his chief general and honored him with a funeral under a white umbrella before the whole army. The leader of the French, Sieur de Bruno, secretly tried to negotiate with Alaungpaya, but was found out and put in prison by Hanthawaddy commanders. The siege went on. For Alaungpaya, the worry was that French reinforcements would soon arrive. He decided that the time had come for the fortress to be stormed, now. He knew that the French and the Mons, expecting no quarter, would resist fiercely and that hundreds of his men would die in any attempt to breach the walls. He called for volunteers and then selected 93, whom he named the Golden Company of Syriam, a name that would find pride of place in Burmese nationalist mythology. They included guards, officers, and royal descendants of Bayinnaung. The afternoon before, as the early monsoon rains poured down in torrents outside the makeshift huts, they ate together in their king's presence. Alaungpaya gave each a leather helmet and lacquer armor. That evening, on 25 July 1756, as the Konbaung troops banged their drums and played loud music to encourage Syriam's defenders into thinking festivities were underway and to relax their watch, the Golden Company scaled the walls. At the dawn of 26 July 1756, after bloody hand-to-hand fighting they managed to pry open the great wooden gates, and in darkness, amid the war cries of the Konbaung troops ("Shwebotha!" "Shwebotha!"; lit. natives of Shwebo) and the screams of the women and the children inside, the city was overrun. The Hanthawaddy commander barely escaped the carnage. Alaungpaya presented the stacks of gold and silver captured from the city to the surviving 20 men of the Golden Company and the families of the 73 who died. A few days later and a few days too late, on 29 July 1756, two French relief ships, the Galatee and the Fleury arrived, loaded with troops as well as arms, ammunition, and food from Pondicherry. The Burmese seized the ships and press-ganged 200 French officers and soldiers into Alaungpaya's army. Also on board were 35 ship's guns, five field guns, and 1300 muskets. It was a considerable haul. More importantly, the battle ended French involvement in the Burmese civil war. Battle of Pegu (October 1756 – May 1757) After the fall of Syriam, Alaungpaya waited out the monsoon season. In September, one Konbaung army marched from