Beginning in March 1944, the New 1st Army of Sun Liren's Department, trained by General Stilwell at the Ramga base in India, in accordance with the training method of the US army, was full of American equipment, attacked by tanks and armored vehicles, and opened the way through the arduous Hukang Valley, the Menggong Valley and the Battle of Myitkyina, opening up the passage from India to Burma. The US 45th Engineer Corps, the 823rd Aviation Engineering Battalion, and the 10th Regiment of Engineers of the Chinese Army in India, which were closely followed by the front-line troops, overcame many difficulties and small groups of Japanese troops to build the "Sino-Indian Highway".
The road sign on the Stilwell Highway is 1079 km from Lieduo to Kunming
In January 1945, the "China-India Highway" was successfully opened. From the Indian border town of Ledo, through Myitkyina, Myanmar, it is connected to the Burma Highway in two lines, north and south. Officially opened to traffic on January 15, Chiang Kai-shek announced at the ceremony: "We have broken the enemy's encirclement of China. Allow me to take Joseph. General Stilwell named the road in honor of his outstanding contributions, to the allied forces under his command and the Chinese army in the Burma campaign and in the construction of the road."
Schematic of the Stilwell Highway
Judging from the origin of the name of the Stilwell Highway, the Stilwell Highway that began refers to the southern line connecting from Ledo in India to Myitkyina in Myanmar, and then through the Monkey Bridge Port on the Border between China and Myanmar to Tengchong in China, longling to the northern line of the Burma Highway and the Myitkyina branch through Myanmar, via Bamo and Nankan to the Chinese Town and the Burma Highway.
On January 27, 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force and the Chinese Garrison in India met in the victory division of Muangyou in Burma, marched south, and on March 30, conquered Qiao Mei, joined the British army division, recaptured Burma, and completely opened the Burma Road.
Since then, international anti-war materials aiding China have been transported from the port of Calcutta in India to Ledo on the India-Burma border, to the Yunnan-Burma Highway via the China-India Highway, or from Burma to Kunming via the Yunnan-Burma Highway, and then to Guiyang via the Dianqian Highway, and then transported from the Chuanqian Highway to Chongqing or to Hechi via the Qiangui Highway, and then to the anti-Japanese battlefields throughout the country by the Xianggui Railway. In addition, there is also an important transportation route, that is, through the China-India Highway and the Yunnan Burma Highway to Yunnan Xiangyun Xiazhuang, then to Xichang by Xixiang Highway, and then from Xichang to Leshan via Lexi Highway to Chengdu.
Mileage cards
The "Stilwell Highway" was later extended and expanded, and did not refer specifically to a certain highway, but constituted a general highway system. Here it is necessary to expand on the construction of the roads that make up this so-called "lifeline of the War of Resistance.".
1. The earliest construction was the Dianqian Highway. In January 1929, In order to change the situation that Yunnan's modern transportation "passes abroad and does not go to China", but the external traffic is controlled by the French, Wang Longyun of Yunnan decided to build the Dianqian Section of the Dianqian Highway. Construction began immediately that month. By the end of March 1937, the road section from Kunming to Panxian in Guizhou was completed, and the road from Guiyang to Panxian was connected, and the Dianqian Highway was officially completed. The Dian section starts from Kunming East Station and passes through Songming Yanglin Town, Malong, Qujing, Zhanyi, and Pingyi (present-day Fuyuan County) to Pan County, Guizhou Province, with a mileage of 313.7 kilometers. It ended the history of Yunnan going to the mainland first to go abroad through Vietnam and bypass Hong Kong.
Panjiang Bridge of the Yunnan-Qianqian Line Control Project
2. Yunnan Burma Highway. After the outbreak of the "July 7 Incident", in August 1937, Chiang Kai-shek held a national defense conference in Nanjing. Long Yun, chairman of Yunnan Province, took the initiative to propose to Chiang Kai-shek that Yunnan send 200,000 troops to attack the anti-Japanese front. It was suggested that the Japanese army might cut off China's international communication lines, and the international transportation of Hong Kong and Vietnam would inevitably be affected, and proposed the "Plan for Building the Yunnan Burma Highway and the Yunnan Burma Railway" to ensure the smooth flow of foreign traffic in the southwest. At the meeting, Long Yun said: The highway is responsible for the local government and the central government subsidizes; the railway is under the responsibility of the central government, and the local government of Yunnan assists in the construction.
On November 2, 1937, the Nationalist government officially ordered Long Yun to allocate 2 million yuan by the Executive Yuan to be responsible for building the Yunnan Burma Highway and opening up international transportation lines within a one-year period. Concerning the future of national defense, military defense and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Yunnan Provincial Government did not dare to slacken off, and adopted the method of mobilization in an "extraordinary period" to order the counties along the road and the establishment of administrative bureaus to requisition peasants from all counties in western Yunnan to build roads voluntarily in December, which must be completed within one year. The construction of the highway adopts the method of "unified survey, local work, sectional construction, and county and township contracting", and the responsibility is passed through the county and township. According to reports, the county magistrates who passed by the highway at the time all received an urgent order from the Yunnan Provincial Government to "chicken feather letters", and at the same time received a pair of handcuffs, ordering: The county project was completed within the time limit, otherwise the county magistrate would wear handcuffs to Kunming to listen to the punishment.
