In order to protect the drug production base, drug lords have formed armed groups with thousands of soldiers. This economically backward, impoverished place, with little education to speak of, is full of murderous and mysterious people, and has long been active in many anti-government and other drug forces. Among the many large and large drug cartels, there are three forces that play a major role.
The first force was the remnants of the Chinese Nationalist Army. In the early 50s of the 20th century, the Kuomintang army in Chinese mainland collapsed, and the 709th Regiment of the 237th Division of the 8th Army of the Kuomintang escaped from the pursuit of the People's Liberation Army, and under the leadership of the regiment commander Li Guohui, it entered Myanmar from the southwestern border of China, and joined up with the 278th Regiment of the 93rd Division of the 26th Army, another remnant of the Kuomintang army, in an unknown cottage in the important town of Tachili, Burma. The two remnants of the army combined were more than 1,500 people. Subsequently, they announced the establishment of the "Rejuvenation Force," with Li Guohui as the commander-in-chief of the "Rejuvenation Force" and head of the 709th Regiment, and Tan Zhong, the head of the 278th Regiment, as the deputy commander-in-chief.
Soon, Li Mi, the commander of the 8th Army of the Kuomintang who had fled to Taiwan, came to the Golden Triangle on the orders of Chiang Kai-shek, took over and reorganized this army, revoked the original "Revival Force" number, and established the "Yunnan Anti-Communist National Salvation Army", he announced that the 709th Regiment would be reorganized into the 193rd Division, with Li Guohui as the division commander, and Tan Zhong's 278th Regiment would be reorganized into the 93rd Division, with Peng Cheng as the division commander, and the two divisions would be combined into the 26th Army. At one point, this remnant army grew to 18,000 men.
At that time, in order to survive, the remnants of the army divided the troops into four: one part was about 500 people, responsible for drills, mainly technical soldiers, such as combat backbones, radio liaisons, gunners, machine gunners, etc.; The second part is about 600 people, engaged in business, and the project includes selling opium, timber, and mountain goods, raising funds, and then transporting salt, food, medicine, cloth, guns and ammunition and other materials from outside the mountain back to the base camp; the third part of the reclamation of cultivated land; The fourth part is responsible for liaising with the outside world and recruiting and expanding the team.
With decades of experience as professional soldiers, they have merged with millions of Chinese in the Golden Triangle and gradually emerged as the most powerful armed group in the Golden Triangle. They were involved in the caravan transportation industry, trafficking opium to the Thai-Lao border in exchange for money, and later Chiang Kai-shek sent people to co-opt them and withdraw them to Taiwan, many of whom refused to go to Taiwan and stayed in the Golden Triangle to continue armed opium trafficking. Among them, the most famous is Zhang Suquan, an officer of the remnants of the Kuomintang army, a graduate of the late stage of the Kuomintang Whampoa Military Academy, who did not show any military genius in the battle with the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and can be said to be a general of the defeated army, but after the Golden Triangle defected to the local drug lord Kunsha, he became a man of the year in the Golden Triangle, known as "the great talent", gave full play to his "talent", and his traditional Chinese strategy culture was vividly used in the Golden Triangle. He helped Khun Sa stop the Burmese army's encirclement and suppression several times, and designed to use public opinion propaganda to rescue Khun Sa from prison, and finally helped Khun Sa establish the so-called "Shan State", and at the same time trained a Shan army capable of fighting for the "Shan State".
It was under the support and drive of this group of remnants that the most prestigious "opium warlords" in the Golden Triangle grew up among the descendants of Chinese descent. In the conflict and combination of various forces, in the encirclement and suppression battles with the government forces of Burma, Thailand, and Laos, in order to compete for spheres of influence and make opium trafficking more profitable, they launched a decades-long struggle for hegemony with other drug trafficking forces.
The second force in the Golden Triangle is the armed drug cartel of Khun Sa, a descendant of Tusi in Myanmar's Shan State. Myanmar is a multi-ethnic country. Historically, the administration of the Burmese dynasty was loose, and there was no unified administrative body across the country. The Shan are the second largest ethnic group in Myanmar, accounting for 20% of the country's population, about 6 million people, and live mainly in the Shan highlands. Historically, the Burmese have established a unified dynasty three times and fought against ethnic minority states such as the Shan, thus leaving a legacy of grievances and estrangement in history. The cottages inhabited by the Shan State are held by hereditary chiefs, known as Tusi, who maintain their independence from the central government, which often has only a superficial rule over these areas. In order to maintain their hereditary status, the Tusi supported the establishment of a strong and unified state on the one hand, and on the other hand, they continued to develop their own private power and establish their own armed forces to protect their families.
