"Forging Knives" is a war drama directed by Zeng Hui and starring Pu Bajia and Xu Monk. The TV series mainly tells the story of the Anti-Japanese War (September 18, 1931 to September 2, 1945) when the Kuomintang 60th Army (Dian Army) went out to resist the Japanese and assisted the Chinese Expeditionary Force in the counter-offensive of Western Yunnan.
In the TV series "Forged Knife", in addition to the medium and formal rifles and Czech-style light machine guns, the equipment of the Dian Army also has Thomson submachine guns, Stern submachine guns, M3 submachine guns, Bobosha submachine guns, etc., which is indeed a bit exaggerated. However, although the historical Dian Army did not have such good weapons and equipment as in the TV series, it was not much worse, and the weapons and equipment in the hands of the Dian Army at that time were better than those of Chiang Kai-shek's Central Army.
The Fact that the Dian Army had such a good weapon in its hands showed that the Dian Army was very rich, otherwise there would be no money to buy such a good weapon. So where did all this money for weapons come from? Here we have to mention one person, he is Tang Jiyao.
Tang Jiyao
It should be known that Yunnan's land is barren and its transportation is backward, and its financial resources and force are obviously unable to meet the poor soldiers of warlords and warlords. In response to this situation, Tang Jiyao came up with many ways to get money, the most effective of which was drug trafficking.
Because most of the land and climate in Yunnan Province are particularly suitable for poppy cultivation, the quality of the opium produced is comparable to that of the finest opium in India, Iran, Turkey and other places. Tang Jiyao not only let the Dian army carry opium to pay the army, but also put forward the slogan of "forbidden to be conscripted" and forcibly formulated the area of opium cultivation in various counties. County chiefs who fail to complete their tasks will be punished, and county chiefs who exceed their quotas will be rewarded.
In order not to let the huge profits brought by drugs fall into the hands of businessmen, Tang Jiyao also set up a coordination office in the name of anti-smoking, directly monopolizing the drug trade in Yunnan Province. The drug trade led to the rapid development of Tang Jiyao's Dian army, and the best-selling of tobacco soil allowed a large amount of southeast wealth to be gathered in the hands of Yunnan warlords, who then bought new weapons from the French army.