A teenage king built Burma's biggest realm in centuries
Tabinshwehti inherited a tiny landlocked principality at 14. By his early thirties he had forged the largest Burmese kingdom since Pagan fell in 1287, hiring Portuguese gunmen and courting the Mon people he had conquered. Then, on his 34th birthday, one of his own advisers had him assassinated, and the kingdom promptly fell apart.
He was born at Toungoo Palace on 16 April 1516 to King Mingyi Nyo, then 56 and desperate for a son, and a teenage commoner named Khin Oo, daughter of a village chief, whom the king promptly raised to queen. The baby's name means Unitary Golden Umbrella, the umbrella being the emblem of Burmese kings. A prophecy held that he was the reincarnation of a prince executed by a king of Hanthawaddy, destined to become that kingdom's nemesis, and local legend claims the swords in the armoury glowed on the night of his birth.
His father, who had broken away from the crumbling kingdom of Ava in 1510, had him trained in martial arts, horse and elephant riding and strategy, alongside a playmate named Ye Htut, three months older and the son of his wet nurse. Ye Htut became his right-hand man and later his successor, Bayinnaung. The boy first saw war in 1525 when Ava besieged Toungoo without success, and after Ava fell to Shan forces in 1527, refugees swelled the little state's manpower. Crowned when his father died in 1530, he rewarded his childhood companions with titles and married two of their daughters.
From 1534 he and Bayinnaung attacked the richer but divided Hanthawaddy kingdom in Lower Burma, conquering it by 1541. Its wealth, soldiers and access to Portuguese mercenaries and firearms carried him north to the old capital of Pagan in 1544, though campaigns against Arakan and Siam in the late 1540s failed. He moved his capital to Pegu and appointed Mons to top posts; both his chief queen and his chief monk were Mon.
He was killed on 30 April 1550 on the orders of Smim Sawhtut, a close adviser, and Bayinnaung needed two years to rebuild the shattered realm before going on to reunify the whole country. Historians call the early death a great turning point for mainland Southeast Asia, and Tabinshwehti is still venerated as one of Myanmar's 37 nat spirits.
Source: Tabinshwehti