Kun Sha established his own drug kingdom in the Golden Triangle, not only has a huge private armed force, equipped with advanced weapons and equipment, but he also summed up the lessons of the first generation of drug lord Luo Xinghan in the Golden Triangle: In the early days, the horse gangs trafficked opium, traveled long distances, and hundreds of cattle carried dozens of tons of opium at most. Therefore, he firmly grasped the two most profitable links - processing and transportation, and imported a batch of chemicals and instruments needed to process and refine heroin, and established more than a dozen heroin processing factories in the high mountains and dense forests near his base camp Manxingdie. His high-purity heroin satisfies the tastes of Western addicts, making them addicted, so the reputation of the Golden Triangle has been greatly enhanced, and heroin has been continuously produced, reaching the scale of providing 50 tons to the outside world every month, and at the same time, the concentrated heroin is lightweight, small in size, and easy to transport, saving the pain of complicated transportation, which makes Kun Sha enough money.
Kun Sha used this money to vigorously develop the armed forces, and once had a force of more than 20,000 people, in addition to being equipped with conventional American-made M16 assault rifles, he also purchased Soviet-made Sam surface-to-air missiles and helicopters through the underworld. Under the conspiracy and planning of Zhang Suquan, he deceived people's minds, concealed people's eyes, and confused the public, described the criminal drug trafficking activities as fighting for the national independence of Shan State, and renamed his own private drug trafficking armed forces as the "Shan State Revolutionary Army" until the so-called "Shan State" was established in 1993, and Khun Sha appointed himself as the "president" of the Shan State.
Luo Xinghan
The third drug lord force in the Golden Triangle is the "opium general" Luo Xinghan.
Luo Xinghan was the first big drug lord in the Golden Triangle, and his drug cartel established the first drug dynasty in the Golden Triangle, making the Golden Triangle a world-famous drug cave and giving birth to the next bigger Kunsha drug cartel.
The Luo Xinghan family has lived in Kokang County, Shan State, Myanmar, since their great-grandfather. He himself is of authentic Chinese descent. The Luo family is a large family in the local area, the richest man in the village, and his father is called Luo Si Boss and has four sons. This person is good at business and collecting money, and belongs to the "dynasty" generation in the Luo family, and there are many prominent local figures among his peers, such as: Luo Chaozhong, a graduate of the Yunnan "Cadre Repair Group" during the Kuomintang period; Luo Chaoxiang, director of the Kokang County Education Bureau; Luo Chaodong, the commander of the Kuomintang regiment during the Anti-Japanese War. Luo Xinghan belongs to the "Xing" generation, and most of his cousins and sisters studied in Taiwan, and most of them stayed in Taiwan. Luo Xinghan's youngest sister, Luo Xingju, moved from Myanmar to Taiwan in 1981 and has been living there ever since.
Generations of men in the Luo family have liked to study in China and become officials, and they identify with Chinese culture very much.
In the late 40s of the 20th century, the remnants of the Kuomintang retreated from Chinese mainland to areas where Burmese ethnic minorities were concentrated, acting as bodyguards to help local opium growers transport drugs to Thailand and other countries in exchange for gold, so as to obtain a considerable income to maintain military expenses. At that time, Luo Xinghan joined the remnants of the army as a squad leader, accumulating a lot of money for himself in opium trafficking, and at the same time enriching his experience as a drug lord in the future.
Luo Xinghan is quite scheming in drug trafficking. He was extremely sociable, and most of the important government officials of Thailand, Burma, and Laos, as well as officials of the military, customs, postal services, courts, and other departments, bribed him with money, and established a huge network of connections. His opium business was not only in the Golden Triangle, but also in Bangkok, Yangon, Singapore, and Malaysia. Although the composition of the Luo Jia Army he established was complex, it was well-armed and had strong combat effectiveness, and even the regular army of the Burmese government did not dare to take it lightly.
In this way, Luo Xinghan slowly developed and became a "role model" for other drug warlords to follow, and in the 60s of the 20th century, people called Luo Xinghan the "king of the opium trade".
The Golden Triangle is full of beautiful and wicked poppies, like groups of rich, fruitful, and seductive prostitutes, spreading wildly to the world. Drugs have eroded the body and mind of healthy people, and how many people have lost their families, lost their dignity, and degenerated into crime. Drug abuse and drug trafficking have become a major public nuisance in the world today, causing the whole world to be at peace. The Golden Triangle is known as one of the top three drug producing areas in the world today.
It is in this wild land full of mysteries that the above three armed drug trafficking groups use each other and kill each other in order to obtain huge profits.