the siege of Ava. With the rainy season just a few weeks away, the Hanthawaddy command decided to retreat. Meanwhile, Burman refugees who had escaped general slaughter by the delta Mons seized Prome (Pyay), the historical border town between Upper Burma and Lower Burma, and shut the gates to the retreating Hanthawaddy armies. Knowing the importance of Prome for the safety of his kingdom, King Binnya Dala of Hanthawaddy ordered his forces to retake Prome at any cost. Led by Talaban, the Hanthawady forces consisted of 10,000 men and 200 war boats laid siege to Prome. Turning into an ethnic conflict By late 1754, the siege of Prome was going nowhere for Talaban's men. The besiegers had been able to fight off Konbaung attempts to lift the siege but they could not take the fortified city either. At Pegu, some of the Hanthawaddy commanders now feared Alaungpaya's full-scale invasion of the south, and looked for an alternative. Preferring the loose rule of a weak king, they attempted to free the captive king, Mahadhammaraza Dipati on the throne of Hanthawaddy. The plot was discovered by Binnya Dala, who executed not only the conspirators but also the former king himself and other captives from Ava in October 1754. This shortsighted action removed the only possible rival to Alaungpaya, and allowed those who had stayed loyal to the former king to join Alaungpaya with an easy conscience. The conflict increasingly turned into an ethnic conflict between the Burman north and the Mon south. It was not always so. When the southern rebellion began in 1740, the Mon leaders of the rebellion welcomed southern Burmans and Karens who despised Ava's rule. The first king of Restored Hanthawaddy, Smim Htaw Buddhaketi, despite his Mon title, was an ethnic Burman. Burmans of the south had served in the Mon-speaking Hanthawaddy army although there had been episodes of purges of Burmans throughout the south by their Mon compatriots since 1740. (About 8000 ethnic Burmans were massacred in 1740.) Instead of persuading their Burman troops to stay, when they needed every last soldier, the Hanthawaddy leadership escalated "self-defeating" policies of ethnic polarization. They began requiring all Burmans in the south to wear an earring with a stamp of the Pegu heir-apparent and to cut their hair in Mon fashion as a sign of loyalty. This persecution strengthened Alaungpaya's hand. Alaungpaya was only happy to exploit the situation, encouraging