Royal Burmese Armed Forces

The Royal Burmese Armed Forces were the armed forces of the Burmese monarchy from the 9th to the 19th centuries, a term covering the military of the Pagan Kingdom, the Kingdom of Ava, the Hanthawaddy kingdom, the Toungoo dynasty and the Konbaung dynasty in turn. A small standing army of a few thousand defended the capital and palace, while a much larger conscript army was raised in wartime through the ahmudan system, with elephantry, cavalry, artillery and naval units. Firearms came from China in the late 14th century and were integrated into strategy only gradually. The army defeated Portuguese and French intrusions in the 17th and 18th centuries but lost all three Anglo-Burmese Wars, and the British formally abolished it on 1 January 1886. Tatmadaw remains the name of the modern armed forces.