Myat Shwe of Udegan

Myat Shwe of Udegan (12 February 781 - 24 May 846) was the mother of Reramonsi I, the founding monarch of the Hafra dynasty of the Balish Empire, and the grandmother of Kanaunt II, the fourth emperor of the dynasty, from whom the entire Hafra royal family was descended. She was also called the "Mother of Hafra", but she did not receive the title of "Mother of Baland" as the Empress Mother in the history of Baland; and her cousin's grandson Bohu I in the future made region of Jasume, centered on Udegan, become independent from the Maharapura Kingdom and became the founding monarch of the Jasume Kingdom of the Kiangnu Dynasty, so that the Jasume Kingdom and the Hafra Empire also called each other brothers. It is said that Myat Shwe was assassinated by Sumanee, who was competing for the position of Empress of Baland, as Myat Shwe pushed his son, Reramonsi I, to marry Princess Dewi of Uton, who had a good reputation.

Background
Myat Shwe was the daughter of Su Shwe Thiri, the governor of Udegan in the Maharapura, and his wife Khun Nandhawatti. Nandhawatti was from the local noble family of Kiangnu in Udegan, and "Khun" was her husband's title in Udegan. Yotfa Sulachao, the nephew of Nandhawatti, inherited the governorship of Udegan through his aunt's marriage, and his descendants rose through the ranks, and by the time his great-grandson Bohu I became the first and foremost clan in the region of Jasume. After the marriage with Phonhinu Sikirachat from another powerful family, Bohu started a national uprising and finally gained the independence of the Jasume region in 963 and established the Jasume Kingdom. Myat Shwe had a sister, Min Myat U. Due to the lack of historical data, it is only known that Min Myat U died in 842 and Myat Shwe went to Maharapura to attend her funeral, but nothing is known about the rest of her marriage. As a young girl, Myat Shwe was called Me Myat Shwe according to the custom of Maharapura, and her childhood and girlhood had nothing to say, because she left her hometown at an early age and married in the Uton Empire of Baland.

Marriage
In 795, at the age of 14, Myat Shwe married Menshan IV of Hafra, Duke of Hanthamaya, at the age of 11, and lived for a long time in the imperial palace in Pharimala, where he was educated together with imperial princes and princesses. Hanthamaya was ruled mainly by his mother, Princess Renee of Uton, and the chief minister, Barshet de Manint. On 12 June, although the wedding never took place and Myat Shwe and her husband had never met, she became the Duchess of Hanthamaya and henceforth called herself "Khin Myat Shwe". Although it was not the custom in Baland to prefix her name with a prefix indicating her status, as was the custom in Maharapura, Myat Shwe insisted throughout her life on being addressed as "Khin Myat Shwe", and in all her letters and signatures she signed them as "Khin Myat Shwe". The first years were not easy for Myat Shwe, as she was subjected to much hostility, criticism, and ridicule at the court of Hanthamaya -- much of it from her mother-in-law, Renee, because of her nationality. The Balish Empire and Maharapura were in a long-standing rivalry for supremacy, and Myat Shwe's situation in the enemy's country was conceivable, and to make matters worse, Min Shwe Me, the favorite empress of the then Crown Prince and future emperor, Twan I, Renee's brother, was from Maharapura. Although the people of Baland hated the empress, they could do nothing but to vent their anger on the empress's homeland, Maharapura, which made many Maharapura people in Baland suffer from persecution and hostility, and made the situation of Myat Shwe even worse. Renee not only made things difficult for Myat Shwe in the court of Hanthamaya, but also wrote letters to her son in a derogatory manner, so that Menshan IV had a very bad impression of his Maharapura wife, whom he had never met.

In 799, Renee became seriously ill and before she died, she ordered her son to return to the court in order to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the opportunity to seize power.She relinquished her power to her close official Mainn Loungte and her disliked daughter-in-law Myat Shwe. As soon as Menshan IV arrived at Hanthamaya's court, the power of Loungte and Myat Shwe would be transferred immediately, and only after everything was arranged did Renee die a long death. Myat Shwe did not make proper arrangements for the funeral of this difficult mother-in-law, and buried her body in an inferior coffin on the pretext of saving money, and the cemetery was poorly repaired. On March 9, when Menshan arrived at Hanthamaya, he went to visit his mother's tomb. After seeing the tomb without any specifications, he angrily questioned the attendants, who immediately told him that Myat Shwe had conducted the funeral, and from then on he hated his wife even more.

