124 Some account of the Wars between Burmah and China. [Feb. 



killed himself by poison. The king, however, sent his body to the 

 Chinese, who are said, after embowelling it and putting a spit through 

 it and roasting it dry, to have taken it with them to China. 



In the same king of Ava's reign, in the year 1449, the Chinese 

 made an unsuccessful attempt to take possession of Mo.-gaung and 

 Mo:-nhyin, which were at that time considered as portions of the 

 Burmese Empire, and the king is said to have made a very handsome 

 present in silver to the then Tso:-bwah of Mo.--gaung named Tho- 

 kyein-bua', and his younger brother Tho-pout-bua, for defeating 

 the Chinese invading army. 



In the year 1477, in the reign of Maha-Thi'-ha-thu'-ya, king of 

 Ava, a Talain champion who had lately received the title of Thamein- 

 paran, offered, if his master the king of Pegu would entrust him with 

 40,000 men and a favorite elephant, to march beyond Ava to Khan-ti 

 on the frontiers of China, and there set up an iron post as the boun- 

 dary of the Talain empire. The king of Pegu acquiesced, and Tha- 

 mein-paran succeeded in reaching Khan-ti and marking the boun- 

 dary ; but on his return towards Pegu, he was attacked near Ya-nit- 

 theng by a Burmese force, defeated and taken prisoner to Ava. The 

 emperor of China, as soon as he heard of Tha-mein-paran's pro- 

 ceeding, sent a force to remove the boundary mark, and the Chinese 

 general, after effecting this object, sent a mission to the king of 

 Ava, to demand gold and silver cooking vessels as before. The king 

 refused, but agreed, on a proposition again made by the Chinese, 

 that the right of China to those tributary tokens should be decided 

 by a single combat between two horsemen, one to be selected by 

 either nation. The king accordingly selected as his ch&mpion the 

 Talain prisoner, Tha-mein-paran, who defeated the Chinese cham- 

 pion, and the Chinese army again retreated to China. A strong 

 suspicion as to the veracity of the Burmese historian will be excited, 

 when it is known that not only this dispute also between China and 

 Ava was decided by single combat, but the name and description of 

 the Burmese champion were the same on this occasion as in that 

 before related, in the annals of the king Men:-gaung the first. 



In the year 1562, Tshen-byu'-mya-yen, (lord of many white ele-r 

 phants,) the great king of Pegu, after conquering Ava, Mg:-gaung, Zen- 

 may, Thein-ni, &c. sent a large army to the frontiers of China, and 

 took possession of the nine Shan towns (Kd-Shan-pyi or Kd-pyi-daung), 

 Maing-md*, Tsi guen, H6-thd, Ld-thd, M6-nd, Tsandd, Md:-wan, 



* The Shans, who use the Burmese character, write Maing, but pronounce 

 the combination Mting, which is their term for a town and province. The 

 Burmese, hence, derive the words which they apply to Shau towns, Main, 

 Maing, and Mo. 



