Mogaung (Burmese: မိုးကောင်း) or Möngkawng (Tai Nüa: ᥛᥫᥒᥰ ᥐᥩᥒᥰ; Chinese: 孟拱) was a Shan state in what is present-day Myanmar. It was an outlying territory, located away from the main Shan State area in present-day Kachin State. The state existed until 1796. The main town was Mogaung (Mong Kawng).
According to legend a predecessor state named Udiri Pale had been established in 58 BC. The area was said to have been inhabited by the Tai Long. According to Tai chronicles the kingdom was founded in 1215 by a saopha named Sam Long Hpa who ruled over an area stretching from Hkamti Long to Shwebo, and extending into the country of the Nagas and Mishmis.[1]
Samlongpha built his capital at Nam Kawng river (present-day Mogaung river) and established it as a tributary state to Mong Mao.[2]
According to Hsweni state chronicle, the two generals Tao Sen Yen and Tao Sen Hai Khai sent with Samlongpha sent a story to Hso Khan Hpa that Samlongpha was conspiring with the king of Mong Wehsali Long to dethrone Hso Khan Hpa, Hso Khan Hpa believed the story and sent poison food to Samlongpha and he died at Mogaung.[3]
Möngkawng (Mong Yang) was occupied by China between 1479 and 1483, after regaining independence it was again briefly occupied by China in 1495.
From 1651 to 1742 the state was occupied by the Ava-based Kingdom of Burma and following a period of less than thirty years it was again occupied by Burma from 1771 to 1775. Finally Möngkawng was annexed by the Ava Kingdom in 1796.[4]
In Chinese chronicle Ming Shilu, the state was known as Mengyang and was under Yunnan as a pacification superintendency.[6] In the same chronicle, the kingdom is said to extend to the east to Jinsha River in China, south to Ava-Burma, west to the territory of Da-Gula and to the north till Ganyai, a polity near Daying river.[7]
It is asserted that it was originally under the territory of Lu-chuan and it is to Mongkawng and Da-Gula where Si Jifa, the ruler of Mong Mao fled after the destruction of Lu-chuan by the Chinese during the Luchuan–Pingmian campaigns (1436–49).[9]
In 1477, the Ava Kingdom marched against Mogaung and captured it. After their submission, the Burmese chronicle records the King of Ava taking the Sawbwa of Mogaung and giving him the town of Tagaung to rule over.[10]
^Nisbet, John (1901). Burma Under British Rule—and Before. Vol. 1. Archbald Constable & Company.
^"79. Meng-yang polity which the MSL records as a 'prefecture" and later as a 'pacification superintendency' under Yun-nan. It is the polity known in Shan as Mong Yang or Mong Kawng and in Burmese as Mo-hnyin or Mogaung."(Wade 1994:274)
Ferquist, Jon (2005), "Min-gyi-nyo, the Shan Invansions of Ava (1525-27), and the Beginnings of Expansionary Warfare in Toungoo Burma: 1486-1539", Bulletin of Burma Research, 2 (2)
Wade, Geoffrey (1994), The Ming Shi-lu (Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty) as a Source for Southeast Asian History -- 14th to 17th Centuries, Hong Kong{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Gogoi, Padmeswar (1956). The political expansion of the Mao Shans.
Scott, James George (1967), Hsenwi State Chronicle
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