Even without counting its sub-par performance against European powers, the army's performance throughout history was uneven. As the main fighting force consisted of poorly trained conscripts, the performance of the army therefore greatly depended on the leadership of experienced commanders. Under poor leadership, the army could not even stop frequent Manipuri raids that terrorised northwest Burma between the 1720s and 1750s. Under good leadership, the same peasant army not only defeated Manipur (1758) but also defeated arch-rival Siam (1767) as well as much larger China (1765–1769). (A similar shift in performance too was seen in Siam. The same Siamese conscript army, having defeated in the two wars in the 1760s by the Burmese, changed its fortunes under good leadership. It stopped the Burmese in the following two decades, and built an empire by swallowing up parts of Laos and Cambodia.)