The 93rd Division of the Kuomintang Army, a very special Kuomintang army unit in the Republic of China period, participated in the Northern Expedition, fought with the Red Army for ten years, and then fought eight years of war with the Japanese invaders, and fought in three years of civil war. During the Liberation War, the force retreated to northern Burma and claimed supremacy in the Golden Triangle region, while the descendants of the officers and men of the 93rd Division all became Thai nationals.
First, the border between China and Myanmar in blood
The 93rd Division of the Kuomintang Army is a relatively old unit in the Kuomintang Army, and during the Long March of the Red Army, this unit once surrounded and blocked the Red Army, but it was hit by the Red Army and suffered great losses. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, this unit was again included in the sequence of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, under the 66th Army of the National Revolutionary Army.
On December 11, 1941, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 93rd Division and the 49th Division of the 6th Army to enter the Jingdong area. From February 1942 to August 1942, the 93rd Division of the Kuomintang Army fought in Burma for 1500 miles, and together with other troops, it repeatedly inflicted heavy damage on the Japanese army, and performed well in the battles of the Tonggu Defense Battle, the Swa Blockade Battle, the Ren'an Qiang Breakout Battle, and the Battle of Dongzhike, which caused the Japanese army to suffer unprecedented blows since the Pacific Theater.
While in Burma, the 93rd Division fought against the Japanese invading army and also fought against the Thai army. On April 15, 1942, the Thai army carried out a three-day bombardment of the 93rd Division stationed in Jingdong, after which the two Thai divisions began to encircle the Chinese 93rd Division from three sides, and a Chinese company commander at the front of the front tried to dissuade the Thai army from exercising restraint, but was shot by the Thai army as soon as he stepped out of the trench.
The unbridled attack of the Thai army finally annoyed the officers and men of the 93rd Division, who rose up to resist, making it impossible for the Thai army to move forward. One day after the fighting, the Thai army left hundreds of corpses in front of the Chinese army position and withdrew. The Japanese, who had command of the Thai army, were dissatisfied with the cowardice of the Thai army.
On April 16, under the supervision of the Japanese army, the Thai army began to launch a fierce attack on the Chinese army. Due to the surveillance of the Japanese overseers, the Thai army did not dare to retreat without permission, so it had to attack the positions of the 93rd Division round by round. The 278th Regiment engaged in close-quarters combat with the 1st Thai Division, where Thai soldiers had never seen a bayonet-fighting position, more than 100 surrendered, and the Chinese captured a Thai major battalion commander. The Chinese army fought for three consecutive days without losing a single position. Thereafter, due to the total defeat of the first operation into Burma, the 93rd Division also withdrew to the country.
In February 1943, Thai Prime Minister Luan Phibun, with the support of the Japanese, reorganized his 1st Division into a mechanized unit, and sent mechanized troops from northern Burma into the territory of Yunnan Province, China, the 93rd Division launched a counterattack against the Thai Army with the strength of two regiments of the 277th Regiment and the 279th Regiment, the 1st Thai Division quickly collapsed and escaped from China, and the commander of the 1st Division of the Thai Army almost became a prisoner of the 93rd Division.
On August 15, 1945, after the Japanese Emperor announced his unconditional surrender, the Japanese troops who remained in Thailand and Laos north of the 16th parallel were disarmed by the Chinese 93rd Division, and lieutenant general Lu Guoquan, commander of the 93rd Division, led his troops into Vientiane, the capital of Laos. However, in the battle on the Sino-Burmese border, the 93rd Division also suffered heavy losses, thousands of people sacrificed their lives for the country, and Hu Yibin, deputy commander of the 93rd Division, died in the battle with the Japanese army.
2. Flee to northern Burma
In 1949, after the Battle of Hengbao, Li Mi, commander of the Eighth Army, left the 93rd Division and other troops to flee to Taiwan, and the officers and men of the 93rd Division and some family members fled all the way south and fled to the northern region of Burma, which established a foothold.
After the 93rd Division and some other remnants of the Nationalist army retreated to northern Burma, the Burmese government did not want to accept them, and they saw that this was only a defeated Nationalist army by the Plaster, and immediately sent troops to encircle and suppress the 93rd Division. But what they did not expect was that this unit, which had been repeatedly defeated during the Liberation War, had experienced decades of actual combat experience, and its combat effectiveness was very strong, and it immediately defeated the Burmese army.
The officers and men of the 93rd Division did not want to continue fighting at that time, and they wanted the Taiwan side to take them back, but when Li Mi saw that his remnants had actually gained a foothold in the Golden Triangle and defeated the Burmese army, he immediately asked Chiang Kai-shek for credit and asked that this unit be left in Burma as the basis for a counteroffensive.
