authorities were all too familiar with the dangers of heroin, and dealt harshly with traffickers. Ten thousand executions a year are performed on average on drug offenders in China, yet the flow of drugs continues unabated.
Geography and nature combined to foil efforts at drug interdiction. Uninhabited, save for the primitive and elusive Hill Tribes, the borders of China meet Burma to the Southwest, and Laos to the South. The entire region is thick, mountainous jungle stretching for thousands of square miles. Humans scarcely affect this wilderness, and manmade boundaries are illusory in the trackless rainforest.
Though part of a much larger effort involving thousands of troops, junior officers had greater autonomy than was the case elsewhere. Communications were often interrupted, and it was not uncommon for patrols to be out of touch for days or weeks at a time.
Far from the watchful eyes of his elders, Fang’s first taste of freedom was intoxicating. Army headquarters for Yunnan Province are based in K’un-Ming, a few hours North by plane from Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. His birthplace and home, Beijing, lay a continent away to the East.
Born and raised in his nation’s capital, Fang grew up with Stalinist architecture and the grey dreariness of life that were so often the product of Chinese Communism. As is the Chinese custom, he was raised to obey the family patriarch, and to view a tightly regimented existence as the norm.
Overnight, he found himself the leader of a hundred men in an anarchic city awash in gaudiness and vice.
K’un-Ming is an overgrown village in desperate need of a zoning committee. Concrete boxes sprout like ugly mushrooms amidst old traditional bamboo and teak dwellings. Food vendors pushing carts compete with pedicabs, taxis, motorcycles, trucks, and bicycles for space on the roads. Retail shops add to the chaos by spilling their wares onto tables blocking the ruinous sidewalks. In this maelstrom of traffic lurk thieves, touts, prostitutes, beggars, and street orphans awaiting an opportunity to seize whatever scraps might fall into their grasp.
Fang quickly discovered that the pay of a captain in the Army of the People’s Republic was grossly deficient in purchasing the pleasures K’un-Ming offered.
Within a month of his posting, his view of the world was twisted beyond recognition. Filial piety and the rewards of the state were abandoned in favor of a lifestyle focused on sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
The question of financing this new hedonism did not pose a problem for long. The orders he received from his superiors could still be followed without alterations, save for the bit at the end.
The army’s strategy along the border was as effective as it was simple. Fang and his men were sent out into the jungle from a clearing or landmark accessible by truck. After completing their tour, they would rendezvous backat the drop-off point with other units for the trip back to their bases, within an approximate time frame.
When they trekked into the hills, they sought out the poppy fields scattered about the countryside that were marked on a map based on aerial surveys.
Once a field was located, he and his men would move onto the neighboring village in a crescent-shaped formation. On reaching the village, the best-dressed men (those earning the money from the crop) would be shot. Whatever opium was found would be burned, and, if possible, the field, too, would be set aflame.
Fang followed every order except the burning of the opium.
He’d stash it in a heavy canvas bag that could be padlocked. Later, in K’un-Ming, he would sell it. He earned so much money he could afford to be generous, and to avoid any unpleasantness or hard feelings, he doubled the salary of everyone under his command. This still left an enormous profit, as a Chinese soldier’s pay was a risible sum. This minor act of noblesse oblige earned him an intense loyalty that leaders seldom know. Unfortunately,
Geography and nature combined to foil efforts at drug interdiction. Uninhabited, save for the primitive and elusive Hill Tribes, the borders of China meet Burma to the Southwest, and Laos to the South. The entire region is thick, mountainous jungle stretching for thousands of square miles. Humans scarcely affect this wilderness, and manmade boundaries are illusory in the trackless rainforest.
Though part of a much larger effort involving thousands of troops, junior officers had greater autonomy than was the case elsewhere. Communications were often interrupted, and it was not uncommon for patrols to be out of touch for days or weeks at a time.
Far from the watchful eyes of his elders, Fang’s first taste of freedom was intoxicating. Army headquarters for Yunnan Province are based in K’un-Ming, a few hours North by plane from Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. His birthplace and home, Beijing, lay a continent away to the East.
Born and raised in his nation’s capital, Fang grew up with Stalinist architecture and the grey dreariness of life that were so often the product of Chinese Communism. As is the Chinese custom, he was raised to obey the family patriarch, and to view a tightly regimented existence as the norm.
Overnight, he found himself the leader of a hundred men in an anarchic city awash in gaudiness and vice.
K’un-Ming is an overgrown village in desperate need of a zoning committee. Concrete boxes sprout like ugly mushrooms amidst old traditional bamboo and teak dwellings. Food vendors pushing carts compete with pedicabs, taxis, motorcycles, trucks, and bicycles for space on the roads. Retail shops add to the chaos by spilling their wares onto tables blocking the ruinous sidewalks. In this maelstrom of traffic lurk thieves, touts, prostitutes, beggars, and street orphans awaiting an opportunity to seize whatever scraps might fall into their grasp.
Fang quickly discovered that the pay of a captain in the Army of the People’s Republic was grossly deficient in purchasing the pleasures K’un-Ming offered.
Within a month of his posting, his view of the world was twisted beyond recognition. Filial piety and the rewards of the state were abandoned in favor of a lifestyle focused on sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
The question of financing this new hedonism did not pose a problem for long. The orders he received from his superiors could still be followed without alterations, save for the bit at the end.
The army’s strategy along the border was as effective as it was simple. Fang and his men were sent out into the jungle from a clearing or landmark accessible by truck. After completing their tour, they would rendezvous backat the drop-off point with other units for the trip back to their bases, within an approximate time frame.
When they trekked into the hills, they sought out the poppy fields scattered about the countryside that were marked on a map based on aerial surveys.
Once a field was located, he and his men would move onto the neighboring village in a crescent-shaped formation. On reaching the village, the best-dressed men (those earning the money from the crop) would be shot. Whatever opium was found would be burned, and, if possible, the field, too, would be set aflame.
Fang followed every order except the burning of the opium.
He’d stash it in a heavy canvas bag that could be padlocked. Later, in K’un-Ming, he would sell it. He earned so much money he could afford to be generous, and to avoid any unpleasantness or hard feelings, he doubled the salary of everyone under his command. This still left an enormous profit, as a Chinese soldier’s pay was a risible sum. This minor act of noblesse oblige earned him an intense loyalty that leaders seldom know. Unfortunately,
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