National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

~

r

CHAP. LIV. CHINESE NOTICES OF BURMESE AFFAIRS

I13

f

•

of the Bhamó River, and after a protracted resistance on that river, they were obliged to retire. They took up a new point of defence on the Hill of Malé, which they had fortified. Here a decisive battle was fought, and the Burmese were entirely routed. The King, on hearing of their retreat from Bhamó, at first took measures for fortifying his capital Pagán, and destroyed 600o temples of various sizes to furnish material. But after all he lost heart, and embarking with his treasure and establishments on the Irawadi, fled down that river to Bassein in the Delta. The Chinese continued the pursuit long past Pagán till they reached the place now called Taroknzau or " Chinese Point," 30 miles below Prome. Here they were forced by want of provisions to return. The Burmese Annals place the abandonment of Pagán by the King in 1284, a most satisfactory synchronism with the Chinese record. It is a notable point in Burmese history, for it marked the fall of an ancient Dynasty which was speedily followed by its extinction, and the abandonment of the capital. The King is known in the Burmese Annals as Tarok pycf-MenJ, "The King who fled from the Tarok."

In Dr. Mason's abstract of the Pegu Chronicle we find the notable statement with reference to this period that " the Emperor of China, having subjugated Pagán, his troops with the Burmese entered Pegu and invested several cities."

We see that the Chinese Annals, as quoted, mention only the " capitale primitive" Taikung, which I have little doubt Pauthier is right in identifying with Tagaung, traditionally the most ancient royal city of Burma, and the remains of which stand side by side with those of Old Pagán, a later but still very ancient capital, on the east bank of the Irawadi, in about lat. 23° 28'. The Chinese extracts give no idea of the temporary completeness of the conquest, nor do they mention Great Pagán (lat. 21° 13'), a city whose vast remains I have endeavoured partially to describe. f Sir Arthur Phayre, from a careful perusal of the Burmese Chronicle, assures me that there can be no doubt that this was at the time in question the Burmese Royal Residence, and the city alluded to in the Burmese narrative. M. Pauthier is mistaken in supposing that Tarok-Mau, the turning-point of the Chinese Invasion, lay north of this city : he has not unnaturally confounded it with Tarok-11/yo or " China-Town," a district not far below Ava. Moreover Malé, the position of the decisive victory of the Chinese, is itself much to the south of Tagaung (about 22° 55')•

Both Pagán and Malé are mentioned in a remarkable Chinese notice extracted in .4myot's Mémoires (XIV. 292) : " Mien-Tien . . . . had five chief towns, of which the first was Xiang/hat (supra, pp. 105, I I I ), the second 7aikung, the third ilialai, the fourth Ngan-cheng-kwé (? perhaps the Nga-tshaung gyan of the Burmese Annals), the fifth PUKAN MIEN-WANG (Pagán of the Mien King?). The Yuen carried war into this country, particularly during the reign of Shun-Ti, the last Mongol Emperor [1333-1368], who, after subjugating it, erected at Pukan Mien-Wang a tribunal styled Hwen-wei-she-sé, the authority of which extended over Pang-ya and all its dependencies." This is evidently founded on actual documents, for Panya or Pengya, otherwise styled Vijáyapt ra, was the capital of Burma during part of the 14th century, between the decay of Pagán and the building of Ava. But none of the translated extracts from the Burmese Chronicle afford corroboration. From Sangermano's abstract, however, we learn that the King of Panya from 1323 to 1343 was the son of a daughter of the Emperor of China (p. 42). I may also refer to Pemberton's abstract of the Chronicle of the Shan State of Pong in the Upper Irawadi valley, which relates that about the middle of the 14th century the Chinese invaded Pong and took Maung Maorong, the capital. T. The Shan King and his son fled to the King of

.:

~

* This is the name now applied in Burma to the Chinese. Sir A. Phayre supposes it to be Iúrk, in which case its use probably began at this time.

t In the Narrative of Phayre's Mission, ch. ii.

Dr. Anderson has here hastily assumed a discrepancy of sixty years between the chronology of the Shan document and that of the Chinese Annals. But this is merely because he arbitrarily identifies the Chinese invasion here recorded with that of Kúblái in the preceding century. (See Anderson's Western Yunnan, p. 8.) We see in the quotation above from Amyot that the Chinese Annals also contain an obscure indication of the later invasion.

VOL. II.   I~

s