Chapter 26 bad luck alone

The 20 years of Misler's miserable operation still presents us with a scene of extreme misery. However, it is embarrassing to think about the hardships of surmounting the thorns and thorns when the solitary army first set up camp 20 years ago.An old military officer of my age told me when recalling the past: "When we first came, there were tigers in Maesle." Twenty years ago, Maesle was a small village of the Riso tribe, with only a few families.The kindest and most obedient ethnic minorities in the world seem to be concentrated in the Thai-Myanmar border region. They are so gentle and hospitable.Like the Indians who welcomed whites with open arms, the Risos welcomed lone soldiers with open arms.The main reason why General Duan Xiwen chose Maesle as his stronghold was that it was condescending and strangled the mountains and passes.The Riso tribe was luckier than the Indians. The lone army did not deceive them, kill them, or expel them, and asked to settle with them.But there is still a conflict, that is, a tomb of the great chief of the Lisuo tribe stands in the middle of the road that the solitary army is going to build. It is ten thousand times more difficult to change the road in the mountainous area than on the flat land. You only need to turn a corner on the flat land, and the mountainous area will turn over again a hill.The Lisuo people from nearby villages gathered around the bamboo fence of the big tomb, singing and dancing.Negotiating with them alone, for a nation that worships ancestors, negotiating and digging graves, of course, has no results.In the end, the lone army begged for tricks and threatened not to build roads. On the night when the Lisuo people scattered and returned home, they shoveled half of the tombs, and then surrounded them with bamboo fences.The next day, when the Lisuo tribe came to inspect, they walked away with half-belief.The old military officer has been guilty of twenty years for this matter, because the Chinese are also a nation that worships their ancestors.

From Chiang Rai to Niang?There is an asphalt road, but there is only a dirt road from Bashan to Maesle. When I went to Maesle, I saw the Thai government building a permanent bridge along the way.After ordinary vehicles arrive at Bashan, they must take a high-chassis vehicle suitable for mountain climbing (the chassis is too low, like a car on the streets of Taipei, and the rotating shaft will be broken by stones on the road). During the rainy season in northern Thailand from May to October, tires The chain must be added so that it will not slide down the muddy and ankle-deep steep road like an egg scooped out of a frying pan with chopsticks.In the dry season, the road becomes a censer, and every vehicle brings up dust that covers the sky.

This kind of traffic situation is only a matter of the last five or six years.The lone army spent thirteen or fourteen years in Messler, almost completely isolated from the outside world.Building a camp requires materials. Every brick, tile, nail and hammer must be transported from Chiang Rai to Bashan by car, and then carried to the village by mules and horses.It takes only two hours to drive from Bashan to Mesle now, but it took a whole day or two to walk across the mountains and streams in those days.Messler has been in business for 20 years under this kind of accumulation. People attribute it to General Duan Xiwen’s firmness. He lives in Messler and truly "shares the joys and sorrows with the soldiers" (this kind of slogan is easier to shout than yawn , We have heard too much, enough to callus our ears, but how many of them do it?) General Duan Xiwen has changed from a purely military general to the common parent of the lone army and the villagers living with the lone army. Isn’t that true? It is not caused by force, but by people's sincerity.

Although Maesle gradually stabilized, the predicament of the lone army deepened day by day.The Burmese bases have all fallen. The goal of more than ten years of bloody battles has not been achieved, but has become farther and farther away. It is still in other people's territory, cramped in the northern Thai border area. What will happen tomorrow?Where will it go next?No one knows, the future is bleak.The remnant army, mainly in Mesle, where the headquarters is located, is waiting for food.Under strong international pressure, Taiwan's supplies could no longer continue, and the number of troops, along with the large number of caravans who had defected to - the lone army retreated for the second time, disintegrated the Burmese Communist Party, and sent the Burmese government troops from the eastern mountains of Burma ("Shan State") ") drove away, took over the original line of defense of the lone army, the business was cut off, the road was sparsely populated, and the armed trade caravans and caravans that traveled between China and Thailand for hundreds of years finally disappeared. They had to retreat to the northern Thai border area the lone army.There are also an endless stream of Chinese refugees escaping from China, from Myanmar, and from Laos.Coupled with the gradual growth of the new generation of the lonely army, coupled with the attachment of ethnic minorities.As a result, the lone army expanded at a geometric progression like a snowball.From our point of view, Maesle is already a "front defense", but for the Maesle Five Army Command, "front defense" refers to the strongholds in the Changkong and Changkan areas.The three armies cannot be concentrated in a small village in Tangwo, nor can the five armies be concentrated in a small village in Mesle. They spread out in a fan shape and echo each other.Not only the number of people has increased, but also the existing and newly emerging illegal groups in the local area, the armed forces called "transformers" by the Thai government; like the Thai Communist Party, the Miao Communist Party, and independent copycats, because the lone army hindered them, they It also regards the lone army as a deadly enemy.Under such pressure, the lone army had no choice but to fight back.Although the lone army was broken, perhaps because the opponent was even worse, the lone army was victorious on the battlefield.With successive victories, the stronghold and defense line gradually expanded, reaching the border of Laos.

As the lone army expands, it also ambushes the seeds of destruction. Just like the times, the fruit of victory is not triumph, but greater setbacks.When they had just set up a bamboo house in northern Thailand, had just connected the mountain stream water several kilometers away to the storage pool with bamboo tubes, and had just established a satellite base, that is, they had just licked their wounds and breathed a sigh of relief. , the Thai government has always been indifferent, and the attitude of treating each other in harmony suddenly changed.The Supreme Command gave the lone army a stern order to choose one of the following two actions: withdraw from Thailand, or disarm.