The Lost Soldier of Myitkyina

"Mother, when the war is finished I will return home." At the beginning of 1944, Li Xiquan wrote his mother in Hunan Province just before his battalion, part of the China Expeditionary Force, set out on a mission to Yunnan Province in preparation for a large counter-offensive in the western part of the region.

On the early morning of May 11 that year, a battle broke out in western Yunnan between Chinese and Japanese forces. The same day, Li traveled across the Nujiang River to fight against the Japanese invasion. More than 9,000 Chinese soldiers would end up sacrificing their lives to defend the city of Tengchong.