Ming dynasty Tai history

During the Ming dynasty in China attempts were made to subjugate, control, tax, and settle ethnic Chinese along the lightly populated frontier of Yunnan with Southeast Asia . This frontier region was inhabited by many small chieftainships or states as well as other Tibeto-Burman and Mon-Khmer ethnic groups.

The Ming Shi-lu records the relations between the Ming court in Beijing and the Tai-Yunnan frontier as well as Ming military actions and diplomacy along the frontier.

First Ming communication with Yunnan

The first communication between the Ming dynasty and Yunnan was in a formal "letter of instruction" using ritual language. Submission to the Ming was described as part of the cosmological order:

"From ancient times, those who have been lords of all under Heaven have looked on that which is covered by Heaven, that which is contained by the Earth and that on which the sun and moon shine, and regardless of whether the place was near or far, or what manner of people they are, there was no place for which they did not wish a peaceful land and a prosperous existence. It is natural that when China is governed peacefully, foreign countries would come and submit ”…I am anxious that, as you are secluded in your distant places, you have not yet heard of my will. Thus, I am sending envoys to go and instruct you, so that you will all know of this" .

Initial Ming attempts to win Yunnan over

The Mongol prince Balaswarmi ruled Yunnan under the Yuan dynasty from the capital in Kunming. He ruled indirectly over an ethnically diverse collection of small polities and chieftainships. The most powerful of these states was controlled by the Tuan family who ruled over the area surrounding .

The Ming Shi-lu reports that envoys were sent to instruct the inhabitants of Yunnan in 1371 . In 1372 the famous scholar Wang Wei offered terms of surrender to Yunnan as an envoy. The envoy Wang Wei was murdered in 1374 and another mission was sent in 1375. Once again the mission failed. A diplomatic mission was sent to Burma in 1374, but because Annam was at war with Champa the roads were blocked and the mission was recalled . By 1380 the Ming were no longer wording their communications as if Yunnan was a separate country . Initial gentle promptings were soon to be followed by military force.

Ming Dynasty military conquests

The Ming Dynasty military conquests were instrumental to its hold on power during the early stages of the Ming Dynasty.

Hongwu reign

Early in his reign, Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor, laid down instructions to later generations that included advice to the Chief Military Commission on those countries which posed a threat to the Ming polity, and those which did not. He stated that those to the north were dangerous, while those to the south did not constitute a threat, and were not to be subject to attack. Yet, either despite this, or as a result of it, it was the polities to the south which were to suffer the greatest effects of Ming expansion over the following century.

In 1369, not long after Zhu Yuanzhang founded his new dynasty, he sent proclamations for the instruction of the countries of Yunnan and Japan. This early recognition of Yunnan as a "country", was to change very soon thereafter. By 1380, Yunnan, which was still held by a prince, was considered to belong to China since the Han dynasty, and 250,000 troops were deployed in an attack on the polity, taking , and Jinchi in 1382. As a result, the Ming founder took control of the major urban centres of the north-western part of what is today Yunnan, including several areas.

By 1387, had set his sights further, and in preparation for an attack on the Baiyi polity to the south. Under the commander Mu Ying, the Ming forces attacked the Baiyi with firearms, taking a claimed 30,000 heads. Si Lunfa was subsequently dunned for all the costs of the military expedition against him, as a ''quid pro quo'' for recognising him as ruler of the Baiyi.

The new polities which were "created" in Yunnan under the first Ming ruler, were known to the Ming as "native offices" , as they were, initially, usually left under the control of the hereditary rulers, by which the Ming exerted control, and engaged in economic expropriation through tribute demands, and other . , for example, was established as a "native office" in 1384. Here, then, was the beginnings of the process by which formerly Southeast Asian polities were gradually absorbed into the Chinese polity.

In the process by which they were gradually absorbed by the Ming, these polities were subjected to a wide range of tribute demands, labour levies, and other levies, including troop provision. As an example, in the case of the Tai-Mao polity of Lu-Chuan/Ping-Mian, the Ming court demanded 15,000 horses, 500 elephants and 30,000 cattle from the ruler Si Lunfa in 1397. Subsequently, large silver demands were levied on Lu-chuan. The annual amount of 6,900 ''liang'' of silver was initially set, and then it was almost tripled to 18,000 ''liang''. When it was realised that this was impossible to meet, the levy was reduced to the original amount. Other diverse levies were applied to the other polities, and enforced through the use or threat of military force.

The Hongwu reign was marked by frequent despatch of envoys to foreign polities, and the court reception of foreign envoys from the polities of Vietnam, Champa, Cambodia, , Cochin, San Foqi, Japan, Ryūkyū, Brunei, and Korea. They were drawn to China by the trade concessions available to tribute envoys, and the rewards given to the rulers who submitted the "tribute". However, the machinations of the Ming state meant that diplomatic links were also a major method by which court insiders, within the system, could gain influence and control. It was the failure to report the arrival of an envoy from Champa that led to Hu Weiyong , the Ming prime minister from 1377 to 1380, being executed on charges of treason. Members of the Ming bureaucracy were likely already heavily involved in Southeast Asian maritime politics by the 1390s.

In the early 1370s, the coastal people in China were forbidden to cross the oceans, other than on official missions. Fujian military officials, who had privately sent people across the seas to engage in trade, were punished not long thereafter. The prohibition was reinstated in 1381 and 1384, and an imperial command "strictly prohibiting people from having contact with foreigners" was promulgated in 1390. The frequency of these prohibitions suggests that they were not very effective, and the reason given for the imperial command was that "at this time in Guangdong/Guangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian, there were foolish people who did not know of these prohibitions, and frequently engaged in private trade with foreigners". The prohibition on going abroad to trade privately was reiterated in 1397. Whether these prohibitions actually affected maritime trade between southern China and Southeast Asia is something which is not immediately apparent from the Ming texts, and perhaps through further , it will be possible to piece together the ebbs and flows in maritime trade between China and Southeast Asia during this period.

Yongle reign

Knowledge of the reign of Ming Taizu's successor, the Jianwen Emperor , has been almost entirely lost to us as a result of the civil war and coup d'etat launched by his uncle, Zhu Di. In the aftermath, Zhu Di tried to eliminate all evidence of his nephew's reign from the historical record. As such, the links between Ming China and Southeast Asia in this crucial period must remain in the realm of conjecture.

The period of Yongle, as Zhu Di was to name his reign, is however, very well-documented, and it is this period in which many of the most dramatic Ming interactions with Southeast Asia occurred. Like his father, after coming to power, Zhu Di ordered the Ministry of Rites to send demands to foreign polities, requiring them to bring tribute to court. In the same year, he also established the Maritime Trade Supervisorates in the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, in order to control the sea trade with all foreign polities. In 1405, hostels were established under each of the above-noted provinces to look after the foreign envoys who came from abroad. It was already apparent at this early stage of the reign that the Yongle Emperor was planning to have much to do with maritime Asia.

At the same time, the new emperor was also anxious to advertise the cultural superiority of the Ming to the rest of the known world and to this end, he distributed 10,000 copies of the "Biographies of Exemplary Women" to various non-Chinese polities for their moral instruction. Whether any s from this Chinese text have appeared in Southeast Asian literature, has not yet, it appears, been studied. Court calendars were also distributed to Southeast Asian polities by the Ministry of Rites.

A number of major military expeditions into Southeast Asia occurred during the Yongle reign. In 1406, in an effort to increase Ming influence and power in ??i Vi?t , the country which was known to the Ming as Annam , the Yongle emperor attempted to send a puppet ruler, named Chen Tianping into that country. Chen Tianping was killed as he proceeded into the country. This became the immediate pretext for Yongle to launch a huge invasion, a move obviously planned well before the event. In that same year, two huge Chinese armies were sent along two routes, via Yunnan and Guangxi, into ??i Vi?t. Chinese forces claimed that seven million Vietnamese were killed in this initial campaign to take the polity. In 1407, ??i Vi?t became Ming China's 14th province, and remained so until 1428, when the Ming were forced to withdraw by a Vietnamese independence movement led by Le Loi. In contrast to the name Annam , this 21-year period was one of almost incessant fighting.

As soon as the Ming forces took control of the polity, changes were instituted. In the first year, 7,600 tradesmen and artisans captured in ??i Vi?t were sent to the Ming capital at today's Nanjing. This stripping of some of the most skilled members of society extensively affected Vietnamese society. Subsequently, more Chinese and non-Chinese troops were brought into the region to maintain some semblance of control, and a wide range of new organs of civil administration were re-established. By 1408, Jiaozhi had 41 subprefectures, and 208 , all administered in a Chinese mode but often staffed by Vietnamese. Regardless of the extent to which political hegemony was thrown off in the late 1420s, when the Ming were driven out, the administrative legacy of the Chinese occupation must have had a major and wide-ranging impact on the society of the country. In a claimed effort to further inculcate Chinese ways, schools, which existed already in ??i Vi?t from several hundred years before, were re-established in Chinese style, and Chinese were appointed to teach in them. In an attempt to assimilate the country into the Chinese cultural sphere, this period saw an invaluable part of Vietnamese academic and historical works destroyed by the Ming authorities.

The year 1407 also saw a new Maritime Trade Supervisorate being established at Yuntun City in Jiaozhi, while two new such offices were established at Xinping and in 1408. Thus, within two years, three maritime trade supervisorates had been created in this new province, the same number as existed in the rest of China. This was a clear indication of the desire of the Ming to control maritime trade to the south, and exploit the economic advantage of such control.

Other economic exploitation involved grain taxes, annual levies of lacquer, sappanwood, kingfisher feathers, fans and aromatics, and the imposition of on gold, silver, salt, iron, and fish. In addition, eunuchs were sent to Jiaozhi with the task of collecting treasure for the Emperor, but an equal amount of treasure collection appears to have been done for themselves. The rapaciousness of the eunuchs, at least as depicted in Ming accounts, was such that even the emperors intervened in appointments. The Hongxi Emperor objected to the re-sending of the eunuch Ma Qi to Jiaozhi, when he attempted to have himself reappointed to control the gold, silver, aromatics and pearls of the region in 1424.

