Chapter 579: Deep Into the Tiger's Mouth
Chapter 579: Deep into the Tiger's Mouth
The Golden Triangle is close to the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. Specifically, it refers to Tachileik, Wanhong, Kokang, Xingcheng, Jingdong and Wa State in northeastern Myanmar; Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Chiang Saen and My Mae in northern Thailand; and Houayxay, Mengxai, Phongsali and Nantha in northwest Laos.
The northern end of the main street in Mae Sai Town is the Mae Sai River, and the other side of the river is Tachileik Town in Myanmar. There is a stone bridge connecting the river, and a "Northernmost Point" archway is erected at the bridge head. Residents of the two countries can enter each other's territory 5 kilometers without a visa. Both places have lively and prosperous markets, attracting a large number of residents from Thailand and Myanmar to trade here.
Zhao Jianhui, wearing a white double-breasted gown, black pants, and a red ribbon tied around his waist, sat on the observation tower and looked at the town at the foot of the mountain. Behind him, there stood several young men wearing Thai clothes like him. Those people are all masters who are familiar with jungle warfare. They are Wu Xiangui, Ma Hongchen, Liu Debiao, Ding Ding, and Liu Cheng.
"What happened to Guo Tao? There is still no news?" Tu Xiong put one leg on the railing and sat opposite Zhao Jianhui. He was wearing a bright red double-breasted gown and bright red pants, a yellow cloth belt around his waist, and a colorful scarf on his head. He looked as funny as he could.
Guo Tao was responsible for intelligence reconnaissance and collection, and cultivated a lot of spies in Daqili. This time Zhao Jianhui brought him here in the hope that he could use the relationship in the past to find out the current situation in the Golden Triangle.
It has been three days since entering the Myanmar-Thailand border. Zhao Jianhui and others have already found out that if they want to find the kind of butterfly that can cure diseases, they must go deep into the Mengya Mountain area occupied by drug lords.
This place is full of jungles, basically the hinterland of the Golden Triangle. It is located in the center of the military control area of the three major drug lords, Fei En, Kunchai, and Jia Peng. In addition to the Shan Gang, the Autonomous Army, the police, bandits, thieves and other local forces, it is not easy to enter and exit safely.
The formation of the Golden Triangle drug base is closely related to the British.
In 1825, a fully armed British expedition team arrived in the so-called "Golden Triangle" area today. This expedition team was determined to survey the terrain and swallow the thieves. They used advanced weapons that the locals had never seen before, and quickly expelled most of the indigenous people, and set up camp in Kokang County in the north of the Golden Triangle as their base camp. Through a comprehensive investigation of this area, the British believed that this place was very suitable for growing opium. After three years of trial planting, it was very successful, so they began to grow large areas in Kokang, Damengyang and other places. Most of the harvested opium was sold to the mainland of the Qing Dynasty, poisoning the Chinese people.
The British thieves' actions were strongly opposed by the Burmese dynasty. The local Shan tribes rose up to fight against them, and the Qing government also intervened, so they were quickly expelled.
However, the British, who took aggression and expansion as their basic national policy, had fully understood the economic value of Myanmar and its geographical strategic value as a future invasion of the Chinese Empire. So they soon went to war with Myanmar based on British India, occupied it twice by force, destroyed the Burmese dynasty, and incorporated it into India as a province.
In 1840, the First Opium War between China and Britain ended with a disastrous defeat for the Qing Empire. On July 24, 1886, under the military coercion of the British, the Qing Dynasty signed the humiliating "Sino-British Treaty of Burma" with them, ceding the four counties of Kokang and Banhong in southern Yunnan to the British. In this way, the British took full control of the Golden Triangle area and began to sow the seeds of sin on this land.
