Yangon > Rangoon Rangoon Myanmar

Alaungpaya's armies have conquered the entire Irrawaddy Delta by May and captured Dagon, which he renames Yangon (most commonly translated as "End of Strife"), and founds a larger city by adding such settlements as  Ahlon, Pabedan, Kyauktada, and Botataung.

Alaungpaya's advance comes to a sudden halt, however, at the French-defended main port city of Thanlyin, which repels several Konbaung charges.

Thanlyin in the 1740s had been made the base of the French East India Company for their help in the Mon's reestablishment of Hanthawaddy Kingdom.

The British, instead of fighting in hard terrain, take the fight to the Burmese mainland.

A British naval force of over ten thousand men (five thousand British soldiers and over five thousand Indian sepoys) enter the harbor of Yangon on May 11, 1824, a, taking the Burmese by surprise.

The Burmese, pursuing a scorched earth policy, leave an empty city behind and choose to fortify positions along an east-west ten-mile arc outside the city.

The British forces led by General Archibald Campbell take up a position inside the Shwedagon Pagoda compound, which is fortified.

The British launch attacks on Burmese lines, and by July 1824 have successfully pushed the Burmese towards Kamayut, five miles from Shwedagon.

Burmese efforts to retake Shwedagon in September fail.

King Bagyidaw orders a near complete withdrawal from the western front—Bandula from Arakan and Bengal, and Uzana from Assam, Cachar and Jaintia—and meets the enemy in Yangon.

In August, in the midst of monsoon season, Bandula and his army had crossed the Arakan Yoma.

Moving tens of thousands of men over the three thousand-foot-high Arakan hills, or ten thousand-foot-high Assamese ranges, heavily forested with only narrow footpaths and open to attack by tigers and leopards, would be difficult even in mild weather conditions.

To do this at the height of the drenching monsoon season was a particularly difficult task.

Yet Bandula (from Arakan) and Uzana (from Assam), in a testament to their generalship and logistical skills, managed to do just that.

The King grants both Bandula and Uzana the title Agga Maha Thenapati, the highest possible military rank.

Bandula is also made the governor of Sittaung.

Bandula, commanding a force of thirty thousand massed outside Yangon by November, believes that he can take on a well-armed British force of ten thousand head-on.

Although the Burmese are numerically superior, only fifteen thousand of the thirty thousand have muskets.

The Burmese cannons fire only balls, whereas the British cannons fire exploding shells.

Unbeknown to Bandula, the British had just received the first shipment of the newest weapon in war, which the Burmese have never seen—Congreve rockets.

More ominous for the Burmese, the speedy march through the hilly regions of Rakhine Yoma and Assamese ranges had left their troops exhausted.

On November 30, in what turns out be the biggest mistake of his career, Bandula orders a frontal attack on British positions.

The British, with far superior weaponry, withstand several Burmese charges at the Shwedagon fort, cutting down men by the thousands.

The British troops, supported by rocket fire, have begun to gain the upper hand by December 7.

The Burmese are driven out of their last remaining stronghold at Kokine on December 15.

In the end, only seven thousand of the thirty thousand Burmese soldiers will return to their homes.

The construction of the Irrawaddy Valley State Railway in Burma, which begins in 1874, also provides employment in the earthworks for many famine immigrants from Bengal.

The one hundred and sixty-three-mile (two hundred and sixty-two kilometers) Rangoon-to-Prome line, following the Irrawaddy River, will be built over a three-year period with labor imported from India (particularly the areas affected by the Bihar famine of 1873–74).