Draft:Battle of Mongkawng and Tachileik

Battle of Mongkawng and Tachileik
Part of Kuomintang in Burma
Date June 16 - August 23, 1950 Location Mongkawng and Tachileik, Union of Burma Result KMT victory
Belligerents
Republic of China Kuomintang in Burma	Union of Burma Myanmar Army
Commanders and leaders
Li Guohui Tan Zhong	Ne Win
Strength
~3,500	20,000
Casualties and losses
408 killed 602 injured	~1,500 killed ~3,000 injured 302 POWs

The Battle of Mongkawng and Tachileik was a 1950 battle between the Union of Burma and the KMT forces stationed in the towns of Mongkawng and Tachileik, which resulted in the KMT defeating the Burmese army, causing the issue of the KMT in Burma to attract the attention of various countries.

Background

In December 1949, Yunnan Provincial Chairman Lu Han defected to the CCP and detained Li Mi, Commander of the 8th Army, and Yu Chengwan, Commander of the 26th Army, and forced them to join the Communist Party. After the 26th Army and the 8th Army learned that the two were detained, they besieged Kunming. The defecting troops (which included the 74th Army and 93rd Army) were defeated.Li Mi and Yu Chengwan were later successively released.

After Yu Chengwan was released, he led the 26th Army to retreat to French Indochina. Li Mi also led the 8th Army to retreat to western Yunnan. The 8th Army was overtaken by the People's Liberation Army at Yuanjiang on the China-Myanmar border. After a fierce battle, the 60,000-strong army led by Li Mi was almost annihilated by the People's Liberation Army. Later, Li Mi arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, and then flew from Bangkok to Taiwan.

Li Kuo-hui, the commander of the 709th Regiment of the 237th Division of the 8th Army, led more than 600 remnant troops from Ximeng, Yunnan into Myanmar. They met with more than 800 people from Tan Zhong of the 278th Regiment of the 93rd Division of the 26th Army in Mong Pawn on the border of Myanmar (The 278th Regiment separated from the main force of the 26th Army and retreated into Myanmar on their own, led by deputy commander Tan Zhong). These national army troops who retreated into Myanmar were then called "lone armies".

Battle

On February 28, 1950, the lone army came to Myanmar. Mong Pawn and Mongkawng, a small town near Tachileik, which was an important town in northern Myanmar, recuperated on the spot and recruited new blood. Within two months, they would The force was expanded to 3,500 men and renamed the "Fuxing Corps".

The Myanmar government regarded the Lone Army as a threat. Although the Lone Army told the Burmese government that it would wait for an opportunity to counterattack the mainland and had no ambition to invade Myanmar's territory, the Burmese still asked the Lone Army to withdraw from Myanmar before April 30, but Li Kuo-hui ignored it. In Kengtung, near Mongkawng and Tachileik, two Myanmar Army regiments had been stationed, and one of the regiments had already entered Tachileik. The Burmese army believed that the main facilitators of the lone army were local overseas Chinese, so hundreds of overseas Chinese were falsely accused of possessing weapons and arrested by the Burmese army.  The three parties held negotiations on June 3. However, Myanmar detained Ding Zuoshao, the negotiator of the Lone Force, and Ma Dingchen, the overseas Chinese representative of Tachileik. On June 8, the Burmese side issued an ultimatum to Li Kuo-hui to withdraw from Myanmar immediately, otherwise force would be used. The Burmese also detained 1,700 Chinese residents of Kengtung to prevent them from assisting the KMT. Li Kuo-hui demanded the release of the KMT negotiators and the Chinese residents, and asked the Burmese army not to enter Tachileik, but they refused.

On June 16, six bombers of the Burmese army attacked the KMT position in the Mongkawng area, with the Chinese suffered heavy casualties. Li Kuo-hui ordered the army to abandon the position and retreat into the primitive jungle. The Burmese army still did not give up and dispatched 10,000 mountain-searching troops into the jungle in an attempt to eliminate them in one go, with another 10,000 troops being dispatched to block the jungle exit. In the end, the KMT managed to exhaust the Burmese army and drive them out.

On June 28, the KMT turned from defense to attack and made a surprise attack on the Burmese artillery position. They captured 10 Burmese artillery pieces and used the captured artillery to fight back, with the Burmese army retreating. The lone army pursued them and recaptured Mong Pawn and Mongkawng, and captured Tachileik. The KMT forces even managed to shoot down the plane of the Commander-in-Chief of the Burmese Air Force, which shocked many countries. Myanmar was then forced to negotiate peace with the Nationalists. The KMT withdrew from Tachileik on August 23 and moved into the mountains to quell the dispute.

See also

• Kuomintang in Burma
• 1960–61 campaign at the China–Burma border
• A Home Too Far (1990 Taiwanese film)

External Links

• "泰北孤軍—他們的故事". 清淨社區營造網. 2011-05-22. Archived from the original on 2022-08-14. Retrieved 2022-12-15.

References

Category:Battles involving Myanmar Category:1950 in Southeast Asia Category:Chinese Civil WarCategory:KuomintangCategory:Union of BurmaCategory:Kuomintang in Burma