By 1414, the Ming was sufficiently well-entrenched in the north of ??i Vi?t to allow it to push further, establishing four further subprefectures in a region south of Jiaozhi, which had formerly been administered by ??i Vi?t and still free from Chinese influence, as well as some parts of northern border of Champa. There are authors who believe that the Chinese occupation of ??i Vi?t in this period played some role in the later southward expansion of the Vietnamese state. However, the Vietnamese southward expansion had began in the Ly dynasty of ??i Vi?t and the major advances were made by Nguyen Lords at least two centuries later. The levies and demands made on the new province by the Ming meant that its capacity to feed itself suffered. On numerous occasions in the 1420s, it was necessary to arrange transport of grain from Guangdong and Guangxi into Jiaozhi. Such deficiencies would have had profound effects on the social structure and social stability of the region, compounded by warfare and the imposition of Chinese norms. The range of colonial policies which the Ming pursued had wide-ranging effects, both on the society at the time, as well as on the future development of the Vietnamese state.

Prior to Yongle's invasion of ??i Vi?t in 1406, he engaged himself in further expansion into the polities of Yunnan. By 1403, he had created new military guards on the distant border, with two independent battalions, directly under the Regional Military Commission, being established at Tengchong and Yongchang in 1403. These were to be the bases from which the subsequent further occupation and control of the Tai regions was to be pursued. In the same year, new Chief's Offices were established in Yunnan, at Zhele Dian, Dahou, Ganyai, Wandian and Lujiang, and in 1406, a further four Chief's Offices were established under Ningyuan Guard, in what is today Sip Song Chau Tai in Vietnam. When the Tai polities did not submit to the requirements of the new Ming emperor, military actions were launched against them. In 1405, for example, the senior Chinese representative in Yunnan, Mu Sheng, launched an attack on Lanna .

After some sort of recognition or acceptance of the superior position of the Ming court, Chinese clerks or registry managers were appointed to the "native offices" to "assist" the traditional ruler, and ensure that Ming interests were served. Chinese clerks were appointed to carry out Chinese language duties in the native offices of Yunnan in 1404, while similar circulating-official clerk positions were established in seven Chief's Offices in Yunnan in 1406. The "native office" polities were then subject to demands in terms of gold and silver ''in lieu'' of labour , administered by the Ministry of Revenue, and were also required to provide troops to assist in further Ming campaigns. Mubang, for example, was required to send its troops against Lanna in 1406. This pattern of exploitation continued through the reign.

Luchuan-Pingmian Campaigns

In the middle of the fifteenth century China began a series of four disastrous wars on its frontiers with Burma in Yunnan against chieftainships.

The Luchuan-Pingmian Wars or Campaigns arose after a long period of Chinese diplomacy failed to resolve the state of endemic warfare among the Tai chieftainships that reigned along the frontier.

Events leading up to the war

From 1498 to 1504 the Ming imposed their own administrative divisions and taxation on the Tai chieftainships of the Tai-Yunnan frontier. As they did this, the frontier region gradually fell into a state of endemic warfare between the various Tai chieftainships.

In the 1530s, the intensity of the war increased, spurred on by the weakness of Ming forces after their defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam in 1427. After 1436, Tai chieftains "began to invade the border counties of central Yunnan, reaching as far as the Yung-ch’ang and Ching-tung ."

Eventually, one of the tit-for-tat seizures of territory in this state of endemic warfare triggered Chinese military intervention. In 1437 the ruler of the Tai state of Nandian requested Chinese assistance in returning land that had been taken from it by Mong Mao. The regional commander of Yunnan was requested to make an investigation into the matter and in 1438 he found that Mong Mao
had "repeatedly invaded Nanlian, Ganyai, Tengchong,...Lujiang,
and Jinchi" and that the Mong Mao ruler had "appointed local
chieftains of the neighboring regions subordinate to him without
asking for the approval of the Ming court and that some of these
men joined forces with him to invade Jinchi."

The First Campaign

After an initial victory, the Ming troops pursued the Tai leader deep into Tai territory. The Ming leader Fang Zheng faced problems. His troops were exhausted and his supply lines were cut off. He requested reinforcements, but few were sent. After Fang Zheng "fell into an ambush of the elephant phalanx of his enemy" he ordered his son to escape, was defeated, and died with his Ming troops.

In the wake of this defeat, Ming troops were withdrawn from the area and the Tai leader Chau-ngan-pha became bolder, waging offensive warfare and attacking settlements closer to the heart of Yunnan .

The Second Campaign

Although efforts by scholar officials at the Ming court were made to stop the campaigns and limit their damage and impact , a second Ming campaign to the Tai-Yunnan frontier was soon sent on its way. Eight months passed with no success in sight, when the Ming troops were ambushed by Tai troops. The Ming troops managed to fight the Tai troops off and lead an attack on the stronghold of the Tai leader Si Ren-fa. The Tai side was defeated with 50,000 deaths. A small group of around 1000 under the leadership of Si Ren-fa managed to flee .

Third Campaign

The third campaign managed to remove Si Ren-fa from power with the help of the Burmese kingdom of Ava. Si Ren-fa's son Chau-si-pha escaped capture, however, and established a power base at Mong Yang on the west bank of the Irrawaddy river.

Fourth Campaign

A fourth campaign was sent in 1449 to capture Si Jifa, but failed to
achieve this main objective. The Chinese allowed remnants of the
defeated Tai ruling elite to remain in Mong Yang if they agreed
never to cross the Irrawaddy river to the east.

Chinese sources disagree about how Si Jifa finally met his end, one Shan
chronicle even claiming he reigned for another fifty years. The version of events found in the official Chinese
history includes one possible motive for the Tai
invasion of Ava in 1524-27, revenge:

"Si Jifa escaped to Mengyang in early
1449 but was caught by the chieftain of Ava-Burma. In April
1454 the chieftain of Ava-Burma asked the Chinese to revert
the land to him and the Ming ceded Yinjia to Burma, so Si
Jifa and his family, a total of six people, were delivered to the
Ming troops at a village on Upper Irrawaddy. Si Jifa
was immediately escorted to the capital where he was
executed. However, Ava-Burma let Si Bufa, the younger
brother of Si Jifa, go free. He and his son, Si Hongfa
continued to rule Mengyang without the official
approval of the Ming court. They sent tribute missions to
China, but the court kept a close eye on the matter. Early in
the one of the descendants of Si Renfa , then ruling Mengyang, managed to
take revenge. In 1527 he led an army that marched
south to invade Ava-Burma, killing the chieftain Mang-ji-si
and his wife."

Consequences of the Wars

As the historian Wang Gungwu observes:

"This war had disastrous consequences for the Ming state, it
disrupted the economies of all the southwestern provinces
involved in sending men and supplies in fighting a war of
attrition against a small tribal state and it cost the Ming state
the respect of its tribal allies on the border, who saw how inept
and wasteful the Ming armies were. Moreover, the war drew
commanders, officers, men, and other resources from the north
which might have been vital to the defence of the northern
borders. It is significant that the end of the Lu-ch’uan
campaigns early in 1449 was followed immediately by extensive
tribal uprisings and other revolts in five provinces south of the
Yangtze river, and, on the northern frontiers, by the
spectacular defeats later in the year which virtually destroyed
the imperial armies in the north and led to the capture of the
emperor himself by the Mongols. The year 1449 was a turning
point in the history of the dynasty."

Another important consequence of the wars is that the Ming favored diplomacy from this time hence and shunned any military action along the frontier .

Kingdom of Dali

Dali was a Bai kingdom centred in what is now Yunnan Province of . Established by Duan Siping in 937, it was ruled by a succession of 22 kings until the year 1253, when it was destroyed by an invasion of the Mongol Empire. The capital city was at .

The Kingdom of Dali was preceded by the Nanzhao Dynasty, which was overthrown in 902. Three dynasties followed in quick succession, until Duan Siping seized power in 937 and established Dali. Gao Shengtai forced the puppet king Duan Zhengming to abdicate and become a monk in 1095, and renamed the state ''Dazhong''. He returned the power to the Duan family upon his death. Duan Zhengchun renamed the state ''Hou Li'' in the next year.

The 11th king of Nanzhao established Buddhism as the state religion. Ten of the 22 kings of Dali gave up the throne and became monks.

It is claimed that despite their military prowess and superior numbers, the Mongols could not breach the defences of the Erhai valley, which was so suited to defence that even just a few defenders could hold out for years. It is said that the Mongols found a traitor who led them over the Cangshan mountains along a secret path, and only in this way were they able to penetrate and overrun the Bai defenders. Thus ended five centuries of independence. In 1274 the Province of Yunnan was created, and the region has since been incorporated within China.

Japanese capture of Burma

The Burma Campaign in the of World War II took place over four years from 1942 to 1945. During the first year of the campaign, the Army drove and forces out of Burma, and occupied the country, forming a Burmese administration with little real authority.

Pre-war situation

Before the Second World War broke out, Burma was part of the British Empire, having been progressively occupied and annexed following three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the nineteenth century. Initially governed as part of British India, Burma was formed into a separate colony under the Government of India Act 1935. Under British rule, there had been substantial economic development but the majority Burman community was becoming increasingly restive. Among their concerns was the importation of Indian workers to provide a labour force for many of the new industries, and the erosion of traditional society in the countryside as land was used for plantations of export crops or became mortgaged to Indian moneylenders. Pressure for independence was growing. When Burma came under attack, the Burmans were unwilling to contribute to the defence of the British establishment, and many readily joined movements which aided the Japanese.

British plans for the defence of British Far Eastern possessions involved the construction of airfields linking Singapore and with India. These plans had not taken into account the fact that Britain was also at war with Germany, and when Japan entered the war, the forces needed to defend these possessions were not available. Burma had been regarded as a military "backwater", unlikely to be subjected to Japanese threat .

Lieutenant General Thomas Hutton, the commander of ''Burma Army'' with its headquarters in Rangoon had only the and to defend the country, although help was expected from the Chinese Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek. During the war, the British Indian Army expanded more than twelve-fold from its peacetime strength of 200,000 but in late 1941 this expansion meant that most units lacked training and equipment. In most cases, Indian units were trained and equipped for operations in the campaign or the North West Frontier of India, rather than jungles. The Burma Rifles units had also expanded rapidly, and were short of equipment and consisted mainly of new recruits.

Japanese Plans

Japan entered the war primarily to obtain raw materials, especially oil, from European possessions in South East Asia which were weakly defended because of the war in Europe. Their plans involved an attack on Burma partly because of Burma's own natural resources , but also to protect the flank of their main attack against Malaya and Singapore and provide a buffer zone to protect the territories they intended to occupy.

An additional factor was the Burma Road completed in 1938, which linked Lashio at the end of a railway from the port of with the Chinese province of Yunnan. This newly-completed link was being used to move aid and munitions to the Chinese Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek which had been fighting the Japanese for several years. The Japanese naturally wished to cut this link.

