618
- Fall of Beijing and the Ming–Qing transition1644
- Battle of Talikota and the fall of Vijayanagara23 January 1565
- Battle of Lepanto7 October 1571
- Defeat of the Spanish Armada1588
- Battle of Tondibi and the fall of the Songhai Empire13 March 1591
Also relevant
Further reading
The wider story
A History of Laos
The accessible standard history of Laos and the Lan Xang kingdom.
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