The Burmese government army does not have a regiment-level organization. The government army is divided into major military regions and several mobile divisions. Directly below the division level is the battalion level, and a battalion has about 2,100 people.
In terms of numbers, a battalion of the Myanmar government army is roughly equivalent to a regiment of the Chinese army.
As a main battalion under the Northern Military Region of the Myanmar government army, Karong has been stationed in Myitkyina, Kachin State for the past two years. Peng Jiasheng, the Kokang king who was particularly noisy in the 1960s and 1970s, suddenly retired in the late 1970s. The entire Kachin army was leaderless, so the government army easily controlled most of Kachin State.
However, what was unexpected was that the Kokang King, who had been in seclusion for several years, suddenly made a comeback and rose strongly in a very short period of time. Not only did he unite the scattered Kachin Army into a fist, but he also equipped himself with advanced weapons that he got from nowhere, and defeated the government army.
In the mountainous and forested terrain of northern Myanmar, the number of troops is no longer a key factor in determining a war. Before Peng Jiasheng rose again, the entire Kachin State was garrisoned with more than 50,000 troops, and in Myitkyina alone there were ten battalions with a total of more than 20,000 troops stationed.
But even in this situation, Peng Jiasheng only used a small elite suicide squad of about ten people to directly wipe out the Northeast Military Region Command of the government forces stationed in Myitkyina.
As a result, the 20,000-strong army in Myitkyina immediately became a mess after losing its highest command structure, and was driven out of Myitkyina in one fell swoop by the Kachin Army, which had only a few thousand men. Among them, the main force of Chiron was swept away by the defeated army and retreated again and again...
For a professional soldier, this inexplicable failure was the greatest shame for Chiron.
When the defeated army gained a foothold after retreating hundreds of kilometers, Chiron led his men to launch a counterattack against the Kachin Army. However, although the Kachin Army was small in number, they had the advantage of geographical location. Using the narrow terrain, the Kachin Army only needed a few hundred people to block the counterattack of thousands of government troops.
There are many strategic locations in northern Myanmar where one man can block the passage of ten thousand. As long as the Kachin Army occupies these strategic locations, the government army will be helpless no matter how large its number is.
In this situation, Chirong proposed to go north along the Chindwin River from the west, and then raid Mogang controlled by the Kachin Army via the Wulu River.
This plan seemed like a good one, but it was actually very difficult to implement. The western route was not as easy to travel as the central and eastern routes. In the 1980s, there were almost no roads on both sides of the Chindwin River. Although the government army could mobilize only a dozen or so inland gunboats, these 30-ton small gunboats could not carry many people.
If Chiron's troops wanted to follow the gunboats all the way north, they would need to forcibly open up a path through the primitive jungle and the mountains.
This was a very dangerous and difficult task. The straight-line distance from the small town of Griwa where the government troops boarded the ship to Hong Malin was more than 200 kilometers, and there was almost no man's land in between. In addition, the water volume of the Chindwin River in September was still very high. It was no exaggeration to say that advancing 200 kilometers under such conditions was basically equivalent to committing suicide.
There is no road on the west front that no one has ever taken! This is something that the Kachin Army knows, so the Kachin Army does not set up defenses in the west at all.
There is no need to set up defenses at all, as nature has already set up the best line of defense for the Kachin Army.
Chiron certainly knew that this route was difficult, but since he proposed this method, he had already thought of a way to deal with it.
Chiron's method of opening up a route from the west was simple and crude. After all, he was a government army, so Chiron directly asked his superiors for more than 300 elephants and used the elephants to open a path through the jungle.
With elephants clearing the way on land and gunboats transporting supplies along the river, Chiron's main force made smooth progress on the western front. Although it took them more than half a month to travel the 200-kilometer distance from Griwa to Honmarin, they opened up a road from south to north, which was of great strategic significance.
In the 1980s, Hongmalin was just a small village, far from the important town in northern Sagaing State thirty years later. After Chiron's troops arrived at Hongmalin, they only made some repairs and replenished their supplies before following the gunboats eastward.
After arriving at the Wulu River, it is relatively easy to walk on both sides of the river, because some jade mine owners will transport the jade raw stones from here to Hongmalin, and then send them from Hongmalin to Yangon by boat, so there are still dirt roads to walk on here.
In this way, Chiron's troops walked along the Wulu River for three days, covering the distance of about 100 kilometers, and then took advantage of the cover of night to directly raid the Damukan mining area.
The battle at Mogedie Mine was going smoothly. The warehouse area of the mine with Mogedie Mine as the center was located not far from the south bank of Wulu River. The heavy firepower on the gunboats could easily attack the warehouse area. Especially the two 37mm dual-purpose guns, which were simply unstoppable weapons here.
Chiron knew very well that once the battle here started, the Hangba camp on the other side of Yuewan Mountain would definitely know about it. So Chiron adhered to the principle of speed of action and while leaving behind a few gunboats and hundreds of soldiers to continue the encirclement of the Mogedie camp, he led the main force to advance quickly, striving to capture the camp before the Hangba camp could react.
After all, this is a jade mining area. Although there are big pits everywhere, there are also roads everywhere - whether it is using elephants to transport jade raw stones or using people to transport jade raw stones, roads are needed.
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