After Kokang was ceded, Lin Honglie, the former prefect of Kokang County, angrily resigned from the post of prefect of Cheli (Jinghong) granted by the Qing court, and led more than a thousand loyal officers and soldiers to fight against the British bandits. Luo Zhiman, the local Shan ethnic leader, also opposed the British forcing his people to grow opium, and rose up to resist the British bandits. Luo's troops were soon bloodily suppressed by the British army, and were forced to retreat into the mountains with the remnants to persist in the struggle. After Lin Honglie started his army, Luo Zhiman led his troops to surrender and formed the "Anti-British Blue Flag Army" with Lin.
After the Blue Flag Army was formed, Lin Honglie was the Grand Marshal and Luo Zhiman was named the General. He recruited loyal and brave men and had more than 20,000 soldiers to fight against the British army for a long time. The Blue Flag Army confronted the British army for five or six years. During this period, a large number of opium fields were destroyed, the British army's manpower was eliminated, and it dealt a powerful blow to it. The British had no way to deal with this army, so they used diplomatic means to put pressure on the Qing court and demanded that they send troops to help suppress the Blue Flag Army. The extremely corrupt Qing government was forced to accept the request. It is a pity that the loyal and warlike Blue Flag Army was attacked from both sides and had no reinforcements. Although they vowed to resist to the death, they were outnumbered and began to retreat. In the end, Lin Honglie and Luo Zhiman led 5,000 soldiers to retreat to the Salween River and were surrounded by the British and Qing armies. The 5,000 elites finally ran out of ammunition and food, and the blood stained the Salween River, and all died heroically.
After the failure of the Blue Flag Army, the British forced the local people to grow opium vigorously without hindrance, and eventually made the Golden Triangle area become today's opium base and the source of drugs strongly accused by Western authorities including the current British government. The four counties of Kokang and Banhong, which originally belonged to China, have been controlled by Myanmar to this day.
The coexistence of various military forces and complex factions in the Golden Triangle were caused by the escape of the national army after its defeat.
Part of the Eighth Army of the former National Army in Yunnan was forced to enter the current Golden Triangle area due to lack of retreat after its defeat in 1949 and merged with the remnants of the former National Army's Anti-Japanese Expeditionary Force stranded there to form the 93rd Division.
After 1949, as the remnants of the National Army, they were unable to return to Taiwan and were ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to cower in the Golden Triangle, waiting for a comeback during the "recovery". Since Taiwan was a member of the United Nations at that time, the Thai government appealed to the United Nations twice for "illegal stationing of troops in other countries' territories." Taiwan could not deny the existence of this objective military force and sent two former senior officials of the Eighth Army. Ask them to withdraw all the way to Taiwan. Due to various reasons, only a very small number of people went through all kinds of hardships to reach Taiwan, and the vast majority stayed to retain military strength to prevent Thai armed encirclement and suppression.
The remnant 93rd Division of the Kuomintang, which had suffered repeated defeats at the hands of the People's Army, was trying its best against a Thai army that was several times its size, and the Thai government did not dare to look down upon it. Finally, the Thai government understood that they were no match for the 93rd Division, and took the initiative to seek peace. The Thai government is willing to provide an area for the 93rd Division to settle, but it is not allowed to leave the enclosure. The only condition is that the 93rd Division is required to act as a mercenary force to encircle and suppress the Thai guerrillas who also find it difficult for the Thai government forces.
In order to survive, the 93rd Division had no choice but to agree to live and die for other governments on the territory of other countries in exchange for a place to live, which is Mount Mengya in today's famous Golden Triangle area. The cruel historical background left the well-equipped 93rd Division in South Asia. When "Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's" counterattack dream was shattered, these troops in a foreign country became the children of "milkless mothers".
Due to the excessive poverty in the Golden Triangle, it was impossible to grow food, and there was a lack of medical treatment and medicine in the area. These soldiers resorted to opium to solve the source of supplies. Since then, the opium cultivation in the Golden Triangle has entered the stage of "large-scale development" from the small-scale farmer production model of each household.