Military vehicles on the Burma Road
Beginning in November 1937, 200,000 people of all ethnic groups in 12 counties encamped thousands of miles with their own rations and luggage, braved miasma, split mountains and opened roads, and sacrificed 2,000 or 3,000 lives with the blood of serving the country. The Yunnan Burma Highway starts in Kunming and ends in Lashio, Myanmar, with a total length of 1146.1 km, a total length of 959.4 km in Yunnan and 186.7 km in Myanmar. In December 1937, the construction of the Burma Highway was officially started. At the end of August 1938, after nine months of hard work, the Burma Highway was finally completed and opened to traffic ahead of schedule.
3. Lexi Highway. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, the then Nationalist government moved its capital to Chongqing. In August 1938, the international passage yunnan burma highway was opened to traffic, but the materials entering Sichuan, especially the wartime capital Chongqing, had to detour through Guizhou, so the construction of the Lexi Highway could be used as the most direct passage from Sichuan to the Burma international highway, known as the "second lifeline of the War of Resistance". There was another more important reason: Chiang Kai-shek had such a plan in those years, if the Japanese army invaded Chongqing and the capital was lost, the Nationalist government would move the capital to Xichang again. (At the beginning of 1939, the Kuomintang Central Committee set up the "Chairman of the Military Commission of the National Government, Xichang Xingyuan", in Xichang, to make advance preparations for the relocation of the capital again.) If Xichang also fell, he would transfer to India as a government-in-exile. Therefore, the government issued a death order that the Lexi Highway must be completed within 1940, and Chiang Kai-shek urged him six times, otherwise he would be punished as a delay in military aircraft.
The Lexi Highway starts from Leshan County, Sichuan Province, crosses the Tsing Yi River, passes through Emei and Longchi, then follows the Dadu River through Xinchang, Jinkou River, circumnavigates The Yiling Mountains, reaches Yanwogou, enters Xikang Province, reaches Hanyuan County in the southwest, and reaches asbestos along the Dadu River; continues south through Mianning and Lugu, and ends in Xichang, Xikang Province, and its end point is connected with Xixiang Highway, with a total distance of 525 kilometers. Under extremely difficult conditions, it struggled for three years and was completed and opened to traffic in 1942.
4. Xixiang Highway. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the war in the Far East, the Americans believed that the Stilwell Highway would extend eastward to Guiyang and then to Chongqing. Another one was opened to chengdu via Xichang and Ya'an in the north to transport aid to China to support China's northwest and north China battlefields. Therefore, at the same time as the construction of the Burma Highway, the Americans urged China to renovate the Yunnan Highway and build the Xixiang Highway.
Construction of the Xixiang Highway began in November 1940 and was opened to traffic in May of the following year. Xixiang Highway starts in Xichang and ends in Xiangyunxiazhuang, Yunnan, with a total length of 548 kilometers, 260 kilometers in Sichuan and 288 kilometers in Yunnan. From the Ferry Port of Laqi Village on the Jinsha River in Panzhihua, the Yunnan Highway Line passes through the four counties of Yongren, Dayao, Yao'an and Xiangyun (special note: not through Nanhua), and intersects with the Burma Highway on Xiazhuang Street.
Stilwell inspects the Chinese troops in India
Joseph. General Stilwell was appointed Allied commander-in-chief of the Far East Theater of Operations in China, India, and Burma. Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese Army appointed by Chiang Kai-shek. The core of the struggle between the Allied forces and the Japanese army in commanding all military operations in this theater is the "lifeline of the War of Resistance" composed of these roads above. According to its importance, it is clear that the US military should dominate the management of the road and the distribution of transportation materials. Soldiers and soldiers, journalists and citizens of Britain and the United States are not in the mood to distinguish between the China-India, Burma, Dianqian, Chuanqian Highways and the Xixiang and Lexi Highways on the Northern Front, and in their opinion, all these routes are two names, the front one is called "Stilwell Highway" (or Burmese Highway, the back is called "Stilwell North Line").
American Pictorial Stilwell Highway Sign 24 turns
In the propaganda tools and road signs along the line dominated by the United States and Britain, all the roads from India's Liedo to Kunming are called "Stilwell Highway", Kunming to Chongqing via Guiyang is called "Stilwell Highway Extension", and Xiangyun Xiazhuang is called "Stilwell Highway North Line" via Xichang, and is basically recorded in newspapers, magazines, and photos. Chinese the information recorded by themselves is very small and very incomplete, so when it comes to the "Stilwell Highway", modern Chinese is basically based on various materials in the United States at that time, and the viewpoint of these materials is the rough understanding of the United States and Britain, so that the Concept of "Stilwell Highway" is blurred by the Chinese people.
The map shows the odometer of the roads of Liedo, Stilwell, myanmar
The most representative is the 24-lane turn, located 1 km southwest of the county seat of Qinglong County, Guizhou, which has been looking for it on the Burma Highway until 2004, when a serious and dedicated researcher of Chinese World War II history released his own research results, claiming that many parties were looking for the location of the "24 Turns" photo, but found it in the suburbs of Qinglong County, Guizhou Province. The Stilwell highway sign on the American photo is not in Yunnan, but in Guizhou, thus correcting the fallacy of the "24 Turns" on the Burma Road for fifty-seven years.
Stilwell Highway Sign 24 Turns
Another point is that there is a Stilwell Highway in Yunnan Province, a Stilwell Highway in Guizhou Province, and a Stilwell Highway in Sichuan Province, and each of them is proud of it and does not want to see each other, and has established many isolated "Stilwell Highway Museums". In fact, from the perspective of historical evolution, they are all a highway system, which is called "the lifeline of China's War of Resistance", which can be generally called "Stilwell Highway".