Personal security

Chapter 5: 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 exotic 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 foreigners.

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 actions of the foreign bandits 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, they had fully understood the economic value of this and its geographical strategic value as a future invasion of the Chinese Empire. So they soon started a war against Burma 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 was 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 fully controlled the Golden Triangle area and began to sow the seeds of sin on this land.

Lin Honglie, the former prefect of Kokang County, angrily resigned from the post of prefect of Cheli (Jinghong) granted by the Qing court after Kokang was ceded, and led more than a thousand loyal officers and soldiers to fight against the British bandits alone. Luo Zhiman, the local Shan ethnic leader, was also opposed to the British forcing his people to grow opium, and he rose up to fight against the British. Luo's army was soon bloodily suppressed by the British army, and was 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 join him, and formed the "Anti-British Blue Flag Army" with Lin Honglie.

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, had more than 20,000 soldiers, and fought 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 vitality was eliminated, and it was dealt a powerful blow. The British had no way to deal with this army, so they used diplomatic means to put pressure on the Qing court, demanding that troops be sent to cooperate in suppressing the Blue Flag Army. The extremely arrogant 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 swore 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 barbarians unimpededly forced the local people to grow opium vigorously, 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 was caused by the escape of the ** after its defeat.

After the defeat in 1949, a part of the Eighth Army in the former ** Yunnan area had no way to retreat and had to enter the current Golden Triangle area and merge with the remnants of the original ** Anti-Japanese Expeditionary Army stranded there to form the 93rd Division.

After 1949, as the remnants of the Kuomintang, they were unable to return to Taiwan and were ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to shrink in the Golden Triangle area, waiting for a comeback when "liberation" was achieved. Since Taiwan was a member of the United Nations at the time, the Thai government appealed to the United Nations twice for "illegally stationing troops on the territory of another country". Taiwan could not deny the existence of this objective military force and sent two former high-ranking officers of the Eighth Army to ask them to withdraw all the way back to Taiwan. For various reasons, only a very small number of personnel arrived in Taiwan after going through hardships and dangers, and the vast majority of people stayed to retain military forces to prevent the Thai armed encirclement and suppression.

The 93rd Division, a remnant of the Kuomintang, which had been repeatedly defeated by the People's Army, was a small test of the Thai Kuomintang army, which was several times larger than itself, so the Thai government did not dare to underestimate it. Finally, the Thai government realized that they were no match for the 93rd Division, so they took the initiative to seek peace. The Thai government was willing to provide an area for the 93rd Division to settle, but it was not allowed to leave the enclosure. The only condition was that the 93rd Division was required to act as a mercenary to encircle and suppress the Thai guerrillas, which made the Thai government army also feel difficult.

In order to survive, the 93rd Division had to agree to fight for other governments on other countries' territories in exchange for a place to live, which is the Mengya Mountain in the famous Golden Triangle today. The cruel historical background left the well-equipped 93rd Division in South Asia, and this part of the troops in a foreign country became the children of "mothers without milk".

Due to the extreme poverty in the Golden Triangle, it is impossible to grow food, and there is a lack of medical care and medicine in the local area. These defeated soldiers planted opium to solve the source of supply. From then on, the opium cultivation in the Golden Triangle entered the stage of "large-scale development" from the small-scale production model of one family per household.

In addition, there are countless miscellaneous armies and small armed forces of various tribes in the Golden Triangle, and they often fight each other for drug interests. In addition, the government forces of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos have been suppressing the 93rd Division. In order to survive, it is bound to sleep with one eye open. This cruel living space has trained a team that has always been fierce in combat.

Time flies, and the strong men who left their hometowns have grown old. Their descendants - the three drug lords, Fei En, Kunchai and Jia Peng, have gradually emerged.

Especially Fei En, the most powerful of the three drug lords. His father and grandfather are both Han Chinese. He married the daughter of the chieftain of the Shan people in Laimo Mountain in northern Myanmar, and miraculously became the chieftain of the Shan people in Laimo Mountain in northern Myanmar. This guy has three names, the Chinese name is "Li Xinqi", the Burmese name is "Na Yue", and "Fei En" is his Thai name.

Fei En has a sharp eye and has long seen the great prospects of the drug business. He used various tricks, pulling and fighting, to recruit all the small gangs nearby, and established a unified army and a relatively independent territory in northern Myanmar.

After having the territory, Fei En began to show his strength in drug business. He took measures to encourage local people to grow opium, spent huge amounts of money, and constantly updated the refining equipment.

Fou En had a certain "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 all over the world. "Golden Triangle Heroin" has since become notorious and eventually occupied 70% of the world's heroin market.

In addition to drug trafficking, Fou En also smuggled gems and trafficked in arms. Fou En continued to expand his army. At its peak, the number of troops reached more than 20,000. He opened and closed checkpoints in the area under his jurisdiction and collected various taxes and fees, making the Golden Triangle a "country within a country".

In order to fight against the government army, he used the money from drug trafficking to continuously update weapons and equipment. The level of his weapons has always been higher than that of the government forces of Myanmar, Thailand and other countries.

Later, as the drug flooding has aroused the vigilance and indignation of the whole world, many countries have reached a consensus on the elimination of drug production and trafficking. Since 2002, the Myanmar government has joined forces with Thailand, Laos, China, India and other countries to launch a large-scale attack on the military control areas of the three major drug lords Fou En, Khunchai and Ka Peng. However, Fei En did not trust the Shan people. He appointed a large number of descendants of Chinese people in the military and political senior officials, which aroused the anger of the Shan people. In addition, the encirclement and suppression by multinational forces caused more than 10,000 soldiers to leave the "Revolutionary Army", which seriously weakened Fei En's power. When Zhao Jianhui, Tu Xiong and others went deep into Myanmar to fight, Fei En had only 5,000 to 6,000 troops under his command.

Under the command of young officers such as Zhao Jianhui and Wei Mingyu, Fei En's nest was attacked several times, which once interrupted the production of the three major drug lords. When Zhao Jianhui, Tu Xiong and others withdrew to the country, the three major drug lords actually had only a few hundred people following them, and their lives could be described as poor and destitute.

However, with the withdrawal of troops from other countries, these people have shown signs of resurgence in recent years. What is the current situation, where are the drug lords such as Fei En entrenched, and how many people are under their command, Zhao Jianhui really has no idea.

In order to catch a few butterflies, he went deep into the jungle of Myanmar and Thailand again. He didn't find the medicine to cure his illness, but was left dead by his old enemy. That was not the result Zhao Jianhui wanted.

He asked Guo Tao to take Sun Liyun to find the intelligence network he had established before, just to find out the situation and then study and formulate the route to enter the jungle of Myanmar and Thailand. It has always been Zhao Jianhui's good habit to not fight an unprepared battle. It is precisely because of this habit that Zhao Jianhui has been able to strike the enemy many times in the battle against drug lords and save his life.

He knew that this time he disappeared and sneaked to the Myanmar-Thailand border. He had no support from friendly forces and no source of intelligence. Once he encountered those people, the danger level would be higher than before, so he would be more cautious.