The under Lieutenant General Shojiro Iida was assigned the mission of attacking the southern Burmese province of . It consisted initially of the highly regarded and the . They would attack from northern Thailand, which had signed a treaty of friendship with Japan on December 21, 1941. Thai troops would aid in the invasions of Burma and Malaya.

Initial Japanese successes

Japanese capture of Rangoon

The first Japanese attack against Victoria Point, almost the most southerly point of Burma in mid-January 1942, was expected and not contested. The second attack was a small probing raid directed at a police station in southern Tenasserim, which was repulsed. The Japanese 143 Infantry Regiment then launched overland attacks on the airfields at Tavoy and Mergui in Tenasserim. The airfields were difficult to defend and reinforce but Burma Army HQ had been ordered to hold these outposts because of their importance to the defence of Malaya. The Japanese forced their way over the steep jungle-covered Tenasserim Range, and attacked Tavoy on January 18. The defenders, the 3rd and 6th battalions of the Burma Rifles, were overwhelmed and forced to evacuate the town in disorder. Mergui was evacuated before it was attacked.

Rangoon was initially defended relatively successfully against Japanease and Thai air raids, with the small RAF forces reinforced by a squadron of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers. But the majority of the airfields were between Rangoon and the Axis advance so, as the Japanese gained use of the airfields in Tenasserim, the amount of warning the Rangoon airfields could get of attack decreased, and they became more and more untenable.

On January 22, 1942 the Japanese 55th Division began the main attack westward from Rahaeng in Thailand across the Kawkareik Pass. The 16th Indian Infantry Brigade of the Indian 17th Division guarding this approach retreated hastily westward. The Japanese division advanced to at the mouth of the Salween River which was garrisoned by the 2nd Burma Brigade. The position was almost impossible to defend, and had the , almost a mile and a half wide, behind it. 2nd Burma Brigade was squeezed into a progressively tighter perimeter, and eventually retreated over river by ferry on January 31 after abandoning a large amount of supplies and equipment. Part of the force was left behind in Moulmein and had to swim the river.

The Sittang Bridge

The Indian 17th Division fell back northward. They attempted to hold the Bilin River and other fallback lines as they did so, but had too few troops to avoid being continually outflanked. The Division eventually retreated toward the bridge over the Sittang River in general disorder. The retreat was delayed by incidents such as a vehicle breaking through the bridge deck, air attacks and Japanese and Thai harassment. Japanese parties infiltrated to the bridge itself. The defence of the bridge was poorly organised and, fearing that it would fall intact into Japanese and Thai hands, the division's commander ordered it to be blown up on February 22 with most of the division stranded on the enemy-held side. Many of the men made their way across the river by swimming or on improvised rafts, but had to abandon all their equipment.

The Fall of Rangoon

Though the Sittang River was in theory a strong defensive position, the disaster at the bridge left the Allied forces too weak to hold it. General , the commander-in-chief of the , nevertheless ordered Rangoon to be held. He was expecting substantial reinforcements from the Middle East, including an Australian infantry division. On February 28, he formally relieved Hutton , and on the following day he effectively sacked Smyth, who was in any case very ill. Meanwhile, many Burmese colonial soldiers were deserting.

Although the Australian Division never arrived in Burma, some reinforcements including the British 7th Armoured Brigade had landed in Rangoon. Alexander ordered counter-attacks but soon realised that there was no hope of defending the city. On March 7, the military evacuated Rangoon after implementing what they described as a "scorched earth" plan for denial. The port was destroyed and the oil terminal was blown up. As the Allies departed, the city was on fire. The remnants of Burma Army faced encirclement as they retreated north, but broke through a Japanese roadblock due to an error on the part of the Japanese commander. Colonel Takanobu Sakuma had been ordered to block the main road north from Rangoon while the main body of the 33rd Division circled round the city to attack from the west. Not realising that the British were evacuating the city, he withdrew the road block once the division had reached its intended positions. Otherwise, the Japanese might have captured General Alexander and much of the rest of Burma Army.

Japanese advance to the Indian frontier

After the fall of Rangoon, the Allies decided to make a stand in the north of the country . It was hoped that the Chinese Expeditionary Force in Burma, consisting of the Fifth, Sixth and Sixty-sixth Armies, each with approximately the strength of a British division but with comparatively little equipment, could hold a front running through central Burma. Supplies were not immediately a problem, as much war material had been evacuated from Rangoon, rice was plentiful and the oilfields in central Burma were still intact, but only the recapture of Rangoon would allow the Allies to hold Burma indefinitely.

The Allies hoped that the Japanese advance would slow down; instead, it gained speed. The Japanese reinforced their two divisions in Burma with one transferred from and another transferred from the Dutch East Indies after the fall of Singapore and Java. They also brought in large numbers of captured British trucks and other vehicles, which allowed them to move supplies rapidly using Southern Burma's road network, and also use Motorized infantry columns, particularly against the Chinese forces. The Allies were also harassed by the rapidly expanding and were hampered by large numbers of refugees and the progressive breakdown of the civil government in the areas they held. The Royal Air Force operating from were crippled by the withdrawal of the radar and radio-intercept units to India and the Japanese soon gained supremacy in the air.

The British had created Burma Corps, to relieve Burma Army of the responsibility of conducting day-to-day operations. Its commander, Lieutenant General William Slim, tried to mount a counter-offensive on the western part of the front, but the troops were repeatedly outflanked and forced to fight their way out of encirclement. The Corps was gradually pushed northward towards Mandalay. 1st Burma Division was encircled and trapped in the blazing oilfields at Yenangyaung, and although it was rescued by Chinese infantry and British tanks in the Battle of Yenangyaung, it lost almost all its equipment and its cohesion. Meanwhile in the Battle of Yunnan-Burma Road, the Chinese held up the Japanese for a time around , but after its fall the road was open for motorized troops of the to shatter the Chinese Sixth Army to the east in the Karenni States and advance to the north through the Shan States to capture Lashio, outflanking the Allied defensive lines and cutting off the Chinese armies from Yunnan. With the effective collapse of the entire defensive line, there was little choice left other than an overland retreat to India or to Yunnan.

The Allied retreat

The retreat was conducted in horrible circumstances. Starving refugees, disorganised stragglers, and the sick and wounded clogged the primitive roads and tracks leading to India. Burma Corps retreated to Manipur in India. Most of the Corps's remaining equipment could not be ferried across the Chindwin River and was lost at Kalewa, although the troops escaped a Japanese attempt to trap them at Shwegyin east of the river. The Corps managed to make it most of the way to Imphal, in Manipur just before the monsoon broke in May, 1942. There, they found themselves living out in the open under the torrential monsoon rains in extremely unhealthy circumstances. The army and civil authorities in India were very slow to respond to the needs of the troops and civilian refugees.

The British Civil Government of Burma fell back to Myitkyina in Northern Burma, accompanied by many British, Anglo-Indian and Indian civilians. The Governor and the most influential civilians were flown out from Myitkyina Airfield, together with some of the sick and injured. The majority of the refugees and some of the Chinese troops committed by Chiang Kai-shek were forced to make their way from Myitkyina to India via the unhealthy Hukawng Valley and the precipitous forested Patkai Range. Many died on the way, and when they reached India, there were several instances of the civil authorities allowing white and Eurasian civilians to continue while preventing Indians from proceeding, effectively condemning many to death. By contrast, many private individuals did their best to provide aid.

The Chinese troops who also retreated via the Hukawng Valley route subsisted largely by looting, further increasing the misery of the refugees. The Chinese 38th Division however, fought its way westward across the Chindwin, arriving in India substantially intact although with heavy casualties. Many other Chinese troops tried to return to Yunnan through remote mountainous forests and many died on the way.

The Chinese soldiers who had retreated into India were put under the command of the American General Joseph Stilwell, who had also made his way to India on foot. After recuperating they were re-equipped and retrained by American instructors.

Thai army enters Burma

In accordance with the Thai military alliance with Japan that was signed on December 21, 1941, the leading elements of the Thai Phayap Army crossed the border into the Shan States on May 10, 1942. At one time in the past the area had been part of the Ayutthaya kingdom. The boundary between the Japanese and Thai operations was generally the Salween. However, that area south of the Shan States known as Karenni States was specifically retained under Japanese control.

Three Thai infantry and one cavalry division, spearheaded by armoured reconnaissance groups and supported by the , started their advance on May 10, and engaged the retreating Chinese 93rd Division. Kengtung, the main objective, was captured on May 27. Renewed offensives in June and November drove the Chinese back into Yunnan.

Invasion of French Indochina

The , also known as the Vietnam Expedition, was an attempt by the Empire of Japan, during the Second Sino-Japanese War to blockade China and prevent it from importing arms, fuel and 10,000 tons/month materials supplied by the United States through the Haiphong-Yunnan Fou railway line. Control of -controlled French Indochina would make the blockade of China more effective and made continuation of the drawn out Battle of South Guangxi province unnecessary.

Background

While the Japanese operation to seize Longzhou was going on in , France had signed an armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940, leading to the establishment of the Vichy government in the unoccupied part of France. Vichy France also controlled most of French overseas possessions, including Indochina, one of the last access points for China to the outside world. With the capture of Lanzhow the highway was now closed but a rail line still permitted shipment of material from Haiphong to Yunnan. Despite bombing by the Japanese the Yunnan railway remained open.

Japan began pressuring the Vichy government to close the railway and on September 5th, the South China Front Army organised the amphibious Indochina Expeditionary Army under its command to be the Japanese garrison in Indochina. Led by Major-General Takuma Nishimura, it was supported by a flotilla of ships, and planes from aircraft carriers and air bases on Hainan Island.

On September 22, Japan and Vichy Indochina signed an accord which granted basing and transit rights, but limited to 6000 the number of Japanese troops which could be stationed in Indochina, and set an overall cap of 25,000 on the total number of troops that could be in the colony at any given time. In addition, the final article of the agreement barred all Japanese land, air, and naval forces from Indochinese territory except as authorised in the accord.
*Order of Battle for Indochina Expedition

Fighting breaks out

Within a few hours columns from the under Lieutenant-General Aketo Nakamura moved over the border at three places and closed in on the railhead at Lang Son. This contravened the new agreement and ensued with a brigade of French Indochinese Colonial troops and that lasted until September 25 when Lang Son was captured. This opened the way to Hanoi. Still Vichy had defenders in the north, south, and fresh battalions barring the route from Lang Son to Hanoi were in position.

On September 23, Vichy France had approached the government in Tokyo to protest breach of the agreements by the South China Front Army forces.

