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Mongol Invasions Topple the Pagan Empire of Burma

1277-1287 CE (Pagan collapse, 1287)·Military & conflict·Burma (modern Myanmar), mainland Southeast Asia·
1277-1287 CE (Pagan collapse, 1287)Date
Military & conflictCategory
23Empires active
Date
1277-1287 CE (Pagan collapse, 1287)
Category
Military & conflict
Region
Burma (modern Myanmar), mainland Southeast Asia
Era
Post-Classical / Medieval
Significance

Between 1277 and 1287, the Yuan dynasty of Kublai Khan launched a series of campaigns against the Pagan Empire after its king, Narathihapate, refused demands for tribute and submission.

Mongol forces decisively defeated the Burmese, who relied on war elephants, at the Battle of Ngasaunggyan in 1277, then drove down the Irrawaddy valley through Bhamo (1283) and the ancient capital of Tagaung (1284), forcing Narathihapate to flee Lower Burma. After a brief truce acknowledging Mongol suzerainty, the king was captured and assassinated by his own son in July 1287, and the empire's vassal states broke away into open revolt. The roughly 250-year-old Pagan Empire, the first unified Burmese state, thereby disintegrated, with the Mongols declining to fill the power vacuum they had created. The collapse ushered in some 250 years of political fragmentation in Burma and the rise of competing Tai-Shan states across mainland Southeast Asia, culminating in the founding of the Myinsaing Kingdom in 1297.

See the world map in 1277-1287 CE (Pagan collapse, 1287) →More military & conflictThe Post-Classical / Medieval era

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Empires active in 1277-1287 CE (Pagan collapse, 1287)

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