Volume One, Chapter Three: The Yan Nuo Corporation

Yan Nuo’s selection of distributors was inspired by the map. In the mid-1980s, when transportation was inconvenient, trafficking in large quantities of drugs was no easy feat. One had to choose routes that were relatively accessible, while also avoiding areas under intense and targeted anti-drug operations. Using Deze as a starting point, he established a fan-shaped trafficking network based on the principle of point-to-point connections within the province and line-based routes beyond its borders.

So long as each distributor reproduced his “protection umbrella” model within their own territory and took on responsibility for maintaining public order, the “platinum corridor” for drug trafficking could be sustained indefinitely.

Except for Tan Xiaoming, all the other drug lords were locals from the mountains of Saro. And, like Tan Xiaoming, none of them could be called particularly clever. They were rough, reckless, and brutal—that was their shared nature. To have survived to this level, each had more than a few lives on their hands.

Tan Xiaoming once asked himself if it was possible to replace Yan Nuo. It didn’t even take a minute for him to feel deeply ashamed of his own presumptuousness.

Aside from the network Yan Nuo had built over the years, another reason Tan Xiaoming could not subdue these savages was their instinctive reliance on violence to solve problems. Only Yan Nuo, however, could wield violence in a way that inspired true nightmares.

Tan Xiaoming hailed from Leshan in Bamin. Despite being from a land renowned for the sacred Mount Emei and its world-famous Buddha statue, he bore no trace of Buddhist or celestial grace. He was calculating and ruthless, patient yet explosive.

Although the first repackaging of drugs happened at Yadu, all shipments heading east had to pass through Yunting, the provincial capital. Tan Xiaoming was responsible for the safe transport of goods from Yunting to all other distribution points. Resourceful and courageous, he was a master of social connections and had a keen understanding of the unspoken rules in a society governed by law. Over the years, he had painstakingly woven an intricate web of relationships—no one else could handle this role.

To the north of Yunting lay Xichang, a mountain fortress and the capital of Liangshan Prefecture. The Yi drug lord there, Jinai Amu, was illiterate and had no concept of numbers; he couldn’t recall how many people he’d killed. Goods shipped from Xichang were distributed throughout Bamin, with some even reaching as far as Shaanxi province.

In eastern Saro, two distribution points were set up: Zhaotong and Hejing. These were outside Tan Xiaoming’s jurisdiction.

From Zhaotong, the goods spread to Yibin and Luzhou, then throughout Chongqing, and finally traveled along the Three Gorges waterway into the heartlands of Hubei and Henan.

Hejing, bordering Guizhou, reached into the ancient wilds via Qianxi and Liupanshui, pushing as far as Hunan and Jiangxi. Both distributors were Han Chinese.

The agent from Zhaotong, known respectfully as “Third Brother Wang,” was a few years older than Yan Nuo. Preferring floral shirts and a small mustache, he spoke deliberately and resembled a foreman in the construction trade. But he was the kingpin of Zhaotong, a man who stood shoulder to shoulder with the brotherhoods of Bashu, fiercely loyal to his own and merciless to his enemies. He had committed deeds that sent chills down the spines of both the underworld and the authorities.

Heijing’s “Blackskin” was the youngest, a second-generation drug lord who inherited his father’s profession. Blackskin’s father, known as “Second Brother Chen,” was once a youth sent to support the Third Front construction. After graduating from Shanghai Jiaotong University at twenty-three, he responded to the call to “prepare for war and famine, serve the people” and headed to the mountains of Anshun, Guizhou, to build the Dian-Qian railway.

By the early 1980s, the railway was unfinished and the Third Front project, plagued by inefficiency and waste, was shut down. Over thirty and with nothing to his name, but still ambitious, Second Brother Chen moved his entire family to Hejing, believing that “a tree dies when transplanted, but a man thrives.” He overlooked a critical issue: without household registration, they were undocumented, living a precarious and sometimes starving existence, eventually forced to flee westward to the border.

There, he befriended Yan Nuo, who was just entering the drug trade. Both were shrewd strategists, and their partnership flourished into a deep friendship over the years. A stroke two years prior left the once formidable drug lord incapacitated, condemned to spend his remaining days drooling in a luxurious bed.

Blackskin, true to his name, was dark-skinned and powerfully built. Yet in this business, brains counted for more than brawn, and he was all too happy to let his dull appearance mask his cunning mind.

Within just two years, Blackskin had consolidated unassailable authority within the Hejing syndicate, primarily by ruthlessly purging the old guard. He had also inherited his father’s intellectual pedigree, reorganizing the downstream sales channels with the precision of an engineer.

At the southern tip of the fan-shaped network lay Wenshan. From the Zhuang areas of Wenshan, the goods moved into Baise in Guangxi, with a quarter of the drugs spreading throughout the Guangxi region, and the rest going directly to the hands of Guangdong’s drug lords. Yan Nuo meticulously developed the direct route to the lucrative southern markets of Hong Kong and Macau.

