Minye Kyawhtin of Toungoo
[1][2] He and his three younger siblings—Min Hla Htut, Minye Aung Naing and Saw Min Phyu—grew up in the royal capital of Ava (Inwa).
The young prince witnessed his father's bones being exhumed, and dropped in a solemn ceremony at the river mouth near Twante.
The assassinations were engineered by Queen Shin Bo-Me and Prince Min Nyo of Kale (r. 1425–1426), who seized the throne in November 1425.
Instead of executing the royals with the strongest claim to the throne, the new king sent Tarabya to live in an estate near the Shwezigon Pagoda in Pagan (Bagan), and Kyawhtin to Thissein (modern Shwebo District).
The young prince promptly fled Thissein, and soon found a backer in Le Than Bwa, the sawbwa of Onbaung (modern Hsipaw/Thibaw), a major Shan-speaking vassal state in the northeast.
Thado had not diverted his troops to the Toungoo front, and a 15,000-strong Ava army promptly drove Kyawhtin back to Onbaung.
[note 2] More ominously for Thado, the rebel governors of Toungoo and Taungdwin made a pact with King Binnya Ran I of Hanthawaddy Pegu to take over Prome (Pyay).
[19][20] Kyawhtin decided to strike again in late 1427, but this time only after the main Ava forces had left for the southern front.
Backed by nine battalions from Onbaung, he found little initial resistance, and quickly advanced as far as Tabetswe, just 25 km southeast of Ava.
The force, led by Gen. Baya Gamani, eventually pushed Kyawhtin back to Pinle (modern Myittha Township), about 70 km southeast of Ava.
[23] Unable to break through, the Ava court sent a mission to Onbaung to persuade Le Than Bwa to withdraw the sawbwa's support of Kyawhtin.
(Thado also sent a similar mission to Yat Sauk Naung Mun (modern Lawksawk Township), a backer of the Taungdwin and Yemethin rebellions.)
[24] Ava turned its attention to the rebel states only in 1433, sending an army (5000 troops, 300 cavalry, 12 elephants) to Pinle, Yamethin and Taungdwin.
Frustrated by the failures, the king, a former general, became increasingly withdrawn, and turned to building/renovating pagodas and resetting the Burmese calendar's epochal year to 1436.
After a successful campaign in 1439–1440 that recaptured Kale (Kalay) and Mohnyin, Ava forces (7000 troops, 400 cavalry, 20 elephants) attacked the southern rebel regions in 1440–1441.
[30] The reinvigorated Ava forces captured Taungdwin and Toungoo in succession; Pinle and Yamethin survived only because they were not the main targets of the campaign.
[34][35] (According to Chinese records, the expedition was to demand the return of Si Renfa (Tho Ngan Bwa), the rebel chief of Mong Mao, who had taken refuge in Ava.
More importantly, the Chinese invasion forced Onbaung,[note 4] the long-time backer of Kyawhtin, to side with Ava in 1444.
After Ava and Ming governments reached a truce in late 1445,[note 5] Narapati ordered an all out attack on Kyawhtin.
[39][41] Out of a village, apparently in or close to modern Taungoo District, Kyawhtin plotted to take over the region, which was ruled by his second cousin Gov.
According to the Toungoo Yazawin, seven years into his rule, he sexually assaulted a young woman, who happened to be a younger sister of Kyawhtin's bodyguard Nga Tan-Si, a grandson of Gov.
[45] The main chronicles simply say that Kyawhtin was assassinated by Nga Tan-Si, grandson of Thinkhaya III of Toungoo.
Thilawa of Yamethin,[note 7] and the couple had a daughter, who was married to Mingyi Swa of Prome, and a son named Minye Teittha, who died in Ava.
