long marches. The task of telling the king to call off the search fell to Binnya Dala, as Nanda and the king's own brothers were unwilling to tell the king. Upon Binnya Dala's advice, Bayinnaung grudgingly agreed to call off the search in April 1570. Very few men of the original armies survived to reach their own country. Last campaign in Lan Xang (1572–1573) The calm did not last. In early 1572, Setthathirath overran the Burmese garrison at Vientiane but the Lan Xang king was killed shortly after. A senior minister and general named Sen Soulintha seized the throne. Much to the surprise of the Toungoo court, Soulintha refused to submit. At Pegu, Binnya Dala advised the king that Soulintha, a non-royal usurper was unlikely to be accepted as king by the Lan Xang court, and that a small expedition should remove the pretender. The king and the court agreed with the assessment. Bayinnaung appointed Binnya Dala to lead the expedition. In late 1572, Binnya Dala, now styled as Agga Maha Thenapati (), left Pegu with 2000 troops. Another 2000 troops each from Lan Na and Siam were also to march toward Vientiane from their respective bases, but Binnya Dala and the Toungoo court had grossly underestimated the opposition. Soulintha, a former general, had set up several forts along the border to prevent the three Burmese armies from joining up. Binnya Dala's army was stopped at a fort on the way for two months, and after not hearing any news from the other two armies, had to retreat. At Pegu, the king, who never forgave a failure, was furious at Binnya Dala who used to be his favorite general, and sent him into exile in central Siam with just five attendants. Death It would be the last time the king would see Binnya Dala, one of the few principal officers with whom the king had "entered into thwethauk blood-bond, a sacramental brotherhood of some round table as it were". Binnya Dala had written in an earlier memoir that "All [of us], his chosen men, in fact, whether Shans, Mons or Burmans... declared ourselves willing to lay down our lives [for him]." Binnya Dala fell ill soon after he arrived at the malarial infested remote outpost. Concerned, King Maha Thammarachathirat of Siam moved him to a bigger town of Kamphaeng Phet, five months into the exile, and sent a mission to