Menshan IV and his wife were separated for a long time, and Menshan IV had many mistresses, including Myat Shwe's maid Eime-nisa, which completely shattered Myat Shwe's illusions about her husband. On 3 October 801, Menshan IV ordered Myat Shwe to be arrested and imprisoned at Nenon Manor on the grounds that she had collaborated with foreigners, and then Menshan asked Loungte to prepare a divorce agreement, asking Myat Shwe to divorce and leave the house, otherwise she would be sentenced to death. But she did not want to give in to her husband's lasciviousness. She managed to get her close friends to spread the news to the palace, asking Empress Min Shwe Me to help her for she was also a Maharapura person, and if she could get out of danger and was lucky enough to have a child, then her child would marry Min Shwe Me's children, and Min Shwe Me's children could get affluent Hanthamaya. Min Shwe Me was not interested in which country Myat Shwe was from, but she saw Myat Shwe's promise that if her child could get Hanthamaya, then her power would go to bigger, so she immediately pressured Hanthamaya to give Myat Shwe a more fair trial. Forced by the pressure of the powerful empire, Menshan IV had no choice but to declare that the duchess was innocent and that everything was a misunderstanding, and put Loungte in charge, who was then deprived of his territory and power and banished to Myubo. Myat Shwe immediately drew in the abandoned person of her husband, and after this crisis, she began to cultivate her political power.

The birth of a child was naturally a pipe dream as Menshan and Myat Shwe were separated for many years. The nobles of Hanthamaya were worried that without an heir, the duchy would fall into a crisis, so they kept persuading Menshan and his wife to have a child; on the other hand, Empress Min Shwe Me also wanted Myat Shwe to give birth to a child soon so that she could keep her promise, so she sent someone to urge Menshan and Myat Shwe to do their best as husband and wife. On 9 October 804, she gave birth to her first child, Reramonsi, who was immediately declared the heir of Hanthamaya, and on 11 October 808, she gave birth to another son, Kanaunt, the father of the future Emperor Kanaunt II of Baland. In order to avoid her husband's persecution, Myat Shwe sent her two sons to the court of Baland on the pretext of educating them, and her eldest son grew up with Princess Sumanee, Min Shwe Me's daughter, for which they had a secret love affair. In February 810, she herself set out for Pharimala, and from then on she never returned to Hanthamaya, even when her husband died in 815, and she refused to attend the funeral, but only mourned briefly in her chambers.

Life in the Pharimala Palace
Introduced by a noblewoman, Myat Shwe met with the emperor and empress on 27 March 810, and she soon obtained a position as a schoolteacher at the imperial court, teaching the imperial princesses; her later daughter-in-law, Princess Devi, was her student, but her other daughter-in-law, Sumanee, was not. Myat Shwe's becoming a court teacher caused some controversy, still due to her nationality, but ultimately it was within the imperial court, and between the fact that the Empress was also a Maharapura woman, there was not much animosity towards Maharapura here. Myat Shwe did not have a good impression of Empress Min Shwe Me, the actual person in power at the time, mainly because of jealousy. Min Shwe Me was from an ordinary background but was deeply favored, had a noble position and held great power, in contrast to herself, which made her very indignant. However, within the court, Myat Shwe did not show this discontent, she always remained humble before the empress and tried to please her for the benefit of her son; she did not give vent to this feeling until the Hafra dynasty, when she always spoke ill of Min Shwe Me in her letters or when she recalled her past, and she was very disgusted with Min Shwe Me's daughter Sumanee, even mocking her parents on her face. Because she was good at making appearances, Myat Shwe was well liked in the palace, and her good relationship with Dewi of Pasaan, the wife of Prince of Anowk (later the mother of Emperor Menshan VII and Princess Devi), gave her a better treatment and position after the reign of Menshan VII.

After her husband's death in 815, she returned to the regency of Loungte to govern Hanthamaya in place of her still-young son, Reramonsi. In 821, at the age of 17, Reramonsi and his brother Kanaunt returned to Hanthamaya to take power, but Myat Shwe did not follow. In 823, when Min Shwe Me died, Myat Shwe did not want to fulfill her promise, but Min Shwe Me's two younger brothers, U Hlagan and Gyi Hle, then came to power and, knowing the agreement Myat Shwe had made with her sister during her lifetime, they officially performed a ceremony to betroth Reramonsi to Min Shwe Me's only daughter, Princess Sumanee. In 828, Twan I, who was very ill, was overthrown by his nephew Menshan and died shortly afterwards. The newly enthroned Menshan, was Emperor Menshan VII of Baland. U Hlagan and Gyi Hle lost their power and was banished, and Menshan VII's sister Dewi replaced Sumanee as the Princess Imperial. Myat Shwe became the chief lady-in-waiting of Devi and had many privileges with the trust and favor of the princess. She was sometimes referred to as "that lady" and in person as "Lady Khin". Resentful of Menshan's accession to the throne, and even more resentful that her position as the first princess had been replaced, Sumanee had a bad relationship with the emperor and Dewi, and even bad-mouthed her mother-in-law-to-be, Myat Shwe. Myat Shwe is no longer scrupulous and treats Sumanee badly, and tries to cancel the marriage relationship between her and her son, but without success.

