Word: xiengkhouang
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Stinging Taunts. Early in March each year, Meo tribesmen journey to the small Laotian town of Xiengkhouang, sell their surplus crop at about $30 a kilo to middlemen, hardheaded types who belong to something known as the Corsican brotherhood. From here the business gets into illicit channels and high prices. By pony caravan, or by light planes that take off from jungle airfields built by the French during their five-year war with Communist Viet Minh, the raw opium is transported to Bangkok and Hong Kong, bought by Chinese dealers at up to $1,000 a kilo and refined into...
...strip as "indefensible," and the garrison fled south across uncharted mountains, carrying their wounded on their backs and harried all the way by the Viet Minh. Supplied by air with food and water, and with Benzedrine to keep them from falling asleep and being ambushed, the French reached Xiengkhouang (pronounced sing kwong), a market town in north Laos. But the Communists, with an estimated force of 40,000 men, kept pressing forward, with long lines of Russian-made Molotov trucks following up with supplies. Xiengkhouang's 1,500 civilians were ordered to evacuate. Chinese opium traders, pony-riding...
...French planned to make a stand near Xiengkhouang, on the vast limestone Plaine des Jarres north of Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Commandeering every available plane, including civil airliners, French General Raoul Salan packed them with troops and flew them into the Plaine des Jarres at the rate of 50 aircraft a day. At Saigon, soldier clerks and interpreters were sent off to fight in Laos. At week's end there was a strong force of Foreign Legion battalions reinforcing the slim Laotian army. But Communist Giap had chosen his time well: within a few weeks the rainy season...