Konbaung dynasty

The Konbaung dynasty, the Third Burmese Empire, was the last royal house of Burma, ruling from 1752 to 1885 and raising the second-greatest empire of Burmese history. Alaungpaya the village chief rose against Hanthawaddy in 1752, reunited the Irrawaddy basin by 1759, and drove out the European gun-runners; his son Hsinbyushin ground Ayutthaya down in 1767 after seven years of siege warfare. Konbaung kings marched into Manipur and Assam, seized Arakan and the Mon south, and fought the Qing to a standstill, fixing nearly the borders of today's Myanmar. The moving court rotated Shwebo, Ava, Amarapura and finally Mandalay for reasons of omen and strategy while clerks continued Toungoo reforms. The price of empire was the Company: three Anglo-Burmese wars from 1824 stripped Arakan, Tenasserim, Pegu and at last, in November 1885, King Thibaw himself, closing a thousand years of Burmese kingship and opening sixty years of direct colonial rule.