The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s4.59

v4.c23.s4.59

The Chinese proved useless as soldiers, but the Manchu contingents were good troops who, with ladders, axes, hooks and ropes, would rush up to the stockades against a withering fire, while boiling lead poured down on them and their bodies were crushed by great beams of which the lashings were cut as soon as the stormers were underneath. The Chinese would have quickly disposed of the Burmese in the open, but the Burmese never allowed themselves to be caught there, giving battle only in their deadly stockades amid the jungle; and the Chinese, who described the climate as impossible, suffered severely from disease. Even so, they ought to have won; but whereas the Burmese commanders worked together hand in hand, the Chinese lacked co-ordination, and threw away the advantage of superior numbers by allowing themselves to be overwhelmed in detail. Moreover, they were handicapped by lack of topographical information; one of their armies spent two months wandering blindly through Mogaung and Mohnyin when it was urgently needed elsewhere: they did indeed study their staff record of the 1277–87 invasions, but found it useless as the place-names had changed. The best of their generals, Mingjui, son-in-law to the emperor, who had won distinction in Turkestān, fought his way from Lashio, smashing a Burmese army and driving it past the Gokteik gorge to Singaung three marches from Ava. The court in panic urged the king to flee but he scornfully refused, saying he and his brother princes, the sons of Alaungpaya, would face the Chinese single-handed if necessary. Mingjui’s colleagues failed to support him, Burmese armies in his rear cut off his supplies, and he had to retreat beset by overwhelming odds; such was the slaughter that the Burmese could hardly grip their swords as the hilts were slippery with enemy blood. Mingjui fought in the rear-guard till he saw his men were safe and then, obeying the tradition of the Manchu officer corps, he cut off his plaited hair, sent it as a token to his emperor, and hanged himself on a tree; his servants hid his body with leaves lest the Burmese should desecrate it according to their wont.