Meanwhile Japanese aircraft, from the Japanese task force offshore from Haiphong in the Gulf of Tonkin, began sorties on the morning of September 24. A Vichy envoy came to negotiate, but in the meantime shore defences remained under orders to open fire against any attempt to force a landing.

On September 26, Japanese forces came ashore at Dong Tac, south of Haiphong, and began moving on the port. A second landing put tanks ashore and Haiphong was bombed, causing some casualties. By early afternoon the Japanese force of some 4,500 troops and a dozen tanks was outside Haiphong.

By the evening of September 26 fighting had died down. Japan took possession of the airfield at outside Hanoi, rail marshalling yard on the Yunnan border at Lao Cai, and athwart the railway from Hanoi to Lang Son near the border of Guangxi province, and stationed 900 troops in the port of Haiphong and a further 600 in Hanoi. These positions effectively completed the blockade of China except through the route from Burma.

On September 27, Japan signed a military alliance with Germany and Italy.

= Media links

, French newsreels archives , January 15, 1941

History of Yunnan

The history of Yunnan, province in the People's Republic of China, can date back to Yuanmou Man, a ''Homo erectus'' fossil unearthed by railway engineers in the 1960s, has been determined to be the oldest known hominid fossil in China. By the Neolithic period, there were human settlements in the area of Lake Dian. These people used stone tools and constructed simple wooden structures.

Historically, Yunnan has been peripheral to the Chinese empire. Its location in the southwesternmost corner of China and the strong ethnic identities of its peoples helped perpetuate the region's strong tendency towards wanting to be autonomous. The peoples of Yunnan have also been subject to cultural and political influences from Burma.

The Kingdom of Dian

The Dian Culture was distributed around the Lake Dian area and dated, though controversial, between the sixth century BC and the first century AD. For this long period of development, the Dian Culture can be partitioned into an early and late phase, with 109 BC, the year when the "Kingdom of Dian" officially became a vassal state of the Han empire, as the watershed year between these two periods.

Han Dynasty

In 109 BC, sent General Guo Chang south to Yunnan, establishing Yizhou commandery and 24 subordinate counties. The commandery seat was at Dianchi county . Another county was called "Yunnan", probably the first use of the name. To expand the burgeoning trade with and , Emperor Wu also sent Tang Meng to maintain and expand the Five Foot Way, renaming it "Southwest Barbarian Way" . By this time, agricultural technology in Yunnan had markedly improved. The local people used bronze tools, plows and kept a variety of livestock, including cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs and dogs.
Anthropologists have determined that these people were related to the people now known as the . They lived in tribal congregations, sometimes led by exile Chinese.

In the ''Records of the Grand Historian'', Zhang Qian and Sima Qian make references to "Shendu", which may have been referring to the , originally known as "Sindhu" in Sanskrit. When Yunnan was annexed by the Han Dynasty, Chinese authorities reported an Indian "Shendu" community living there.

In 109 AD, the Han court established Yunnan county, a part of Yizhou commandery. Because the county seat was south of Mount Yun , the county was named "Yunnan" - literally "south of Yun". The name was also considered highly auspicious.

Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty was the first regime in China to establish regular and tight administrative control over Yunnan. In 1253 Kubilai Khan's Mongol forces advanced into Yunnan, sweeping away numerous native regimes, including the leading Dali kingdom. Later Yunnan became one of the ten provinces set up by Kubilai Khan. The Yuan provincial authorities conferred various titles on many native chieftains, who were obliged to pay taxes. When the Yuan dynasty collapsed, Yunnan was thrown into chaos and anarchy for a number of years.

Ming Dynasty

The newly-proclaimed Ming Dynasty did not send armies into Yunnan until 1381. The central government allowed the general Mu Ying, foster son of dynastic founder Zhu Yuanzhang, to set up a hereditary feudatory system in the province. Throughout the Ming, the Mu family developed tremendous influence in Yunnan.

From the end of the fifteenth century, the Toungoo Dynasty in Myanmar began encroaching on Yunnan. In the sixteenth century Chen Yongbin, the governor of Yunnan, held back a Myanmar invasion. After the war, he built eight passes along the border in Tengyue subprefecture to mark the demarcation between the two countries.

Qing Dynasty

After the fall of the Ming in northern China, Yunnan became the last Southern Ming regime headed by Zhu Youlang. Supported by rebels-cum loyalists, he persisted in resistance against the Qing conquest even after the Qing capture of Kuming in 1659. Zhu and his men then fled into Myanmar to seek refuge in Ava, but were treated as prisoners. Zhu's armed followers savaged Upper Myanmar in an attempt to rescue him. General Wu Sangui, then still loyal to the Qing, invaded Myanmar in 1662 with a sizable army, and demanded Zhu's surrender. Although he hesitated, King Pye finally decided to hand Zhu over to avoid hostility.

Republican China

Following the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Yunnan came under the control of local warlords, who had more than the usual degree of autonomy due to Yunnan's remoteness. They financed their regime through opium harvesting and traffic.

History of Thailand

The history of Thailand begins with the migration of the from their ancestral home in southern China into mainland southeast Asia around the 10th century AD. Prior to this , and kingdoms ruled the region. The Thais established their own states starting with and then Ayutthaya kingdom. These states fought each other and were under constant threat from the Khmers, Burma and Vietnam. Much later, the European colonial powers threatened in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but Thailand survived as the only Southeast Asian state to avoid rule. After the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand endured sixty years of almost permanent military rule before the establishment of a democratic system.

Initial states of Thailand

Prior to the southwards of the Tai people from Yunnan in the 10^th century, the Indochina peninsula had been a home to various indigenous animistic communities for as far back as 500,000 years ago. The recent discovery of Homo erectus fossils such as Lampang man is but one example. The remains were first discovered during excavations in Lampang province, Thailand. The finds have been dated from roughly 1,000,000 - 500,000 years ago in the Pleistocene.
Historians agree that the diverse Austro-Asiatic groups that inhabited the Indochina peninsula are related to the people which today inhabit the islands of the Pacific. As these peoples dispersed along the Gulf of Thailand, Malay Peninsula and Malay Archipelago, they inhabited the coastal areas of the archipelago as well as other remote islands. The seafarers possessed advanced navigation skills, sailing as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Madagascar.

The most well known pre-historic settlement in Thailand is often associated to the major archaeological site at Ban Chiang; dating of artifacts from this site is a consensus that at least by 1500 BC, the inhabitants had developed bronze tools and also the grew rice. There are myriad sites in Thailand dating to the Bronze and Iron Ages . The most thoroughly researched of these sites are located in the country's Northeast, especially in the Mun and Chi River valleys. The Mun River in particular is home to many 'moated' sites which comprise mounds surrounded by ditches and ramparts. The mounds contain evidence of prehistoric occupation.
Around the first century of the Christian era, according to Funan epigraphy and the records of historians, a number of settlements of the South, appears to have been organized into several Indianised states, among the earliest of which are believed to be Langkasuka and Tambralinga.

Dvaravati

Dvaravati first came to the attention of modern scholars during the 19th century through the translation of Chinese texts. These texts mentioned To-lo-po-ti, Tu-ho-po-ti and Tu-ho- lo-po-ti, names that were translated into Sanskrit- Dvaravati. We know that this polity had an international presence, as it sent a number of missions to the Chinese court, but it is difficult to reconstruct what kind of polity is represented and scholarly opinion is split.
Clearly the issue cannot be resolved until further research is undertaken but the current evidence appears to favour an interpretation of Dvaravati as a loosely organized political entity at a pre-state level. The situation is confused further by the use of the term Dvaravati to describe a school of art and a culture. It is best to consider Dvaravati as a broad term, encompassing all of these things, a culture, comprised mostly of Mon speakers who produced predominantly religious art and lived in large towns concentrated in the Chao Phraya Valley whose influence extended into other parts of Thailand.

Sukhothai and Lannathai

Thais date the founding of their nation to the 13th century. According to tradition, Thai chieftains gained independence from the Khmer Empire at , which was established as a sovereign Kingdom by Pho Khun Si Indrathit in 1238. A political feature called, in Thai, 'father governs children' existed at this time. Everybody could bring their problems to the king directly; there was a bell in front of the palace for this purpose. The city briefly dominated the area under King Ramkhamhaeng, who established the Thai alphabet, but after his death in 1365 it fell into decline and became subject to another emerging Thai state known as the Ayutthaya kingdom, which dominated southern and central Thailand until the 1700s.

Another Thai state that coexisted with Sukhothai was the northern state of Lanna. This state emerged in the same period as Sukhothai, but survived longer. Its independent history ended in 1558, when it fell to the Burmese; thereafter it was dominated by Burma and Ayutthaya in turn before falling to the army of the Siamese King Taksin in 1775.

Ayutthaya

The first ruler of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya, King Ramathibodi I, made two important contributions to Thai history: the establishment and promotion of Theravada Buddhism as the official religion — to differentiate his kingdom from the neighbouring Hindu kingdom of Angkor — and the compilation of the Dharmashastra, a legal code based on Hindu sources and traditional Thai custom. The Dharmashastra remained a tool of Thai law until late in the 19th century. Beginning with the in the 16th century, Ayutthaya had some contact with the West, but until the 1800s, its relations with neighboring nations as well as with India and China, were of primary importance. Ayutthaya dominated a considerable area, ranging from the Islamic states on the Malay Peninsula to states in northern Thailand. Nonetheless, the , who had control of Lanna and had also unified their kingdom under a powerful dynasty, launched several invasion attempts in the 1750s and 1760s. Finally, in 1767, the Burmese attacked the capital city and conquered it. The royal family fled the city where the king died of starvation ten days later. The Ayutthaya royal line had been extinguished. Overall there are 33 kings in this period, including an unofficial king.

There were 5 dynasties during Ayutthaya period:
#Eu Thong Dynasty which consists of 3 kings
#Suphanabhumi Dynasty consisting of 13 kings
#Sukhothai Dynasty consisting of 7 kings
#Prasart Thong Dynasty consisting of 4 kings
#Bann Plu Dynasty consisting of 6 kings

Thonburi and Bangkok period

After more than 400 years of power, in 1767, the Kingdom of Ayutthaya was brought down by invading armies, its capital burned, and the territory split. General Taksin managed to reunite the Thai kingdom from his new capital of Thonburi and declared himself king in 1769. However, Taksin allegedly became mad, and he was deposed, taken prisoner, and executed in 1782. General Chakri succeeded him in 1782 as , the first king of the Chakri dynasty. In the same year he founded the new capital city at Bangkok, across the Chao Phraya river from Thonburi, Taksin's capital. In the 1790s Burma was defeated and driven out of , as it was then called. Lanna also became free of Burmese occupation, but the king of a new dynasty was installed in the 1790s was effectively a puppet ruler of the Chakri monarch.

