Minye Kyawswa I of Ava

[3] The future king was the eldest child of a minor noble family of Shin Myat Hla and Thado (from present-day Mandalay Region, Myanmar).

[note 3] Unlike his brother, who spent time at the capital Ava (Inwa) as a page of King Thihathu from 1421 to 1425,[4] chronicles have no record of Minye Kyawswa spending his early years outside of Mohnyin.

He apparently remained alongside his father to his early teens when he was appointed sawbwa of Moshwe, a small district of Mohnyin.

Though they were to wait for their father, whose army was still ten marches away, the brothers decided to launch a surprise attack from the port-side of the fort.

[5][6] Despite the success, their father, a former co-commander-in-chief of the Ava military, would not put his eager but inexperienced sons in the vanguard again for the rest of the campaign.

The royal chronicles portray the crown prince as far more distrustful of the vassal rulers, and more eager to use force against the rebel states.

But he failed to significantly alter the policies of Thado, who never made a sustained effort to establish his authority outside the core zone.

[12] Even when Thado finally authorized Minye Kyawswa to lead an expedition to Pinle in late 1428, he gave his son just a small force (1500 troops, 300 cavalry, and 20 elephants).

The crown prince dutifully went on to laid siege to the fortified town but the outcome was never in doubt; he had to withdraw after three months, in early 1429.

By then, his father had essentially abandoned the reunification project; turned to religion; and began devoting much of the kingdom's resources on building Buddhist stupas and monasteries.

According to a preliminary calculation by Michael Aung-Thwin, the 27 projects may have cost the royal treasury, 1.62 million kyats (ticals) of silver, "not including the usual endowments of people and land for their subsequent upkeep.

"[17]) In 1431, Thado formally ceded the southernmost districts of Tharrawaddy and Paungde to King Binnya Ran I of Hanthawaddy Pegu without putting up a fight.

[18] In late 1433, Minye Kyawswa managed to get his father's permission to lead an expedition to Pinle and other southeastern states in revolt.

Even when Pegu openly seized Toungoo in 1436,[21] his response was not to launch a punitive campaign but to order a recalibration of the Burmese calendar, over the objection of the court.

Even with their support, the realm he inherited was a rump polity that extended only along the narrow north-south axis of the Irrawaddy river between Myedu in the north to Prome in the south.

At any rate, Minye Kyawswa shifted much of the resources of his narrow realm, which nonetheless did include the most productive granaries of the kingdom, Mu valley, Minbu and a large portion of Kyaukse, away from his father's expensive pagoda building projects,[note 7] and ordered the court to prepare for war in the upcoming dry season.

Minye Kyawswa replaced the sawbwas with his brothers-in-law Thihapate (at Mohnyin) and Thiri Zeya Thura (at Kale/Kalay) to hold his new forward bases.

But with the northern front was still in a stalemate, he could allocate only a smaller army (7000 men, 400 cavalry, 20 elephants) to the operation, which was led by his uncle Nawrahta I of Myedu.

[33] Although his younger brother Viceroy Thihathu of Prome was next in line of succession, the court initially preferred his brother-in-law Thihapate of Mohnyin.

[34]) The ministers rushed a messenger on horseback to the outskirts of Mogaung, 500 km north of Ava, where Thihapate was besieging the town, to invite him to be king.

In a marked change from his father's policy, Minye Kyawswa used Ava's still considerable resources to expand his authority outside the core narrow zone he inherited.

His goals of reestablishing a "miniature Pagan" were reflected in a 1440 inscription from his reign, which according to Aung-Thwin "used, perhaps for the first time, amyo-tha [အမျိုးသား] ("sons of the race, or countrymen") as a reference to the people in the Kingdom of Ava.

[33] At any rate, the distance between the brothers may have led to the court initially selecting Thihapate to be the next king after Minye Kyawswa's death.