Maha Thiha Thura

Regarded as a brilliant military strategist, the general is best known in Burmese history for defeating the Chinese invasions of Burma (1765–1769).

However, the old general, who had so often led his countrymen to victory, and had won the greatest of their wars, was found plotting against the king, and was executed for treason.

[2] The future general was born Maung Tha (မောင်သာ [màʊɴ θà]) in the present-day Shwebo District in the Mu valley (about 100 miles northwest of Ava) during the waning years of the Toungoo Dynasty.

The Manipuris had regularly raided increasingly deeper parts of Upper Burma between the Chindwin and Irrawaddy rivers since the mid-1720s.

A few weeks before the fall of Ava, Tha like many young men in his home region responded to the call by Aung Zeya, the chief of Moksobo, to resist the invading armies.

Tha quickly proved his ability in Alaungpaya's initial battles against the invading Hanthawaddy forces as well as a rival resistance army from Khin-U.

[3][5] He served with distinction throughout Alaungpaya's reunification campaigns, which by 1758 had reunited all of Burma, conquered Manipur, and driven out the French from Thanlyin and the British from Negrais.

After a dozen years of distinguished service, Maha Thiha Thura was one of the top commanders of Konbaung military, just a rung below the Sitke (commanders-in-chief) like Minhla Minkhaung Kyaw, Minkhaung Nawrahta, Ne Myo Thihapate, or Maha Nawrahta.

King Hsinbyushin ordered Maha Thiha Thura's army to cross the northern Shan states to meet the invasion force at the Bhamo-Kaungton corridor.

Maha Thiha Thura's army urgently marched across the northern Shan states, and arrived at the Bhamo area in early 1767.

[7] Maha Thiha Thura along with other Burmese generals arrived back to Ava in early May 1767 and were received with honors.

Maha Thiha Thura's smaller army was assigned to attack Hsenwi, which the Qing had seized and now set up as a supply depot.

Therefore, although Ming Rui's main army steamrolled through Burmese defenses all the way to Singu, just thirty miles north of Ava, its capability to proceed was seriously degraded by the lack of supplies.

It also could not communicate with the northern invasion force, which could not overcome the Kaungton fort and eventually retreated back to Yunnan.

Bolstered by the reinforcements, two Burmese armies led by Maha Thiha Thura and Ne Myo Sithu finally succeeded in retaking Hsenwi.

(By then, the Bannerman army was no longer in top form, having already lost thousands to tropical diseases and many more suffering from starvation.)

The Burmese commanders were averse to granting terms, saying that the Chinese were surrounded like cattle in a pen, they were starving, and in a few days, they could be wiped out to a man.

Maha Thiha Thura, who led the annihilation of Ming Rui's army, realized that another wipe-out would merely stiffen the resolve of the Chinese government.

In 1774, a rebellion flared up in Lan Na mainly due to the repressive rule of the Burmese governor there, Thado Mindin.

Hsinbyushin, who had been in a long illness that would eventually take his life, now ordered Maha Thiha Thura to lead a fresh invasion of Siam.

Field commanders increasingly acted like warlords and behaved with arrogance towards the people, and began to ignore even the king's orders.

He somehow fought his way through tough Siamese defenses led by king Taksin and his deputy Chakri, and managed to occupy Phitsanulok and Sukhothai provinces in northern Siam (present-day central Thailand).

Although he eventually won that particular battle, Maha Thiha Thura sent a message to Chakri to come and receive his congratulations in an hour of truce.

Maha Thiha Thura offered his congratulations, remarking: By June, at the start of the rainy season, the war was in a stalemate, and prospects of another conquest of Siam looked bleak.

The Burmese still retained Chiang Saen, a region in northern Lan Na but they would lose that in Bodawpaya's disastrous invasion of Siam (1785–1786).

Maha Thiha Thura rushed back in support of his son-in-law because Singu's right to succession was in direct conflict with Alaungpaya's edict that all of his sons become king in the order of seniority.

Despite the fact that four of his brothers were still alive, Hsinbyushin had ignored his father's will, and made his eldest son Singu the heir apparent.

[12] In a turn of events, Singu had a major fallout with Maha Thiha Thura, the man who made him king.

The shock to the king's faith was such that never again to the end of his life, did he put his trust in mortal man, not even his nearest kin; from that time onward, he changed his room and his bed daily.

His strategy to encircle the much larger Chinese army at the Battle of Maymyo has been called a "master stroke" by military historians.