littoral of Tenasserim coast. He compared his strategy to "clipping the wings of a bird". Following his battle plan, five Burmese armies acquired the aforementioned peripheral regions before converging on Ayutthaya and forcing the Siamese king's surrender in February 1564. Binnya Dala was also instrumental in acquiring Lan Xang but the success there proved illusory. In January 1565, Crown Prince Nanda's army group easily took Vientiane, the capital of Lan Xang. But King Setthathirath escaped. Nanda and Binnya Dala chased the Lan Xang king all the way to what is now Vietnam but failed to find the renegade king. (The Lan Xang king remained active in the countryside, and would retake Vientiane three years later.) Reconstruction of Pegu In August 1565, Binnya Dala returned to a still charred Pegu (Bago), which was burned down earlier in the year by a serious rebellion. The king asked him to reconstruct the capital and the palace. The construction effort took over two years. The new capital had 20 gates, each named after the vassal who built it. Each gate had a gilded two-tier pyatthat and gilded wooden doors. When the newly rebuilt Kanbawzathadi Palace was officially opened on 16 March 1568, an appreciative king seated Binnya Dala in one of the most prominent positions in the elaborate ceremony. Reconquest of Ayutthaya (1568–1569) and Lan Xang (1569–1570) Binnya Dala was again called to duty when both Lan Xang and Siam revolted in 1568. While his official role again was Nanda's deputy, he was the one the king depended on for advice. When the Toungoo command learned that a Lan Xang army was on its way to break their siege of Ayutthaya, Binnya Dala devised a plan to lure the Lan Xang army to an area suitable for numerically superior Burmese forces. The king left him in charge of the siege and left with half of the army to meet the Lan Xang army. On 8 May 1569, Bayinnaung decisively defeated Setthathirath northeast of the city, after which Lan Xang ceased to be of concern to the siege operations. Two months after Ayutthaya's fall, the king himself led a two-pronged invasion of Lan Xang in October 1569. Setthathirath again retreated to the jungle to conduct his tried-and-true guerrilla warfare. The Burmese armies spent months combing the Lan Xang countryside. Setthathirath was nowhere to be found but many Burmese troops were dying of starvation and from