ABSTRACT
Today, under the People’s Government, a sizeable portion of Kwangsi has been designated as a special area in which tribesmen, dignified as a ‘minority nationality’ enjoy a certain measure of autonomy, but until 1949, the aboriginals were as a rule on the worst possible terms with their Chinese supplanters, and often enough at open war with them. When these latter had got wind of Liu’s intention, they were able by an unlooked for turn of events to call on a powerful champion. For while the Black Flags had been winning favour in Vietnam, the situation of their old comrades in Kwangsi, ‘Prince’ Wu and his army, had been going steadily from bad to worse until, hounded every step of the road by the provincial militia, they too had been driven south over the frontier. The campaign which followed included some of Liu’s most remarkable examples of military leadership, especially the feat known as ‘the storming of the thirteen passes’.
