[5][6] The war began in April 1752 as independent resistance movements against Hanthawaddy armies which had just toppled the Toungoo Dynasty.

Alaungpaya, who founded the Konbaung Dynasty, quickly emerged as the main resistance leader, and by taking advantage of Hanthawaddy's low troop levels, went on to conquer all of Upper Burma by the end of 1753.

The "palace kings" at Ava had been unable to defend against the Manipuri raids, which began in 1724 and had been ransacking increasingly deeper parts of Upper Burma.

Ava failed to recover southern Lan Na (Chiang Mai) that revolted in 1727, and did nothing to prevent the annexation of northern Shan states by Qing China in the mid-1730s.

Aung Zeya proclaimed himself king with the royal style of Alaungpaya (the Future Buddha), and founded the Konbaung Dynasty.

Konbaung was only one among many other resistance forces, at Salin along the middle Irrawaddy and Mogaung in the far north, which had independently sprung up across panicked Upper Burma.

The Siamese takeover of Upper Tenasserim was an opportunistic land grab taking advantage of Hanthawaddy's preoccupations with Ava.

The Hanthawaddy officer stationed at Singu, about 30 miles north of Ava, sent a detachment of 50 men to secure allegiance of the Mu valley.

The Hanthawaddy forces withdrew in disarray, leaving their equipment, including several scores of muskets, which were "worth their weight in gold in these critical days".

Soon, Alaungpaya was mustering a proper army from across the Mu valley and beyond, using his family connections and appointing his fellow gentry leaders as his key lieutenants.

[13] Despite repeated setbacks, Pegu incredibly still did not send in reinforcements even as Alaungpaya consolidated his gains throughout Upper Burma.

In May, Alaungpaya personally led his armies (10,000 men, 1000 cavalry, 100 elephants) in the Konbaung counterattack, and pushed back the invaders to Sagaing, on the west bank of the Irrawaddy, opposite Ava.

Instead of persuading their Burman troops to stay, when they needed every last soldier, the Hanthawaddy leadership escalated "self-defeating" policies of ethnic polarization.

They began requiring all Burmans in the south to wear an earring with a stamp of the Pegu heir-apparent and to cut their hair in Mon fashion as a sign of loyalty.

While the Hanthawaddy leadership alienated their Burman constituency in the south, Alaungpaya gathered troops from all over Upper Burma, including Shan, Kachin and Chin levies.

Then in mid-February, the Konbaung troops forced their way in behind rolling baskets amid heavy slaughter by musket fire, and captured the Mayanbin fort, relieving the siege.

Moving down the river, the advance guard defeated the Hanthawaddy resistance at Hinthada, and captured Danubyu by mid-April, right before the Burmese new year festivities.

On 14 July 1756 (3rd waning of Waso 1118 ME),[22] Minhla Minkhaung Kyaw, the chief of musket corps and top Konbaung general, was severely wounded by cannon fire.

[23][24] The leader of the French, Sieur de Bruno, secretly tried to negotiate with Alaungpaya, but was found out and put in prison by Hanthawaddy commanders.

He knew that the French and the Mons, expecting no quarter, would resist fiercely and that hundreds of his men would die in any attempt to breach the walls.

[21] That evening, on 25 July 1756, as the Konbaung troops banged their drums and played loud music to encourage Syriam's defenders into thinking festivities were underway and to relax their watch, the Golden Company scaled the walls.

At the dawn of 26 July 1756, after bloody hand-to-hand fighting they managed to pry open the great wooden gates, and in darkness, amid the war cries of the Konbaung troops ("Shwebotha!"

Alaungpaya presented the stacks of gold and silver captured from the city to the surviving 20 men of the Golden Company and the families of the 73 who died.

The advance was slow with great losses as the Hanthawaddy defenses still had cannon and they were literally fighting with their backs to the wall.

Alaungpaya entered through the Mohnyin Gate, surrounded by a crowd of his guardsmen and French gunners, and prostrated himself before the Shwemawdaw Pagoda.

After the fall of Pegu, the governors of Martaban (Mottama), and Tavoy (Dawei) who had sought Siamese protection, now backtracked and sent in tribute to Alaungpaya.

Its effective control still did not extend beyond Martaban as the majority of the Konbaung armies were back north in Manipur and in the northern Shan states.

The window of opportunity came to a close in the second half of 1759 when the Konbaung armies, having conquered Manipur and the northern Shan states, were back down south, preparing for their invasion of the Tenasserim coast and Siam.

The resistance was driven out of Tenasserim in 1765 when Alaungpaya's son Hsinbyushin seized the lower coastline as part of the Burmese-Siamese War (1765–1767).

Chronicles by the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Mon monks portrayed the south's recent history as a tale of unrelenting northern encroachment.