The heirs of Rama I became increasingly concerned with the threat of European colonialism after British victories in neighboring Burma in 1826. The first Thai recognition of Western power in the region was the with the United Kingdom in 1826. In 1833, the United States began diplomatic exchanges with Siam, as Thailand was called until 1939, and again between 1945 and 1949. However, it was during the later reigns of King Chulalongkorn, and his father King Mongkut, that Thailand established firm rapprochement with Western powers. It is a widely held view in Thailand that the diplomatic skills of these monarchs, combined with the modernising reforms of the Thai Government, made Siam the only country in South and Southeast Asia to avoid European colonisation. This is reflected in the country's modern name, ''Prathet Thai'' or ''Thai‐land'', used unofficially between 1939 and 1945 and officially declared on May 11, 1949, in which ''prathet'' means "nation" and ''thai'' means "free".

The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 defined the modern border between Siam and British Malaya by securing Thai authority over the provinces of , , and , which were previously part of the semi‐independent Malay sultanates of Pattani and Kedah. A series of treaties with France fixed the country's current eastern border with Laos and Cambodia.

Military rule

The Siamese coup d'état of 1932 transformed the Government of Thailand from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. King Prajadhipok initially accepted this change but later surrendered the throne to his ten year old nephew, Ananda Mahidol. Upon his abdication, King Prajadhipok said that the duty of a ruler was to reign for the good of the whole people, not for a select few. King Ananda Mahidol died in 1946 under somewhat mysterious circumstances, the official explanation being that he shot himself by accident while cleaning his gun. He was succeeded by his brother Bhumibol Adulyadej, the longest reigning king of Thailand, and very popular with the Thais. Although nominally a constitutional monarchy, Thailand was ruled by a series of military governments, most prominently led by Luang Phibunsongkhram and Sarit Dhanarajata, interspersed with brief periods of democracy.

In early January 1941, Thailand invaded French Indochina, beginning the French-Thai War. The Thais, better equipped and outnumbering the French forces, easily reclaiming Laos. The French decisively won the naval Battle of Koh Chang.

The Japanese mediated the conflict, and a general armistice was declared on January 28. On May 9 a peace treaty was signed in Tokyo, with the French being coerced by the Japanese into relinquishing its hold on the disputed territories.

On December 8, 1941, a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan demanded the right to move troops across Thailand to the Malayan frontier. and engaged the Thai army for six to eight hours before Phibunsongkhram ordered an armistice. Shortly thereafter Japan was granted free passage, and on December 21, 1941, Thailand and Japan signed a military alliance with a secret protocol wherein Tokyo agreed to help Thailand regain territories lost to the British and French Subsequently, Thailand undertook to 'assist' Japan in her war against the Allies. NOTE: Japan's distrust of Thailand extended to the point of rearming their 'Allies' with controlled munitions, including the famous Siamese Mauser, which was manufactured in an unusual caliber. It should be remembered that the Seri Thai operated freely, often with support from members of the Royal family and members of the government and that the Thai Army was considered untrustworthy by the Japanese.

After the end of World War II, Prime Minister Pridi Phanomyong agreed to return the captured territories to France, as a condition for admission to the newly created United Nations.

After Japan's defeat in 1945, with the help of a group of Thais known as who were supported by the United States, Thailand was treated as a defeated country by the British and French, although American support mitigated the Allied terms. Thailand was not occupied by the Allies, but it was forced to return the territory it had regained to the British and the French. In the postwar period Thailand enjoyed close relations with the United States, which it saw as a protector from the communist revolutions in neighboring countries.

Communist guerillas existed in country from early 60's up to 1987, but never posed a serious threat to the state, but at the peak of movement they counted almost 12,000 full-time fighters.

Recently, Thailand also has been an active member in the regional Association of Southeast Asian Nations , especially after democratic rule was restored in 1992.

Democracy

Post-1973 has been marked by a struggle to define the political contours of the state. It was won by the King and General Prem Tinsulanonda, who favored a democratic constitutional order.

The post-1973 years have seen a difficult and sometimes bloody transition from military to civilian rule, with several reversals along the way. The revolution of 1973 inaugurated a brief, unstable period of democracy, with military rule being reimposed after the 6 October 1976 Massacre. For most of the 1980s, Thailand was ruled by Prem, a democratically-inclined strongman who restored parliamentary politics. Thereafter the country remained a democracy apart from a brief period of military rule from 1991 to 1992. The populist Thai Rak Thai party, led by Thaksin Shinawatra, came to power in 2001.

On September 19, 2006, with the prime minister in New York for a meeting of the UN, Army Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant General Sonthi Boonyaratglin launched a successful . A general election on 23 December 2007 restored a civilian government, lead by Samak Sundaravej of the People Power Party.

In mid-2008, the People's Alliance for Democracy led large protests against the government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, whom they criticize for his ties to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. On 26 August, 2008, the protesters occupied several government ministries, including Thailand's Government House. Samak refused to resign, but also elected not to use force to remove the protestors. Beginning August 29, protesters disrupted air and rail infrastructure. On September 2, Samak declared a state of emergency, banning gatherings and use of media by the PAD. As of September 8, the protesters are still occupying Government House.

Campaign at the China-Burma Border

Campaign along the China-Burma Border was a series of battles fought between the and the during Chinese Civil War in the post World War II era, and resulted in the communist victory. It is also dubbed by the as the Campaign to Provide Security for the China-Burma Border Surveying .

Background

After the communist takeover of mainland China, some surviving nationalist forces withdrew to Burma and continued to fight. Under the international pressure, nationalist government in Taiwan withdrew the surviving force in the China-Burma border totaling over 6,500 in May, 1954. However, many ardent nationalists refused to retreat to Taiwan and decided to stay in Burma and carry on the anticommunist struggle. To better lead these troops, nationalist government sent the original deputy commander-in-chief, Liu Yuanlin back to Burma to form Yunnan People’s Anticommunist Volunteer Army in June, 1954. By early 1960’s, the nationalist force in northern Burma had reached its peak, totaling near ten thousand troops. Because there were much higher proportion of officers among the nationalist force in the China-Burma border, the structure of nationalist force in northern Burma was different than ordinary military structure: Yunnan People’s Anticommunist Volunteer Army was organized into five armies, each was consisted of two to three divisions, and each of these divisions, in turn, was directly consisted of two to three regiments, while the brigades level structure was eliminated. The size of each regiment of Yunnan People’s Anticommunist Volunteer Army various greatly in size, from two dozen troops to over a thousand troops. The nationalist force controlled an area that was 300 km long along the China-Burma border, and 100 km deep. The nationalist area of control was typical mountainous jungle regions, with raining season last six months and the area was covered by fogs for most of the time. It was extremely difficult to navigate in the region where there were few road and trails, and the natural environment was extremely harsh.

In 1960, Burmese premier Ne Win visited China and signed a deal aimed to solve the historical disputes between the China and Burma on January 28, 1960. In October, 1960, Burmese premier U Nu and Burmese chief-of-general-staff General Ne Win visited China once again and on October 1, 1960, they signed a new border treaty with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. According to the treaty, the China-Burma border had to be surveyed for demarcation, but the existence of nationalist force in northern Burma along the border posed a serious threat. Burmese government consequently asked the Chinese communists to help to eradicate the Chinese nationalist force in the border region.

Prelude

In October, 1960, the communist high command ordered Kunming Military Region to prepare for the campaign. In early November, 1960, communists and Burmese government held a joint conference on the matter of communist force fighting in Burma. The Burmese representatives were headed by Brigadier Generals Aung Gyi and San Yu, and the Chinese communist representatives were headed by Ding Rongchang , the deputy commander-in-chief of the communist Yunan Provincial Military Region, and Cheng Xueyu , the director of Border Defense Directorate of the War Department of the General Staff Ministry of the People's Liberation Army. By November 4, 1960, the deal was signed in which communist force was allowed to fight in Burma in a region that was 20 km deep, 300 km long, along the border.

On November 14, 1960, the communist central military committee formally issued the order to cross the border to destroy in nationalist troops in Burma according to the personal direction of Zhou Enlai. The political implication of the campaign was specially emphasized and failure was not an option. The communist force would be mainly deployed in Mengma , Mengwa and Sandao regions. The communists intended to avoid scattering the enemy, but instead, complete annihilating the enemy by first cutting off the retreating route of the nationalists after a surprised attack. Restrictions on the communist actions were also implement, for example, if the nationalists were to retreat toward Burma-Thailand-Laotian border, communists could not gave a chase on its own, and must be coordinated with Burmese government first, just as in any situation that would occur unexpectedly. The local civilian casualties should be avoided at all cost. After receiving the order, the communist Kunming Military Region decided to mobilize five infantry regiments and militias totaling over 6,500 for campaign, including a regiment from the 39th Division of the 13th Army, a regiment of the of 40th Division of the 14th Army, and three border defense regiments. To better coordinate their actions in Burma, communists form a frontline command at Fohai in early November, 1960. Li Xifu , the commander-in-chief of the communist Yunan Provincial Military Region was named as the commander-in-chief of the new frontline command, Ding Rongchang , the deputy commander-in-chief of the communist Yunan Provincial Military Region and Cui Jiangong , the deputy commander of the communist 13th Army were named as the deputy commanders-in-chief of the new frontline command.