The drug lord from Wenshan was the formidable Li Han, a native Han Chinese from Malipo. His hometown lay on the frontline of the Sino-Vietnamese conflict, and he was a veteran of that war. His status as a survivor and the bullet scar on his face commanded respect, to say nothing of his sworn brotherhood with Khun Sa, the notorious drug lord of the Golden Triangle.

More than two years earlier, Khun Sa had publicly declared himself President of the newly formed Shan State Republic, and Li Han had contributed a generous “campaign” fund. He rarely smiled, but the scar on his face lent him a perpetually sinister grin.

Tan Xiaoming had once joked, “Anyone who’s ever seen Brother Han smile is long dead, aren’t they?”

To suppress the drugs flowing in from Banna on the southwestern border, Yan Nuo established a minor distribution point in the Red River Yi Autonomous Prefecture—the choke point between Banna and Guangxi. Though close to Wenshan and seemingly of little value, the Red River point held strategic significance: it cut off other traffickers’ southernmost route from the Golden Triangle into the interior. Heroin entering through Banna, Pu’er, and Lincang had to pass through Yunting, making Red River a mandatory passage. Rival organizations frequently encountered armed hijackings in this area, and losing a shipment here meant total ruin.

Like Jinai Amu, the Red River was under the control of a Yi chieftain’s descendant, the ruthless Sha Mawei Za, who had already built a formidable presence in the region. Though his tenure was shortest and his allocations smallest, he made his fortune by intercepting passing shipments from other clans—stockpiling vast amounts of heroin in just two years.

Yan Nuo summoned his six chief lieutenants here, and faced with this scene, they all understood without a word: Yan Nuo intended to kill as a show of force, using the annual gathering as an opportunity for them to witness. But it was puzzling—was it overkill to summon six top lieutenants to witness the execution of two insignificant junkies, or was it an understatement for something greater?

Everyone knew, though, that for Yan Nuo, drug trafficking was just business. As the biggest kingpin, he was acutely aware of the devastation heroin and even marijuana wrought on bodies and minds. He had seen villages nearby ravaged by addiction, transformed into haunted wastelands, towns plagued by crime, addicts drifting like ghouls at the forest’s edge.

He was a farmer’s son, and though trafficking was his only option, Yan Nuo had always set aside part of his profits to improve the lives of his fellow villagers. He funded roads, schools, hospitals. His investment in irrigation brought prosperity to thousands of acres of farmland.

He would rather be the source of all evil himself. He carried the weight of his sins and never prayed for the Buddha’s protection. If his crimes could buy health and fortune for the people of this land, he would willingly choose hell.

But he would not allow his sins to poison his own homeland.

Thus, in Yan Nuo’s operation, there was an iron rule: within the syndicate, any addict must die.

The junkies about to be executed were subordinates of Ru Ahya. Not only did they use drugs, but they peddled them to local youths—an unforgivable transgression to Yan Nuo. Former associates stripped and tore the clothes from the junkies’ frail bodies. Whether from withdrawal, the chill mountain wind, or sheer terror, these naked wretches trembled on the muddy ground.

The pickup driver dragged over rolls of wire mesh, and the group roughly wrapped the naked men in five-centimeter mesh wire, twisting it tight with iron wire and pliers, so that flesh and features bulged grotesquely from the grid, their muffled moans barely human.

Ru Ahya, holding a short knife, slashed across their exposed flesh where it bulged through the mesh, spraying fine crimson mist from ruptured capillaries. The two men uttered animalistic grunts. Splattered with blood, Ru Ahya crouched and casually jabbed his knife into one victim’s open mouth.

Tan Xiaoming felt a wave of nausea but couldn’t help his curiosity. He asked the veteran Dao Laobo beside him, “Is this some special clan punishment? Why use wire mesh?”

Dao Laobo, accustomed to such scenes, explained calmly, “There’s a reason for this. The Nu River flows from this gorge into Burma—over there they call it the Salween. The water widens and slows. In a moment, Ru Ahya will tie foam boxes onto the wire mesh and toss them in. They won’t drown right away. As they float downstream, the blood will draw hundred-kilo giant catfish. And I’ve heard someone recently caught a three-hundred-kilo stingray. These two will drift in the current, nibbled alive by big fish. Boss Tan, just imagine the taste of that—”

Dao Laobo broke off, shuddering in silence to convey the unspeakable cruelty.

Tan Xiaoming forced a smile. “Boss Yan’s punishments are certainly unique.” He handed Dao Laobo a cigarette and asked, “Is there any reason for the wire mesh?”

“That’s Ru Ahya’s invention,” Dao Laobo replied with admiration. “The mesh cages them so the fish can only lick at the blood and maybe tear off some flesh. Their bodies stay wrapped in wire, and after half a day soaking in the river, they’ll swell up. The wire acts like knives, slicing the flesh off piece by piece. Even if someone finds the remains, who could recognize that heap of bones?”

Tan Xiaoming and the nearby kingpins couldn’t help but click their tongues in wonder. Now that was truly the aesthetics of violence.