In addition, there are countless miscellaneous armies and small groups of armed forces from various tribes in the Golden Triangle, and they often fight each other over drug interests. Coupled with the conquests by the government forces of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos, the 93rd Division had to sleep with one eye open in order to survive. This cruel living space has trained a team that has been fighting fiercely.
Time flies, the strong men who left their hometown have grown old, and their descendants - the three major drug lords Fou En, Kunchai and Jiapeng have gradually come to the fore.
Especially Feng En, the most powerful of the three major drug lords. His father and grandfather were both Han Chinese. He married the daughter of a chieftain of the Shan ethnic group in Lemo Mountain in northern Myanmar, and miraculously became the chieftain of the Shan ethnic group in Lemo Mountain in northern Myanmar. This guy has three names, the Chinese name is "Li Xinqi", the Burmese name is "Neyue", and "Fuen" is his Thai name.
Fei En has a precise vision and has long seen the great prospects of the drug business. He used various means, pulling and beating, to incorporate all the nearby small gangs, and established a unified army and a relatively independent territory in northern Myanmar.
After acquiring the territory, Fei En began to flex his muscles in the drug business. He took measures to encourage local people to grow opium, spending huge sums of money to constantly update refining equipment.
Fei En has some "brand awareness". In the vast jungle, he actually developed and refined No. 4 heroin with a purity of up to 98%, which attracted drug dealers and addicts around the world. The "Golden Triangle Heroin" became infamous and eventually occupied the world's heroin market. 70%.
In addition to drug trafficking, Fenn also smuggled gems and arms. Fein continued to expand his army, which reached more than 20,000 people at its peak. He set up checkpoints and levied various taxes and fees within his jurisdiction, making the Golden Triangle a "state within a state."
In order to fight against the government forces, he used the money obtained from drug trafficking to continuously update weapons and equipment, and his weapons have always been more advanced than the government forces in countries such as Myanmar and Thailand.
Later, as the spread of drugs has aroused vigilance and indignation around the world, many countries have reached a consensus on eradicating drug manufacturing and drug trafficking. Starting in 2002, the Myanmar government, together with Thailand, Laos, China, India and other countries, launched a joint campaign against Feng, Laos, China and India. The three major drug lords' military-controlled areas, Kunchai and Jiapeng, launched a large-scale attack. However, Fou En did not trust the Shan people. He appointed a large number of Chinese descendants among high-level military and political officials, which aroused the anger of the Shan people. Coupled with the encirclement and suppression by multinational forces, more than 10,000 soldiers broke away from the "revolutionary army", which made Fou En En's power has been severely weakened. When Zhao Jianhui, Tu Xiong and others went deep into Myanmar to fight, Fei En had only five to six thousand troops under his command.
Under the command of young officers such as Zhao Jianhui and Wei Mingyu, they made several surprise attacks on Fei En's lair, which temporarily interrupted the production of the three drug lords. By the time Zhao Jianhui, Tu Xiong and others withdrew from the country, the three drug lords had actually There were only a few hundred people following him, and his life could be described as poverty-stricken.
However, with the withdrawal of troops from other countries, these people have shown signs of resurgence in recent years. Zhao Jianhui really couldn't figure out what the current situation was like, where Fu En and other drug lords were entrenched, and how many people they had under his command.
In order to catch a few butterflies, he once again went deep into the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand. He failed to find a good cure for his illness, and instead was left alive by his old enemy. That was not the result Zhao Jianhui wanted.
He asked Guo Tao to take Sun Liyun to find the previously established intelligence network. He wanted to find out the situation and then study and formulate a route into the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand. It has always been Zhao Jianhui's good habit not to fight an unprepared battle. It was precisely because of this habit that Zhao Jianhui was able to defeat the enemy many times in the battle against drug lords and save his own life.
He knew that he had sneaked to the Myanmar-Thailand border this time without the support of friendly forces and no intelligence source. Once he encountered those people, the danger would be higher than before, so he would be more cautious.
Continue to ask for flowers and votes, and no more words.