Order of battle

The surviving nationalist force at the China-Burma border reached its peak in the early 1960’s, totaling almost ten thousand troops, excluding their noncombatant family members. The nationalist force was divided into five armies and each responsible for an area. There were also Western Alliance Military Region and Mengbailiao Garrison Region in addition to the five areas of responsibility of the five armies. Communists mobilized sixty-five hundred troops, out of which forty-five hundred were deployed during the campaign.

order of battle

Yunnan People’s Anticommunist Volunteer Army
*1st Army headquartered at Mengwa , commanded by Wu Yunnuan
*2nd Army headquartered at Suoyong , commanded by Wu Zubo
*3rd Army headquartered at Laidong , commanded by Li Wenhuan
*4th Army headquartered at Mengma , commanded by Zhang Weicheng
*5th Army headquartered at Menglong , commanded by Duan Xiwen

order of battle

*117th Regiment of the 39th Division of the 13th Army
*118th Regiment of the 40th Division of the 14th Army
*116th Regiment
*9th Border Defense Regiment of Yunnan Military Sub-region
*10th Border Defense Regiment of Yunnan Military Sub-region
*11th Border Defense Regiment of Yunnan Military Sub-region
*Militia units

Strategies

Both sides had been limited by various factors. The nationalists, due to their low numbers, adopted the strategy to avoid fighting any large scale battles, but instead, concentrated on keeping their own strength, so that in the event of communist offensive, they would quickly withdraw away from the China-Burma border. The communists, on the other hand, was bounded by the redline that limited their actions, which eventually resulted in the successful escape of nationalists to the Thailand-Laos border keeping most of their strength.

strategy

The nationalist frontline bordering China was 300 km long and 20 km deep, and was the main target of the communist offensive. There were a total of 22 nationalist strongholds in the region, including the headquarters of the nationalist 1st Army and 4th Army, 2nd Division, 3rd Division, 5th Division, 6th Division, eight regimental headquarters, eight guerrilla strike teams. The nationalist strength in the region totaled more than 800 troops and was divided into three lines of defense. The first line of defense was manned the nationalist 1st Army and its 3rd Division totaling over 150 troops, stationed in strongholds including Mengwa , Mengyu , Mengjing , and Jingkang , and with the exception of Jingkang , all of the nationalist strongholds in their first line of defense faced the Southern Luo River and with hilly forest in the back, and all of the roads and trails to and from China was heavily mined. The nationalist 4th Army deployed to the south and east of Mengyong was the backbone of the nationalist 2nd line of defense, and its 35th Regiment totaling over 200 was stationed at the critical peak 1404. The Mengbailiao and Jiangle regions was the nationalist 3rd line of defense, with the general headquarter of the nationalist commander-in-chief Liu Yuanlin setup in Mengbailiao , with training group, garrison regiment and communication battalion totaling over 450 troops. Jiangle region was the nationalist logistic headquarter totaling over 200 troops, including the 1st Training Group.

strategy

Communists divided the combat zone into smaller individual areas and planned to cut off the retreating routes of the nationalists. The 117th Regiment and a portion of the 116th Regiment of the 39th Division of the Communist 13th Army were tasked to destroy the headquarter of the nationalist 4th Army at Mengma , the nationalist 6th Division, 2nd Division, 5th Regiment, 17th Regiment and 4 guerrilla strike teams totaling 439 troops. In reality, the communists overestimated the nationalist strength, which only totaled 334 troops. The 118th Regiment of the 40th Division of the communist 14th Army was tasked to destroy the headquarter of the nationalist 1st Army at Mengwa , garrison battalion, headquarter of the nationalist 3rd Division, the 8th Regiment, the 9th Regiment, and a guerrilla strike team totaling 265 troops. Once again, the communists overestimated the nationalist strength, which only totaled 156 troops.

The 11th Border Defense Regiment of communist Yunnan Military Sub-region was tasked to destroy the nationalist 7th Regiment and a guerrilla strike team totaling 59 troops, but the communist intelligence had underestimated the nationalist strength, which totaled 81 troops. The 9th and 10th Border Defense Regiments of communist Yunnan Military Sub-region were tasked to destroy the headquarter of the nationalist 5th Division at Barbarians’ Nest , the 14th Regiment, the 1st Regiment and two guerrilla strike teams totaling 159 troops. Once again, the communist intelligence had underestimated the nationalist strength which actually totaled 171 troops. The communists mobilized a total of 6639 troops of their own, though not all of them had crossed the border. The communists divided their forces into 22 routes and would attack in the early morning of November 22, 1960 by crossing the border.

First stage

The communist 2nd Company of the 9th Regiment of Border Defense and the 2nd Company of the 10th Regiment of Border Defense were tasked to attack nationalist strongholds at Man’enai , and reached their target by 5:00 AM on November 22, 1960. However, the numerical inferior nationalist troops had just learned the news of the upcoming attack and retreated by abandoning the stronghold. Communist main force immediately sent out four companies to chase after the retreating nationalists and caught up with the fleeing nationalists around ten kilometers to the south of the stronghold. After ensuing battles that included mop up operation, thirty-three nationalist troops including Li Tai , the commander of the nationalist 5th Division were killed, marking the complete destruction of nationalist garrison of Man’enai stronghold. Meanwhile, communist force consisted of the 117th infantry regiment under the command of Yan Shouqing , the deputy commander of the 39th Division, and the 118th infantry regiment under the command of Zhao Shiying , the commander of the 40th Division, and the 1st Battalion of the 116th infantry regiment attacked nationalist positions in Mengwa , and Mengma . The numerical inferior nationalist force at these positions were no match with an enemy that enjoyed overwhelmingly superior number and firepower, and the communist 117th infantry regiment succeeded in completely wiping out a sixty member strong nationalist battalion at the Tabanmai stronghold and the sixty-two member strong nationalist battalion of the 7th Regiment at Mengxie stronghold. Major General Meng Baoye and Colonel Meng Xian , the commander and deputy commander of the nationalist 2nd Division were both killed in action. Communist 118th infantry regiment meanwhile attacked nationalist positions at Mengwa , Jingkang , Mengyu and Mengjing , succeeding in killing over a hundred nationalist troops and capturing Colonel Ye Wenqiang , the deputy commander of the nationalist 3rd Division.

After several hours of fierce battle, the headquarters of nationalist 1st Army, 2nd Division, 3rd Division, 5th Division, 7th Regiment, and 8th Regiment were completely destroyed. However, due to the complete lack of experience in jungle warfare in the mountainous region, half of the six communist task forces assigned to outflank the targets failed to reach their destination on time. Similarly, seven out of the sixteen communist task forces assigned for direct assaults failed to reach their targets on time. As a result, communists only managed to completely annihilate nationalist forces at six targets out of the original sixteen, with the nationalist forces at the rest ten slipped away. The subsequent mop up operation ended on December 20, 1960, marking the end of the first state of the campaign, succeeding in killing a total of 467 nationalist troops in the region bounded by the redline, or only 53.4% of original target set by the communists. After the operation, Burmese government asked the communist force to stay in Burma to guard the local region from possible nationalist counterattacks, and Zhou Enlai, the Chinese premier agreed and ordered the Chinese communist troops to stay until the demarcation was completed.

Second stage

After the first stage of the campaign had concluded, the surviving nationalists decided that their strength was no match with superior communist force and it was best to avoid direct confrontation with the enemy to conserve their strength. Instead, nationalists would gain new territories from Burmese government by attack Burmese troop to makeup the territory lost to the communists in the first stage of the campaign. Burmese troop could not check the nationalist advance and in the evening of January 18, 1961, Burmese liaison officers asked Chinese communists for help on the order given by their government. Communists decided to mobilize over 5,800 troops to launch the second stage of the campaign in late January to attack nationalists beyond the redline. The communists and the Burmese government reached a deal to allow the communist force to operate another 50 km further beyond the redline to engage the three thousand nationalist troops in Suoyong and Mengbailiao regions. To better coordinate their actions, communists established their frontline headquarter in Fohai , with the deputy commander Cui Jiangong of the 13th Army as the commander, chief-of-staff Liang Zhongyu of the 14th Army and deputy director of the political directorate Duan Siying as deputy commanders.

Communist 117th Regiment leading the 2,966 strong attacking force was tasked to attack the surviving units of the nationalist 4th Army, the 2nd Division, the 9th Division, the 10th Division, the 11th Division, the 7th Group of the Training Column, the Heavy Weaponry Group totaling over 1,200. Another communist force consisted of the 10th Regiment and the 11th Regiment of the Border Defense of Military Sub-region totaled 1,420 was tasked to attack the surviving nationalist forces totaling more than 680, including surviving forces of the nationalist general headquarter in Suoyong , the headquarter of the 2nd Army in Baka , the headquarter of 1st Army at Daling River Crossing point, the 3rd Division, the 8th Division, and Zhongka Squadron. The largest communist force totaling 3,012 headed by the communist 118th Regiment was tasked to attack the surviving units of nationalist totaling over 1,200, including those from southern frontline command headquarter, garrison regiment, Training Column , 2nd Group of the Training Column, 35th Regiment of the 3rd Army, and Officer Training Regiment.

On January 25, 1961, all communist units begun their assault by crossing the redline, and attacking toward the regions to the north and west of Mekong River. Nationalist commander-in-chief Liu Yuanlin realized the communist objective and immediately ordered a general retreat toward Burma-Laotian border on the very same night under the cover of darkness, abandoning the base they had controlled for more than a decade. By the next day, nationalist strongholds including Baxili, , Suoyong , and Mengbailiao fell into the communist hands, and the nationalist rear guards in charge of covering the retreat of the main force was destroyed. The communist force subsequently performed search and destroy operations to exterminate the surviving nationalists in the newly taken region, and succeeded in killing the nationalist Colonel Li Zixiong , the director of political directorate, and Colonel Bai Xianglin , a regimental commander. However, due to numerous problems, with the exception of communist force of Military Sub-region which reached Baxili, , its planned destination on time, all other communist forces failed to reach their planned destination on time, resulting in only killing 274 nationalist troops. In addition to successfully escaping to their new destination several hundred kilometers away in the border region of Burma-Lao-Thailand, the retreating nationalists also successfully managed to carry most of the equipment, supply and wounded with them in their escape. On February 9, 1961, the second stage concluded when all communist force withdrew back to China, marking the end of the campaign.

Outcome

The succeeded in driving the from their base they held for more than a decade, thus returning the control of an area in access of thirty thousand square kilometers with population over a hundred thousand to Burmese government. However, the campaign also revealed serious and huge shortcomings of the communist troop in jungle warfare, and due to these problems revealed later in the communist post war analysis, most of the retreating nationalists were able to successfully escape to the Thai-Laotian border several hundred kilometers away, and forming the new base that survived until this day. For the nationalists, despite losing their thirty thousand square kilometers sized base with population over a hundred thousand they had held for more than a decade, nationalists nonetheless managed to retain most of their troops and equipment to successfully escape and establish new bases in new area. However, the new area was far less fertile than the land in their original base they had lost, and this forced the nationalists in the new base to be increasingly dependent on opium production and trade, and most of their area of control eventually became part of the infamous .

