Warring Societies of Pre-colonial Southeast Asiaindicating that there was either an official or black market.^40 There is
also much information on how these flintlocks were used by the time
of the 1886–1889 conflict. For example, Burmese took advantage of the
jungle foliage for cover. Minayeff reports that British soldiers were un-
happy because “it is surprising and intolerable that [the dacoits] should
shoot at them from behind the bush”.^41
The use here of such illustrations as well as local sources like the
Maung Tha Aung account is only intended to identify a few of the ele-
ments that featured in local, rural warfare rather than as an exhaustive
examination. Nor is it intended to suggest that these elements of warfare
were peculiar to local, rural warfare. As mentioned above, the point is
actually the opposite: these elements of fighting were brought by local,
rural warriors with them into the larger royal campaigns in which they
participated and indeed formed the bulk of the fighting men and for
which the only training was the experience such warriors brought with
them from their home settlements. Such elements of warfare could be
common to both local warfare and larger campaigns where the environ-
mental context was the same. So long as the geographical areas armies
moved through had rural settlements built of flammable materials,
surrounded by bamboo or other rudimentary stockading, contained
people who could be killed or captured, and possessed cattle that could
be stolen, the major elements of rural warfare were relevant to and could
be applied anywhere. In Southeast Asia, all armies, large and small,
trained or not, were subject to the same geographical obstacles, such as
wet areas and dry areas (Central Burma), mountains and lowlands, and
the availability of the same kinds of materials for making gunpowder,
spears, arrows, and walls.
While this discussion has been devoted to the universal application
in the region of local, rural warfare, reference should also be directed at
warfare of scale which helps to explain the co-existence of another tier
of more specialized, powerful, and expensive elements of warfare that
did not belong to local, rural warrior culture. The scale of resources at
its disposal in terms of revenues and manpower gave the court potential
access to an additional range of warfare assets. Artillery was a monopoly
- If such a market existed, this would be both surprising and exciting as there is noth-
ing about this in the historiography on early modern Burma. - Ibid.