Free The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma by Thant Myint-U Page A

the most powerful of its sixteenth-century rulers, Ala’ad-din Ri’ayat Shah al-Kahar. The feringhi and his band were easily routed, and he was forced to flee to Martaban and from there was taken to the court of the new Burmese king.
    Tabinshweti was at the height of his authority and decided to allow the feringhi to be part of his retinue, and with his charming ways, the young man soon enjoyed considerable royal favor, to no one’s initial worry. He was skilled in using the most modern firearms, and this skill impressed Tabinshweti. He went hunting with the king, and the king, in friendship, gave him as his wife a lady of the court. The young man taught his new bride Portuguese cooking, and before long she was preparing dishes from Lisbon and Goa. He also introduced the king to wine and then to stronger spirits, arak, mixed with honey.
    This is when the trouble began. Tabinshweti, it turned out, had a weakness for wine and spirits, and soon the Burmese ruler cared about little else but drinking, “respecting not other men’s wives, listening to malicious tales, and sending men to the executioners.” His actions grew increasingly violent and unrestrained. Discontent grew, and distant provinces plotted rebellion. Tabinshweti, who had achieved so much, was leading his government into chao.
    It was Bayinnaung who first warned him of his growing addiction and where it would soon lead. But it was no use. He told Bayinnaung to leave him alone. The executions continued, and the king slowly lost his mind. Ministers and courtiers pleaded with Bayinnaung to take action; Bayinnaung said that he could not be so disloyal. Instead he packed off the young Portuguese who had caused such a disaster and dispatched the king to Pantanaw, in the Irrawaddy Delta. Soon after, Tabinshweti was killed by his own courtiers some way, after he was lured into the wet jungle to search for a white elephant. 10
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    With Tabinshweti dead, Bayinnaung finally came to the fore. He was made king. And just in time, as the empire he fought to create was quickly falling to pieces, every town taking the opportunity to declare its independence and shut its gates to the new monarch. Bayinnaung was left with little more than his immediate following. And so for the next twenty years Bayinnaung conquered Burma again, making relentless war, unleashing campaigns of great brutality and destruction until one day all of western mainland Southeast Asia acknowledged his sovereignty.
    He depended throughout his career on his Portuguese mercenaries, with their heavy beards and baggy trousers, men who brought with them not only the latest in military hardware (the Chinese had this as well) but tested fighting ability and martial know-how. They were headed by Bayinnaung’s good friend and comrade Diego Soarez de Mello, known as the Galician. Soarez de Mello had first come east many years earlier, making a name as a pirate in the waters around Mozambique in the early 1540s and then serving many different kings, from Arakan to Malaya, before becoming rich as Bayinnaung’s loyal captain.
    The great seaport of Pegu had first to be recaptured, and the city fell to the combined force of Bayinnaung’s feared elephant corps and the tough Iberian musketeers of the Galician. The proud nobility of Pegu tried in vain to make a last stand, and in desperation the king of Pegu himself, Smim Htaw, emerged and challenged Bayinnaung to single combat, both on their war elephants. Bayinnaung, never one to pass up a fight, was victorious, charging his foe and driving him off after breaking the tusk of Smim Htaw’s elephant. The Burmese say that he “paidhim no more heed than a lion does to jackals.” The Burmese and the Portuguese then sacked Pegu, killing men, women, and children. Smim Htaw fled into the jungle, hiding there for months until he was finally captured, paraded through the streets, and executed.
    Having forced the Irrawaddy Delta for a second time to submission, Bayinnaung