Bogus Chinese Envoys, Spurious Chinese Princesses at the 18th-Century Myanmar Royal Court

Abstract

This article examines a series of events in which certain Chinese envoys were supposedly sent by the Emperor from Beijing, but was actually concocted by the Governor of Yunnan, sometimes in collusion with the Sawbwa (Chieftain) of Bamaw (Bhamo). The main focus will be on the Chinese diplomatic missions of 1750 and 1790, which brought three Yunnanese ladies, purportedly the Emperor's daughters or granddaughters and sent as tribute brides from the Chinese capital to King Badon (Bodawpaya) (1782-1819), to the new Myanmar capital of Amarapura, located between Innwa (Ava) and Mandalay. These bogus missions were sent from Yunnan with fake lett ers from the Emperor of China, during periods when the China-Myanmar border was closed by Myanmar kings or the Chinese emperors after periods of discord and warfare. Myanmar kings and Royal Court innocently accepted these bogus missions as genuine, and the kings sent back authentic return missions to Beijing that were accepted by the Chinese emperors as tribute missions. The conniving high offi cials in Yunnan and Bamaw achieved their goal of reopening the lucrative border trade after the exchange of these bogus mis- sions from China and the genuine Myanmar missions from