The most outrageous thing Myat Shwe did in her life was to try to get Menshan VII to marry Sumanee. Because of the bad relationship between Menshan VII and Empress Raneedevi, who was living in her father's house, she tried to get Sumanee to marry the emperor, so that she could get rid of this annoying daughter-in-law-to-be and not be questioned. There is no official record of how this event was carried out, but the unofficial history is much the same, i.e. Myat Shwe drugged the emperor and induced him to rape Sumanee, which was stopped by Devi. After this incident, Sumanee fled overnight to her fiancé's domain, Hanthamaya, where she lived for a long time, during which time they did not marry, but were considered to have sex relations.

Mother of Hafra
In March 829, because of the despotic behavior of Menshan VII, Pharimala was captured by King Soya of Mie, and Menshan VII lost his throne and was imprisoned in the palace. Myat Shwe was in the temple outside the palace with Dewi and did not return to the palace when they heard the news. Reramonsi took the opportunity to rise up and claim legitimacy to the throne on the basis of his grandmother Renee's bloodline. On 25 April, Soya surrendered to Reramonsi and Reramonsi became the Emperor of Baland, thus ending the Uton Dynasty and starting the Hafra dynasty. On 7 May, Reramonsi was crowned as Reramonsi I, Emperor of Baland, and Myat Shwe was given the title of "Duchess of Pharimala" and received an annuity of 40,000 nelas.

After his accession, Reramonsi I wanted to hold a wedding with Sumanee, but he was opposed by Myat Shwe, who and her supporters chose Dewi as the empress, saying that the former emperor Menshan VII was still alive and that making his sister the empress would be a comfort to him and would also bring together the loyalists of the Uton dynasty, making Reramonsi I's throne more secure. Reluctantly, Reramonsi had no choice but to marry Dewi. It was not until the day of the emperor' coronation that Sumanee learned of the news. She could not accept this fact and insisted that she should be the emperor's wife, the legitimate Empress of Baland, and ridiculed Empress Devi as a "mistress", but to no avail, Myat Shwe sent someone to forbid her from coming to the palace to attend the coronation ceremony to prevent her from causing trouble. Sumanee later learns that this was all Myat Shwe's plan and hates her with a passion ever since.

In 831, when Reramonsi I moved the capital to Nanwa, it was Princess Sumanee who went with him to the new capital instead of his wife, Empress Devi, who went to Nanwa with Myat Shwe a year later to reunite with the emperor. Reramonsi later found a way to marry Sumanee by giving her the title of "Wife of the Emperor" (Empress of Baland had the title of "Wife of Baland", which meant Reramonsi I took Sumanee as his wife in his personal name, not in the name of the empire.) Although Sumanee was not the empress, she was in fact the same as the empress, and although Myat Shwe resented this, she could do nothing about it; however, to her relief, Devi's kindness and gentleness impressed Reramonsi, in contrast to Sumanee's brutality, and in 832, Devi gave birth to a daughter, Isovanoia, the emperor's first child, and Myat Shwe was so pleased with herself that she thought the emperor was sure to break up with Sumanee, a view she happily shared in a letter to Loungte, but to her dismay, Sumanee's favor continued unabated and her power grew so grand that many of the old nobles loyal to the Uton dynasty defected to her.

Reramonsi I was without an heir for many years, both Empress Devi and Princess Sumanee gave him only daughters, and it was only in 834 that he had the good fortune to have his first son, Maha Paleymia, with Princess Bashami of Mie(daughter of Soya), a child born out of wedlock and at risk of dying young, so in order to ensure the succession of the empire and out of selfishness as a mother, Myat Shwe persuaded Reramonsi I to establish his younger brother Kanaunt as the crown prince, and Reramonsi had the same fears, so he agreed. In 836, a court lady named Rubyadevi gave birth to the emperor's second son Minsi, the future Minsi II, and Sumanee was overjoyed. She raised Minsi and actively promoted his legitimacy, thus putting him on the throne.

Death
In 846, Empress Devi died. The first thing Myat Shwe thought of at this time was to prevent Sumanee from becoming the empress, however by this time Sumanee was more powerful than Myat Shwe. On 24 May, Myat Shwe suddenly died in her bedchamber at the age of 65, reportedly killed by Sumanee's order, as she had become a serious obstacle to Sumanee's path to becoming the empress. Myat Shwe's body was brought back to Hanthamaya and buried with her husband Menshan. She is the last Duchess of Hanthamaya to be buried there. Soon after her death, Sumanee ascended to the throne of the empress and Minsi was legitimized and given the right of succession. Myat Shwe's son, Kanaunt, and her eldest grandson, Maha Paleymia, both died in the midst of Sumanee's plot, and her long struggle with Sumanee ended in her failure.