doned it to the
fury of his soldiers. In the following year the Peguans vainly endeavoured
to throw off the yoke. Alompra afterwards reduced the town and district of
Tavoy, and finally undertook the conquest of the Siamese. His army advanced
to Mergui and Tenasserim, both of which towns were taken; and he was
besieging the capital of Siam when he was taken ill. He immediately ordered
his army to retreat, in hopes of reaching his capital alive; but he expired
on the way, in 1760, in the fiftieth year of his age, after he had reigned
eight years. In the previous year he had massacred the English of the
establishment of Negrais, whom he suspected of assisting the Peguans. He
was succeeded by his eldest son Noungdaugyi, whose reign was disturbed by
the rebellion of his brother Sin-byu-shin, and afterwards by one of his
father's generals. He died in little more than three years, leaving one son
in his infancy; and on his decease the throne was seized by his brother
Sin-byu-shin. The new king was intent, like his predecessors, on the
conquest of the adjacent states, and accordingly made war in 1765 on the
Manipur kingdom, and also on the Siamese, with partial success. In the
following year he defeated the Siamese, and, after a long blockade,
obtained possession of their capital. But while the Burmans were extending
their conquests in this quarter, they were invaded by a Chinese army of
50,000 men from the province of Yunnan. This army was hemmed in by the
skill of the Burmans; and, being reduced by the want of provisions, it was
afterwards attacked and totally destroyed, with the exception of 2500 men,
who were sent in fetters to work in the Burmese capital at their several
trades. In the meantime the Siamese revolted, and while the Burman army was
marching against them, the Peguan soldiers who had been incorporated in it
rose against their companions, and commencing an indiscriminate massacre,
pursued the Burman army to the gates of Rangoon, which they besieged, but
were unable to capture. In 1774 Sin-byu-shin was engaged in reducing the
marauding tribes. He took the district and fort of Martaban from the
revolted Peguans; and in the following year he sailed down the Irrawaddy
with an army of 50,000 men, and, arriving at Rangoon, put to death the aged
monarch of Pegu, along with many of his nobles, who had shared with him in
the offence of rebellion. He died in 1776, after a reign of twelve years,
during which he had extended t