Bhimsen Thapa ( (August 1775 – 29 July 1839)) was a Nepalese statesman who served as the Mukhtiyar (equivalent to prime minister) and de facto ruler of Nepal from 1806 to 1837. He is widely known as the longest serving Prime Minister of Nepal and was inducted into the "National heroes of Nepal" by King Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah. Born in an ordinary military family of the Gorkha Kingdom, Bhimsen first came close to the Crown Prince Rana Bahadur Shah at an early age in 1785. In 1798, he was recruited as bodyguard to the King by his father. Thereafter, he rose to influence after helping the exiled ex-King Rana Bahadur Shah engineer his return to power in 1804. In gratitude, Rana Bahadur made Bhimsen a Kaji (equivalent to a minister) of the newly formed government. Rana Bahadur's assassination by his step-brother Sher Bahadur Shah in 1806 led Bhimsen to initiate investigations on the context of which he ordered the death penalties to ninety-three people popularly known as 1806 Bhandarkhal massacre, after which he claimed the title of the Mukhtiyar (equivalent to prime minister) himself. The death of King Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah in 1816 at the immature age of 17, with his heir, King Rajendra Bikram Shah being only 3 years old, along with the support from Queen Tripurasundari (the junior queen of Rana Bahadur Shah) allowed him to remain in power even after Nepal's defeat in the Anglo-Nepalese War. After the death of Queen Tripurasundari in 1832, the intrigues of the newly adult King Rajendra, the conspiracies and infightings with the British envoy Brian Houghton Hodgson, Senior Queen Samrajya Laxmi Devi and the rival courtiers (especially the Kala Pandes, who held Bhimsen Thapa responsible for the death of Damodar Pande in 1804) finally led to his imprisonment on the false charges of the murder of an infant prince and ultimately his death by suicide in 1839. Bhimsen is remembered for being the first Nepalese statesman to fully comprehend the British system of protectorate in India carried out by Lord Wellesley and his subsequent activities to keep British authorities at bay and prevent the Kingdom of Nepal from being a part of British Empire through long persistent anti-British politics during both wartime and peacetime. The territorial expanse of the Gurkha empire had reached its greatest extent from Sutlej river in the west to the Teesta river in the east