After the remnants of the 93rd Division were in Burma for a year, Li Mi asked the commander of the 278th Regiment of the 93rd Division to "counterattack the mainland." At that time, most of the situation in the country had been calmed down, and only the task of suppressing bandits was left, and no one thought that there was a large Kuomintang army hiding in the Golden Triangle, and as a result, it was caught off guard, the four border towns were occupied, and the Second Field Army transferred three divisions to repel it.
After the 93rd Division retreated to Burma, Burma invited the Indian army to attack the 93rd Division, but the 93rd Division defeated the Indian-Burmese coalition army with thousands of troops, and after the Indian army killed and wounded more than 3,700 people, they were afraid of being completely annihilated, and they did not even greet the Burmese army and withdrew to India in a hurry, and the remnants of the 93rd Division completely gained a foothold in northern Burma. The Burmese government had no choice but to file a complaint with the United Nations, but Li Mi only withdrew some of the old, weak, sick and disabled to Taiwan.
Third, dominate the Golden Triangle
After several hand-to-hand exchanges with the People's Liberation Army, Li Mi no longer took these troops to fight hard with the People's Liberation Army, but seriously operated the bases in the Golden Triangle region. Li Mi also set up many military academies in the Golden Triangle region, integrated the Tusi armed forces, built airfields, and by January 1953, the remnants of the army gradually developed and grew.
When the 93rd Division opened the military academy in Kokang, it recruited a lot of talents, several of whom grew up to be figures who shocked the world, such as Peng Jiasheng, Kun Sha, Luo Xinghan and others, who all studied at the military academy run by the 93rd Division. For the sake of the economic problems of the remnants of the army, the remnants of the 93rd Division sold drugs in the Golden Triangle region.
The Golden Triangle refers to the border area of Southeast Asia, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, and the total area of this impact delta plain is 5,000 square kilometers, silt, fertile land and pleasant climate. The tradition of opium cultivation began very early here, but after the remnants of the Nationalist 93rd Division retired here, they also began to cultivate opium and provide armed protection for drug dealers in order to survive, making it the world's largest drug cultivation base.
In 1954, Chiang Kai-shek, who was not willing to accept defeat, sent Li Mi and Liu Yuanlin back to Burma again, collected 4500 of them, and established the Third Army, the Fifth Army, and the Seventh Army, but because of the contradictions between these units, the troops were not formed until 1957, and in 1958, the ministry launched another attack on Yunnan, but it ended in failure.
By 1960, the remnants had grown to a size of more than 9,000 people, with two military districts and five armies. The Burmese government had no way to take this force, and finally requested the Chinese side to send troops to support and allow the Chinese army to enter The territory of Myanmar for 20 kilometers to encircle and suppress the remnants.
On the night of November 21, 1960, Qin Jiwei, commander of the Kunming Military Region, personally commanded 22 commandos to quickly pounce on the 16 strongholds of the remnants of the Kuomintang army, and the purpose of the commando operation was to arrest and annihilate the remnants of the Kuomintang army, division-level officers, at that time, there were five remnants of the army, and the division-level officers were within 20 kilometers of the Sino-Burmese border, but Liu Yuanlin's area exceeded the red line, so he was not arrested.
In January 1961, the Burmese government mobilized more than 10,000 people to encircle and suppress the remnants of the Kuomintang army, but Liu Yuanlin, a graduate of the huangpu fourth term, took the method of luring the enemy to go deeper, and soon lured the Burmese army to a low-lying area, and the Burmese army suffered heavy losses. In order to avoid the total annihilation of the army, the Burmese army sent people to the Kunming front headquarters overnight and asked the Chinese army to enter 100 kilometers of Burma to attack the Kuomintang army and help the Burmese army break the siege.
However, Li Mi and Liu Yuanlin adopted the guerrilla tactics of the former Eighth Route Army, fighting as soon as they could fight, and running if they could not fight, and after taking advantage of the big advantage, they quickly led their troops to withdraw.
Li Mi, who had turned the Golden Triangle upside down, was so proud that once he was interviewed by media reporters from many countries in Bangkok, Thailand, and one of the Australian female reporters asked slightly sarcastically: "Mr. Li, you were once the king of Yunnan, when do you plan to return to Kunming, the provincial capital?" "
Li Mi did not get angry after hearing this, and he turned to reporters and said: "To tell you the truth, 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 key is to see if I want to do it or not. ”
In 1970, after the appearance of the Thai royal family and the personal recruitment of King Rama IX of Thailand 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 and enjoyed the same treatment as the Thai army and their families.