Mohnyin Thado

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Mohnyin Thado (Burmese: မိုးညှင်း သတိုး, pronounced [móɲ̥ɪ́ɴ ðədó]; 1379–1439) was king of Ava from 1426 to 1439. He is also known in Burmese history as Mohnyin Min Taya (မိုးညှင်း မင်းတရား, [móɲ̥ɪ́ɴ mɪ́ɴ təjá], "Righteous Lord of Mohnyin") after his longtime tenure as the sawbwa of Mohnyin, a Shan-speaking frontier state (in present-day Kachin State, Myanmar). He founded the royal house (or dynasty) of Mohnyin (မိုးညှင်း ဆက်) that would rule the kingdom until 1527.

Born into minor nobility, Thado began his career as a royal army commander in 1401 during the Forty Years' War against Hanthawaddy Pegu. After making his name under the command of Crown Prince Minye Kyawswa, including the 1406 conquest of Arakan, Thado was appointed sawbwa of Mohnyin in 1410 by King Minkhaung I.^[3][4] After surviving the Chinese incursions of 1412–1415, the sawbwa's influence in the northern Shan states grew over the next decade. He remained loyal to Minkhaung's successor King Thihathu, serving as a co-commander-in-chief alongside Prince Min Nyo of Kale in the successful final campaign of the Forty Years' War in 1422–1423.^[5] When Nyo seized the Ava throne with the help of Queen Shin Bo-Me in 1425, Thado was the only vassal to openly challenge the usurping couple; he drove them out of Ava (Inwa) in 1426.^[6][7]

However, Thado himself was viewed as a usurper by many vassals, and could not find any support outside the Irrawaddy valley. He faced a pesky rebellion by Prince Minye Kyawhtin of the previous dynasty from the outset, and by 1427, multiple rebellions had sprung up in the peripheral regions, including his home base, Mohnyin. By 1429, he had largely given up on the reunification project, and began spending much of the royal treasury on a series of constructions of religious buildings.^[8] He was unprepared when his internal and external rivals took advantage of his inward-looking policy. He lost the irrigated Yamethin region to the rebel state of Toungoo (Taungoo) in 1429–1430; was forced to cede Tharrawaddy and Paungde to King Binnya Ran I of Hanthawaddy in 1431 after a brief war; and did nothing when Ran seized control of Toungoo in 1436. He grew increasingly eccentric in his last years, and despite the advice of his court, reset the Burmese calendar to year 2 in 1438.^[8][9]

Although he never had any control over the peripheral regions, he did leave his successors with the most productive regions of the kingdom. His immediate successors—Minye Kyawswa I and Narapati I—would use the resources of the core regions to successfully reunify the kingdom in the following decade. His line would lead Ava to its "apogee" in the second half of the 15th century.^[10]