Aftermath

Thanks to the opportunity to fight a campaign in the unfamiliar terrain and environment, the communist victory had exposed many problems that were nearly impossible to detect during peacetime. The communists concluded that the fighting capability of their troops had significantly decreased just merely a decade after the nationalists had been driven from the mainland China. Furthermore, the old experience that helped them to secure the victory over the nationalists in mainland China was completely ill-suited for the modern jungle warfare and many problems urgently needed to be addressed, including:

*The complete lack of understanding of the local environment.
: There were numerous rivers, valleys, steep slopes, high mountain peaks in the rugged terrain, while the roads were nearly nonexistent. The jungle was dense and the local area was infected with disease. These factors were overlooked in the communist planning which was based on much easier mountainous terrain in China. As a result, none of communist unit was able to reach their destination on time during the first stage, while during the second stage, the average speed communist force achieved in the jungle was only 300 metre per hour.
*Inability to cross rivers rapidly
: The only training hastily put together was some swimming lessons for the troops, which proved to be far less adequate than what was really needed. The slow speed of river cross was a major factor that prevented communist sieges which were supposed to encircle the nationalists, but could not form in time and thus allowing the retreating nationalist troops to escape successfully.
*Application of outdated experience
: Officers of the World War II and Chinese Civil War era applied their past guerrilla experience to the modern conventional jungle warfare which prevented communists from achieving their goals. For example, not only the communist force lacked maps of local region, many commanders did not know how to read modern maps when they were available. As a result, troops were completely lost in the jungle after traveling only a short distance from the border, and the experience they had in earlier battles a decade ago did not help.
*Disorganized formation
: Many officers were hastily sent to the units they had never saw and thus not knowing the true strength and weakness of the units they commanded in the campaign. As a result, some orders were simply beyond the unit’s ability to achieve while other orders restricted the full combat potential of the units.
*Lack of necessary equipment needed for jungle warfare
: The standard Soviet type gear was completely ill-suited for jungle warfare and there was the need to deploy new equipment including river cross, road building and medical gears for jungle warfare, but such equipment did not exist. This was the primary cause that non combat casualties were several times higher than combat casualties.
*Poor tactics
: Most tactics devised by the staff officers were derived from mountainous warfare tactics developed in the arid region in China, which proved to be inadequate in the humid jungle warfare. Combined with the lack of equipment, the knowledge of enemy was poor if not nonexistent, resulting in miscommunications such as overestimation of enemy strength.
*Inability to take initiatives
: Due to the relative peace, some officers lost their original tenacity and ability to take initiatives: when encounter the enemy force, these officers took much more prudent approaching of securing their own position first and wait for reinforcement instead of promptly attacking the enemy. However, most of the supposed formidable enemy strength turned out to be exaggerated due to miscommunications, lack of equipment, and poor tactics mentioned above. In fact, there were occasions where the commanders refused to follow the order to pursuit the retreating enemy after the order was given twice, believing the erroneous intelligence that greatly exaggerated the enemy strength.

The communists were shocked by the shortcomings exposed in the campaign. The deputy chief-of-staff and the future Chinese defense minister in the 1980s, Zhang Aiping, and the commander-in-chief of Kunming Military Region and the future Chinese defense minister in the 1990’s, Qi Jiwei , were sent to lead a team to establish new training and tactics based on the experience gained in the campaign in order to correct the problem. As a result, the military of both the Kunming Military Region and Guangzhou Military Region was drastically upgraded and improved in very short period of time after massive efforts were implemented. The improved later proved to be vital when Chinese troops were deployed to North Vietnam and Laos during the Chinese involvement in Vietnam War.

Burma Campaign 1944

The fighting in the Burma Campaign in 1944 was among the severest in the of World War II. It took place along the borders between Burma and India, and Burma and China, and involved the , and United States forces, against the forces of the Empire of Japan and the Indian National Army. British Commonwealth land forces were drawn primarily from the United Kingdom, and Africa.

The Allies had overcome the logistic and organisational difficulties which had crippled their earlier efforts, and they were preparing to invade Japanese-occupied Burma at several widely separated points. The Japanese forestalled them by launching their own offensive into India, and this offensive became larger in scope than originally intended. By the end of the year, the Allies had achieved significant territorial gains only in one sector, the extreme north-east of Burma, but the Japanese attack on India suffered a decisive defeat, which crippled their attempts to defend Burma against renewed Allied offensives in the following year.

Rival plans

Allied plans

In August 1943 the Allies created South East Asia Command a new combined command responsible for the South-East Asian Theatre. This brought a new sense of purpose and in November, when SEAC took over responsibility for Burma, the British Fourteenth Army was ready to take the offensive. This substantial turnaround in Fourteenth Army's effectiveness has been credited to its commander, Lieutenant General William Slim. He enforced the use of anti-malarial drugs as part of an emphasis on individual health, established realistic jungle warfare training, rebuilt the army's self-respect by winning easy victories and developed local military infrastructure

Slim's efforts were aided by improvements to the Allied supply lines. By October 1944 capacity on the had been raised to 4,400 tons a day from 600 tons a day at the start of the war. The RAF had gained air superiority and this allowed the Allies to employ new tactics, relying upon air supply of troops.

SEAC had to accommodate several rival plans. , the new Commander-in-Chief, with a background as a naval officer and having previously served as commander of , favoured amphibious landings. The first of these was to be on the Andaman Islands , but the landing craft assigned to the operation were recalled to Europe in preparation for the Normandy Landings.

The previous year, a British attack into the Burmese coastal province of had been heavily defeated. Having been reorganised, Indian XV Corps was preparing to renew the offensive. A limited amphibious move in support of this attack had to be abandoned for lack of the necessary landing craft and other shipping.

Chinese forces which had retreated into India in 1942 had been re-equipped and retrained by an American military mission under Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell. Stilwell's aim was to drive a new road, the Ledo Road, which would link India and China and allow aid to reach the Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek, supplementing the air supply route over the Himalayas known as the Hump. By the start of 1944, the new road had reached the far side of the Patkai mountains, and Stilwell was preparing to advance on Kamaing and Myitkyina.

Chiang Kai-shek had agreed to mount an offensive from the Yunnan. When the Andaman Island landings were cancelled, he claimed this was a breach of faith and cancelled the Yunnan offensive, although he later reinstated it.

Following a long-distance raid in 1943, British Major-General Orde Wingate had gained approval for a greatly expanded long-range penetration force, known as the Chindits. This was opposed by Slim and others who felt that this was too great a drain on manpower and resources, but under political pressure from Winston Churchill, Wingate's plans went ahead. The Chindits, now designated Indian 3rd Infantry Division, were tasked with assisting Stilwell by disrupting the Japanese lines of supply to the northern front. Wingate had originally planned to capture an enemy airfield at Indaw, which would then be garrisoned by a line infantry division as a base for further Chindit raids. This second part of the plan for Special Force was later dropped.

The Allied plans for 1944 were reduced to: the offensive by Stilwell's Chinese troops from India; the Chindit operation in support of Stilwell; a renewed overland attack in the Arakan; and a rather ill-defined offensive across the Chindwin River from Imphal in support of the other operations.

Japanese plans

About the same time that SEAC was established, the Japanese had relieved their commander in Burma, Lieutenant General Shojiro Iida and created a new headquarters, Burma Area Army, under Lieutenant General Masakazu Kawabe. Its subordinate formations were the Japanese Fifteenth Army in the north and east of Burma and the Japanese Twenty-Eighth Army in the south and west.

By chance or design, the new commander of Fifteenth Army, Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, had played a major part in many recent Japanese triumphs. He was keen to mount an offensive against India. Burma Area Army originally quashed this idea, but found that its superiors in Southern Expeditionary Army Group HQ in Singapore was keen on it. When the staff at Southern Expeditionary Army were persuaded of the inherent dangers, they in turn found that Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo was in favour of Mutaguchi's plan.

The Japanese were influenced to an unknown degree by Subhas Chandra Bose, commander of the Indian National Army. This was composed largely of Indian soldiers who had been captured in Malaya or Singapore. At Bose's instigation, a substantial contingent of the INA joined in this Chalo Delhi . Both Bose and Mutaguchi emphasised the advantages which would be gained by a successful attack into India. With misgivings on the part of several of Mutaguchi's superiors and subordinates, Operation U-Go was launched.

Northern front

Stilwell's forces, the Northern Combat Area Command, initially consisted of two American-equipped Chinese divisions with a Chinese-manned battalion and an American long-range penetration brigade known after its commander as "Merrill's Marauders".

In October 1943 the Chinese 38th Division began to advance from Ledo towards Shinbwiyang, while American engineers and Indian labourers extended the Ledo Road behind them. The had advanced to the Chindwin to stop them, but found itself outmatched. Whenever the Chinese divisions ran into Japanese strong points, the Marauders were used to outflank Japanese positions by going through the jungle. A technique which had served the Japanese so well earlier in the war before the Allies had learnt the arts of jungle warfare was now being used against them. At Walawbum, for example, if the Chinese 38th Division had been a little swifter and linked up with the Marauders it could have encircled the Japanese 18th Division.

Not only were the Japanese driven back, but the Allies were able to use the trace of the track the Japanese had constructed to supply 18th Division, to speed their construction of the Ledo Road.

Second Chindit Expedition

In the Chindits were to support Stilwell's advance by interdicting Japanese supply lines in the region of Indaw. On February 5, 1944, Brigadier Bernard Fergusson's left Ledo for Burma. They successfully avoided the Japanese by crossing exceptionally difficult terrain, which the Japanese had not guarded, and penetrated the Japanese rear areas. In early March three other brigades were flown into landing zones behind Japanese lines by the 1st Air Commando Group, from where they established strongholds on most of the Japanese road and rail links to their northern front. Over the next two and a half months the Chindits were involved in many very heavy contacts with the Japanese.

Brigadier Michael Calvert's successfully defended one of the landing zones, codenamed "Broadway", and established a road and railway block at Mawlu, north of Indaw. This position, codenamed the "White City", was successfully held for several weeks. Not all communications to the Japanese northern front were blocked, as only a single Chindit battalion operated against the road from Bhamo to Myitkyina, beyond the range of effective Allied air support.

On March 24, Fergusson's brigade attempted to capture the airfield at Indaw, but were repulsed, following which the brigade was withdrawn to India. On the same day, Wingate, the commander of the Chindits, was killed in an aircrash. His replacement was Brigadier Joe Lentaigne, formerly the commander of the .

On May 17 overall control of the Chindits passed from Slim's Fourteenth Army to Stilwell's NCAC. The Chindits now evacuated "Broadway" and the "White City", and moved from the Japanese rear areas to new bases closer to Stilwell's front, and were given additional tasks for which they were not equipped. At the same time, the Japanese replaced the scratch "Take Force" which had been trying to defend their rear areas with the headquarters of the Japanese Thirty-Third Army, and deployed against the Chindits.

