In 1953, when Li Mi, a general of the Kuomintang Army and former commander of the Eighth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, was in Bangkok, Thailand, he was confronted by a reporter who asked: "Mr. Li, you are called the King of Yunnan, when do you plan to return to Kunming, the provincial capital?" ”
At that time, the reporter's question was undoubtedly a satire on this senior general of the Kuomintang army who was gradually defeated and retreated, but Li Mi said to this reporter: "It is not easy for me Li Mi to be the king of Yunnan, but it is easy to be the king of Burma!" The point is whether I want to do it or not. Li Mi said this against the background that he had a unit in Burma at that time, and this unit was the Nationalist 93rd Division.
Li Mi served as a soldier in the Dian Army in the early days, and was later admitted to the Huangpu Ivy. In 1926, after graduating from the Whampoa Military Academy, he was assigned back to the Third Army Instruction Regiment (then regimental commander Zhu De) as a lieutenant platoon leader. Li Mi's military ability was average, although the resistance was relatively tenacious during the War of Resistance, but due to his inability, the losses in each battle were very large, especially when he fought a bloody battle on Matsuyama, he lost eight times the strength of the Japanese army to completely annihilate the Matsuyama defenders, and at that time Li Mi's heart was about to collapse.
In May 1947, the Eighth Army was reorganized into the 8th Reorganized Division, with Li Mi as its commander. In November of the same year, the reorganized Eighth Division reverted to the 18th Army, with Li Mi as its commander. In July 1948, Li Mi was promoted to commander of the 13th Corps of the Kuomintang Army. During the entire Liberation War, Li Mi can be said to have been defeated repeatedly and beaten badly by the People's Liberation Army.
During the Battle of Huaihai, Li Mi's 13th Corps was crushed by the People's Liberation Army, but Li Mi escaped. In January 1949, Chiang Kai-shek was summoned to him in Zhejiang and decided to rebuild the 13th Corps, with Li Mi as commander and commander of the Eighth Army. However, at that time, the general trend was gone, and in the face of the People's Liberation Army's offensive to destroy the decay, the Kuomintang army was gradually defeated and retreated.
After Li Mi's defeat in Hunan, he threw the Eighth Army behind and ran to Taiwan alone. The Nationalist 93rd Division, which was part of the Eighth Army, fled all the way, and finally in early 1950, the 93rd Division and the remnants of another regiment and division fled 7,000 soldiers and their families to northern Burma.
At first, the Burmese government did not want to accept this unit, but also sent troops to encircle and suppress, although the 93rd Division could not defeat the People's Liberation Army, but after all, it was a unit that had experienced the War of Resistance and civil war, and soon beat the Burmese government army to a terrible end, and it was very easy to win. As soon as Li Mi saw that his troops had gained a foothold in Burma, in order to ask Chiang Kai-shek for capital, he ordered this army to rest in Burma and prepare for a counteroffensive.
After the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's forces that had retreated in Taiwan were eager to stir up trouble and wanted to launch a counteroffensive. However, the Americans did not allow it, and the Americans wanted to contain the PLA troops, so they targeted the Kuomintang government forces in Burma and asked the Kuomintang army to order this unit to counterattack and contain the PLA troops.
After the Nationalist 93rd Division rested in northern Burma for a year, Li Mi asked the commander of the 278th Regiment of the 93rd Division to "counterattack the mainland." At that time, the People's Liberation Army did not think that there was a Kuomintang army unit here, and it dared to counterattack, so it did not put too many troops in the border area. The Nationalist 93rd Division began to attack rapidly, caught the People's Liberation Army by surprise, and captured 4 border cities in a row, and the Second Field Army hurriedly transferred three divisions to repel this unit.
The 93rd Division of the Nationalist Army had just returned to Burma in the rain overnight, at which point the Burmese government and India reached an agreement, and India sent troops to wipe out this force together with the Burmese government army. However, the 93rd Division of the Kuomintang Army had to defeat the huge Indo-Burmese army with less than 10,000 troops. After this battle, the Nationalist 93rd Division completely gained a foothold in northern Burma.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Nationalists frequently airdropped personnel and supplies to the 93rd Division of the Nationalist Army, allowing them to attack some border towns in Yunnan. In order to eliminate this force, the People's Liberation Army sent troops to attack several times after obtaining the consent of the Burmese side, but due to unfamiliar terrain and unsuitable climate, it was not eliminated.
But with the passage of time, the soldiers of the Nationalist 93rd Division also gradually grew old, and in order to survive, they began to cultivate and sell opium in the Golden Triangle region. In 1970, after the Thai royal family came forward and King Rama IX of Thailand personally recruited an army to occupy the remnants of the former Kuomintang army in the Golden Triangle, under the leadership of General Duan Xiwen, all the weapons of war were finally handed over to the Thai government, and all the soldiers and all their dependents became Thai nationals.