BEHIND THE FRONT LINES IN BURMA THE MARCHES OF THE SALWEEN BORDER
1942-1944
P.H. MUNRO-FAURE*
113
I had lost what was left of my worldly possessions in a fire which had unfortunately destroyed one of the temples at Chin Ya and so I took the opportunity of a period of leave in India to refit. By August I was back in Kun-Ming.
Yunnan province is recognised by all to be one of the provinces in China least affected by western ideas. It is a remote province, appointment to which in the old imperial days was considered by Chinese officials a form of banishment, indicating imperial disapproval. Until 1254 the semi-independent Shan kingdom of Nanchao shut off communications between China and Burma. In that year the capture of Talifu, the Shan Capital, by Kublai Khan extended Chinese control westwards to the Burmese border, where however through the centuries the March Barons, or Shan Sawbwas, continued to behave as independently as they might, sometimes affecting allegiance to the overlord in the East and sometimes to the overlord in the West, the kingdom of Ava.
Unlike the British policy of indirect rule, which leaves the population in the Shan States on the Burmese side of the border under the administration of their own princes, with some restriction regarding the imposition of the capital sentence, the Chinese policy has been to displace the tribal chieftains by Chinese magistrates. With a few minor exceptions on the immediate border there are thus no Shan Sawbwas left inside China. As for the tribal people, they are gradually driven by the encroaching Chinese into the remoter regions and out of the valleys onto the mountain slopes: they are suffering the fate that awaits weaker peoples in the rough and tumble of natural selection.
In 1855 a great Mohammedan rebellion, known as the Panthay rebellion, broke out and a Mohammedan ruler set himself up in western Yunnan, styling himself the Sultan Suleiman. The Chinese recovered his capital again, Talifu, in 1873, put the city to the sack and destroyed
*This is the fourth and concluding extract from Lt Colonel Munro-Faure's memoirs (Editor)
BEHIND THE FRONT LINES IN BURMA THE MARCHES OF THE SALWEEN BORDER
1942-1944
P.H. MUNRO- FAURE*
113
I had lost what was left of my worldly possessions in a fire which had unfortunately destroyed one of the temples at Chin Ya and so I took the opportunity of a period of leave in India to refit. By August I was back in Kun-Ming.
Yunnan province is recognised by all to be one of the provinces in China least affected by western ideas. It is a remote province appointment to which in the old imperial days was considered by Chinese officials a form of banishment, indicating imperial disapproval. Until 1254 the semi-independent Shan kingdom of Nanchao shut off communications between China and Burma. In that year the capture of Talifu, the Shan Capital, by Kublai Khan extended Chinese control westwards to the Burmese border, where however through the centuries the March Barons, or Shan Sawbwas, continued to behave as independently as they might, sometimes affecting allegiance to the overlord in the East and sometimes to the overlord in the West, the kingdom of Ava.
Unlike the British policy of indirect rule, which leaves the population in the Shan States on the Burmese side of the border under the administration of their own princes, with some restriction regarding the imposition of the capital sentence, the Chinese policy has been to displace the tribal chieftains by Chinese magistrates. With a few minor exceptions on the immediate border there are thus no Shan Sawbwas left inside China. As for the tribal people, they are gradually driven by the encroaching Chinese into the remoter regions and out of the valleys onto the mountain slopes: they are suffering the fate that awaits weaker peoples in the rough and tumble of natural selection.
In 1855 a great Mohammedan rebellion, known as the Panthay rebellion, broke out and a Mohammedan ruler set himself up in western Yunnan, styling himself the Sultan Suleiman. The Chinese recovered his capital again, Talifu, in 1873, put the city to the sack and destroyed
*This is the fourth and concluding extract from Lt Colonel Munro-Faure's memoirs (Editor)
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