Calvert's 77th Brigade captured Mogaung after a siege which ended on June 27, but at the cost of 50 percent casualties. 111th Brigade tried to establish another road and rail block codenamed "Blackpool" near Hopin, but were forced to retreat. By July, it was clear that the Chindits were exhausted by continuous marching and fighting under heavy monsoon rains, and were withdrawn. By the end of the campaign the Chindits had lost 1,396 killed and 2,434 wounded. Over half the remainder had to be hospitalised with a special diet afterwards.

Yunnan Front

The Chinese forces on the Yunnan front mounted an attack starting in the second half of April, with nearly 40,000 troops crossing the Salween River on a 200 mile front. Within a few days some twelve Chinese Divisions of 72,000 men, under the command of General Wei Lihuang, were attacking the Japanese 56th Division. The Japanese forces in the North were now fighting on two fronts: the Allies from the North West and the Nationalist Chinese from the North East.

The Chinese Yunnan offensive was hampered by the monsoon rains and lack of air support, but succeeded in annihilating the garrison of Tengchung at the end of May. After overcoming determined Japanese resistance , the Chinese captured Lungling at the end of August. At this point, the Japanese moved reinforcements to Yunnan and counter-attacked, temporarily halting the Chinese advance.

Siege of Myitkyina

While the Japanese offensive on the Central Front was being waged, Stilwell's forces continued to make gains. On May 19, two Chinese divisions encircled Kamaing. Two days before, on May 17, after a march across the Kumon Range of hills which nearly crippled the already weary Marauders, Merrill's forces captured the airfield at Myitkyina. If Ledo Chinese troops had been flown in that afternoon to attack the town immediately they could have overwhelmed the small garrison, but support and logistic units were flown in first and the opportunity was lost as the Japanese rapidly reinforced the town.

The resulting prolonged siege was not very well directed and cost the allies many men, particularly amongst the Chindits who were forced to remain in the field to disrupt Japanese relief attempts far longer than had been planned. However, because of the deteriorating situation on the other fronts, the Japanese never regained the initiative on the Northern Front.

The long siege also resulted in heavy Japanese losses. When the airfield was captured, the Japanese in the town at first intended to fight a delaying action, aided by the monsoon rains. On June 10, Major General Genzo Mizukami, who had been sent with reinforcements and placed in charge of the garrison, was ordered personally to "Defend Myitkyina to the death". The Japanese dug in and repelled several Chinese attacks. Further resistance appeared hopeless by the end of July. Mizukami evacuated the survivors of the garrison before fulfilling the letter of his orders by taking his own life inside the defended perimeter. Myitkyina was finally captured on August 3.

The capture of Myitkyina marked the end of the initial phase of Stilwell's campaign. It was the largest seizure of enemy-held territory to date in the Burma campaign and was primarily due to the Ledo Chinese divisions led by Stilwell. The airfield at Myitkyina became a vital link in the air route over the Hump.

Southern front 1943/44

In Arakan, Indian XV Corps under Lieutenant General Philip Christison renewed the advance on the Mayu peninsula. Ranges of steep hills channeled the advance into three attacks; by Indian 5th Infantry Division along the coast, Indian 7th Infantry Division along the Kalapanzin River and 81st Division along the Kaladan River. 5th Division captured the small port of Maungdaw on January 9, 1944. The Corps then prepared to capture two railway tunnels linking Maungdaw with the Kalapanzin valley. However, the Japanese struck first. A strong force from the infiltrated Allied lines to attack the 7th Division from the rear, overrunning the divisional HQ.

Unlike previous occasions on which this had happened, the Allied forces stood firm against the attack, and supplies were dropped to them by parachute. In the Battle of the Admin Box from February 5 to February 23, the Japanese concentrated on XV Corps' Administrative Area, defended mainly by service troops, but they were unable to deal with tanks supporting the defenders. Troops from 5th Division broke through the Ngakyedauk Pass to relieve the defenders of the box. Although battle casualties were approximately equal, the overall result was a heavy Japanese defeat. Their infiltration and encirclement tactics had failed to panic Allied troops, and as the Japanese were unable to capture enemy supplies, they themselves starved.

The Allies did not fully exploit their victory as XV Corps offensive wound down over the next few weeks, as the Allies concentrated on the Central Front. After capturing the railway tunnels, XV Corps halted during the monsoon, and even gave ground in the Kaladan Valley.

Central front

At Imphal, Indian IV Corps under Lieutenant-General Geoffrey Scoones had pushed forward two divisions to the Chindwin River. One division was in reserve at Imphal. There were indications that a major Japanese offensive was building. Slim and Scoones planned to withdraw and force the Japanese to fight with their logistics stretched beyond the limit. However, they misjudged the date on which the Japanese were to attack, and the strength they would use against some objectives.

The Japanese Fifteenth Army, consisting of the , and the brigade-sized "Yamamoto Force"), under Lieutenant-General Renya Mutaguchi, planned to cut off and destroy the forward divisions of IV Corps, before capturing Imphal. The would meanwhile isolate Imphal by capturing . Mutaguchi intended to exploit this victory by capturing the strategic city of Dimapur, in the Brahmaputra River valley. If this could be achieved, his army would be through the mountainous border region and the whole of North East India would be open to attack. Units of the Indian National Army were to take part in the offensive and raise rebellion in India. The capture of the Dimapur railhead would also sever the land communications to the airbases used to supply the Chinese, and cut off supplies to General Stilwell's forces fighting on the Northern Front.

Preliminary battles

The Japanese launched their troops across the Chindwin River on March 8. Scoones only gave his forward divisions orders to withdraw to Imphal on March 13. The Indian 20th Infantry Division withdrew from without difficulty, but the Indian 17th Division was cut off at Tiddim by the Japanese 33rd Division. From March 18 to March 25, thanks to air re-supply by the RAF and U.S Troop Carrier Command crews in their C-47 Dakotas, and assistance from the , the 17th Division was able to fight its way back through four Japanese road blocks. The two divisions reached the Imphal plain on April 4.

Meanwhile, Imphal had been left vulnerable to the Japanese 15th Division. The only force left covering the base, Indian 50th Parachute Brigade, was roughly handled at Sangshak by a regiment from the Japanese 31st Division on its way to Kohima. However, the diversionary attack launched by Japanese 55th division on , had already been defeated, and in late March Slim was able to move the battle-hardened "Ball of Fire" Indian 5th Division, including all their artillery, jeeps, mules and other materiel, by air from Arakan to the Central Front. The move was completed in only eleven days. Two brigades went to Imphal, the other went to Dimapur from where it sent a detachment to Kohima.

Kohima

While the Allied forces in Imphal were cut off and besieged, the Japanese 31st Division, consisting of 20,000 men under Lieutenant-General Kotoku Sato, were able to advance up the Imphal–Dimapur road. Instead of isolating the small garrison at Kohima and pressing on with his main force to Dimapur, Sato chose to concentrate on capturing the hill station. The Japanese records indicate that Sato had severe misgivings about Fifteenth Army's plan. In particular, they thought the logistic gambles were reckless, and were unwilling to drive on objectives they thought unattainable.

The Battle of Kohima started on April 5 when the Japanese isolated the garrison and tried to dislodge the defenders from their hill top redoubts. Fighting was very heavy around the District Commissioner's tennis court. This phase of the battle is often referred to as the Battle of the Tennis Court and was the "high-water mark" of the Japanese attack. On April 18 the Indian 161 Brigade relieved the defenders, but the battle was not over as the Japanese dug in and defended the positions they had captured.

A new Allied formation HQ, the Indian XXXIII Corps under Lieutenant-General Montagu Stopford, now took over operations on this front. The British 2nd Infantry Division began a counter-offensive and by May 15, they had prised the Japanese off Kohima Ridge itself, although the Japanese still held dominating positions north and south of the Ridge. More Allied troops were arriving at Kohima; the Indian 7th Division followed 5th Division from the Arakan; a motor infantry brigade reinforced 2nd Division; a brigade diverted from the Chindit operation cut Japanese 31st Division's supply lines. XXXIII Corps renewed its offensive in the middle of May.

Imphal

The Battle of Imphal went badly for the Japanese during the month of April, as their attacks from several directions on the Imphal plain failed to break the Allied defensive ring. At the start of May, Slim and Scoones began a counter-offensive against the Japanese 15th Division north of Imphal. Progress was slow. The monsoon had broken, and this made movement very difficult. Also, IV Corps was suffering some shortages. Although rations and reinforcements were delivered to Imphal by air, artillery ammunition was by now rationed. However, the Japanese were at the end of their endurance and with the monsoon season beginning, conditions would quickly become far worse. Neither 31st Division nor 15th Division had received adequate supplies since the offensive began, and their troops lacked proper food. During the rains, disease rapidly spread among the starving Japanese troops.

Lieutenant-General Sato had notified Mutaguchi that his division would withdraw from Kohima at the end of May if it were not supplied. In spite of orders to hold on, Sato did indeed begin to retreat, although an independent detachment from his division continued to fight delaying actions along the Imphal Road. Meanwhile, the units of 15th Division were wandering away from their positions to forage for supplies. Its commander, Lieutenant-General Masafumi Yamauchi was dismissed but this could not affect matters. The leading troops of IV Corps and XXXIII Corps met at Milestone 109 on the Dimapur-Imphal road on June 22, and the siege of Imphal was raised.

Mutaguchi nevertheless continued to order renewed attacks. 33rd Division , and Yamamoto Force made repeated efforts south of Imphal, but by the end of June they had suffered so many casualties both from battle and general sickness that they were unable to make any progress. The Allies had in the meantime cleared large numbers of starving and disordered Japanese troops in and around Ukhrul north of Imphal. The Japanese Imphal operation was finally broken off early in July, and they retreated painfully to the Chindwin River.

It was the largest defeat to that date in Japanese history. They had suffered 55,000 casualties, including 13,500 dead. Most of these losses were the result of disease, malnutrition and exhaustion. The Allies suffered 17,500 casualties. Mutaguchi was relieved of his command and left Burma for Singapore in disgrace. Sato refused to commit Seppuku when handed a sword by Colonel Shumei Kinoshita, insisting that the defeat had not been his doing. He was examined by doctors who stated that his mental health was such that he could not be court-martialled. .

From August to November, Fourteenth Army pursued the Japanese to the Chindwin River. While the 11th East Africa Division advanced down the Kabaw Valley from Tamu, the Indian 5th Division advanced along the mountainous Tiddim road. By the end of November, Kalewa had been recaptured, and several bridgeheads were established on the east bank of the Chindwin.

Slim and his Corps commanders were knighted by Wavell in a ceremony at Imphal in December.