Taunggyi, Shan State | POV: Loweis | September 2025The speeches blaring through the speakers on the small truck were stirring.
Villagers gradually converged until they packed the area around the roundabout. Elders led children by the hand; groups of young men and women arrived on foot or by motorcycle to join the assembly. In everyone’s hands was a pot or a kitchen utensil. Whenever the speaker struck a chord, the sound of banging pots erupted—"Pong-peng! Pong-peng!"—resounding throughout the entire city.
It was a creative and powerful display. The accumulated oppression in their hearts exploded through the symbol of kitchenware, declaring to the world that they had only their "bare hands" to face the power of guns.
I lay flat on the stone floor beside a cliff ledge. Sawn, knowing his duty well, dragged a large trash bin over to act as a shield, camouflaging our position and preventing those below from easily spotting our sniper nest.
"Ngary... Ngary..." The ancient clock on the temple pavilion struck ten in the morning. The sunlight sweeping in from behind us confirmed that the horizon ahead was the West. I peered through my binoculars. People continued to join the assembly in an unending stream. Despite the mounting heat of the sun, every face was etched with a smile. They came with pure hearts, with only pots in their hands as their weapons of choice.
Sawn shifted, aiming through his scope at the same spot.
“While people in Taunggyi are bleeding, why do the rulers who claim to love the people sit still in their ivory towers? Or is the word 'independence' worth less than the secret deals they have with the old powers?” I felt a strange pang of surprise that the citizens had to fight alone.
Sawn growled deep in his throat. “While the people of Chinland and Kawthoolei are writing new constitutions with their own blood, the rulers in the Shan valleys are still busy sharpening their pens, waiting for negotiations. In the end, it only leads to more funerals in Taunggyi. Since they won't help... I will.”
His voice was flat but carried immense weight. He swung the barrel of his rifle, scanning for troops, before stopping dead and pointing forward—aligned with the lens aimed past the protesters toward the long road stretching into the distance.
“My intel never misses. Those loser soldiers are coming... brave only against children, women, and people with bare hands.”
I immediately followed with my binoculars.
An open-top military jeep tore through the landscape, kicking up clouds of dust. Two soldiers kept watch in the front, while another stood prominently behind a machine gun mounted on the back... they were coming specifically to slaughter people with bare hands.
"Vroom...!!"
Military trucks arrived, loaded to capacity with troops. They pulled into the market, defiantly facing the protesters. Dozens of soldiers leaped from the trucks and rushed into a single-file line, cordoning off the entire roundabout.
A high-ranking officer stepped down from the jeep, standing before the line with utter arrogance. He raised a megaphone, barking orders for the protesters to disperse and go home immediately. However, the villagers responded with the sound of banging pots, echoing back in intervals against the negotiations.
When talk failed, both sides stood frozen, staring each other down. The provocation stoked the fires of rage. The continuous banging of pots harmonized with the increasingly aggressive speeches from the truck.
Until noon... three rounds of negotiations passed with zero progress. The distance between the gun barrels and the pots in hand began to close to a terrifying degree.
Suddenly, the same officer retreated to stand behind the line. Sawn pulled his eye away from the scope and looked at me.
“Get ready... it’s starting.”
He clenched his teeth until his jaw muscles bulged and flattened himself against the ground rapidly. I stared through my binoculars at the officer, whose face was twisted with fury. He hurried to stand beside the jeep driver, then shouted an order.
Both rows of soldiers in front raised their rifles to their shoulders. The M60 machine gun on the jeep was adjusted, zeroing in on the crowd of bare-handed protesters.
"Pong-peng! Pong-peng!" The sound of the pots still thundered, unafraid of the power of the guns. I tried to get a clear look at that officer, but visibility was poor because he kept pacing behind the line, refusing to stay still as a target.
Suddenly... the officer shouted another order. The gunner at the back pressed the tail of the M60 down until the muzzle pointed at the sky before letting off the first burst.
"Trrt! Trrt! Trrt!" Tracer rounds streaked from the barrel—a terrifying sight. The operation to shoot birds in a cage to instill fear had begun!
The protesters scattered in total panic, colliding with one another in the chaos. Some tripped; some lay flat on the ground; others crawled desperately for cover in despair. Yet, many remained unshaken by the intimidation. They stood their ground, banging their pots to drive the soldiers away with a rage that had only intensified. The leaders on the truck continued to roar, inciting the masses without pause.
The officer shouted again, holding his hand high as a signal.
"Krk-krk!" The two front lines of soldiers split to the sides, clearing the path for the M60 machine gun on the jeep to point directly at the crowd without obstruction.
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“...................”
The moment that officer snapped his hand down, every gun erupted at once!
"Trrt! Trrt! Trrt! Trrt!" The roar of the M60 machine gun thundered throughout the city of Taunggyi. The poor, bare-handed civilians in the front row were shredded by the destructive power of the vehicle-mounted machine gun. They fell in a long line, blood splashing across the ground in a crimson tide. Screams of terror immediately replaced the sound of the pots, which had gone silent.
Sawn barked a sharp command, “Take out the machine gunner first!”
He shifted into position rapidly. His eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, stared fixedly through the rifle scope.
“Wind 6 knots, direction 45 degrees,” I reported—the most vital data for the sniper.
Sawn adjusted the windage dial according to my report before aiming once more. He drew a slow breath until his lungs were full, then held it perfectly still. His body froze like a stone statue; only his index finger moved, pulling the trigger with a gentle, patient touch.
"Pung!" The sound of the shot, suppressed, hit my ears with a heavy thud, accompanied by a pressure wave that I could feel against my face. My eyes were glued through the binoculars to the machine gunner on the jeep... one second passed... two seconds...
The .338 LAPUA round reached its target with absolute lethality. In that split second, the gunner’s head snapped back before his body slumped into the back of the truck like a puppet with its strings cut. Bright red blood sprayed in a mist against the noon sun. The Dealer of Death had done its work.
“Bingo!” I felt a surge of satisfaction.
However, the situation below only intensified. The front line of soldiers began to advance aggressively toward the crowd. The truck carrying the speakers tried to reverse in a desperate escape. The protesters, who had once been a solid block, were now scattering in every direction. The loss of life was spiraling out of control.
But then, at that critical moment... a black-clad militia of about twenty men appeared. They roared in on motorcycles from the road to the right of the roundabout before skidding to a halt and dispersing behind buildings on both sides of the street with combat precision. A loud command sent the villagers scrambling to clear a path, creating a gap that gave a clear view of the military line.
"Trrt! Trrt! Trrt! Trrt!"
They opened fire without hesitation. Bullets slammed into seven or eight soldiers in the front row, who collapsed in an instant. The remaining soldiers, caught off guard, scrambled for cover behind the buildings. The gunfire from the black-clad group turned the Taunggyi roundabout into a battlefield in a heartbeat.
The remaining central troops regained their composure. They used building corners and truck wheels as cover before firing back. The sound of bullets hitting concrete walls echoed alongside the roar of gunfire until it was impossible to tell which side was which.
“They’re starting to find their footing,” I reported, panning my binoculars. I saw tracer rounds streaking through the air above the heads of the villagers still lying on the ground.
Sawn didn't answer. He merely shifted slightly to change his angle of fire. His eyes remained still, focused through the scope. His finger rested on the trigger, waiting patiently—not firing aimlessly, but selecting a "High-value target" amidst the chaos below.
“Find that officer...” Sawn ordered flatly. “He’s the heart of this game. If the heart stops beating... the rest is just a corpse.”
"Pang! Pang! Pang!" The exchange of gunfire continued without break. The panicked protesters gradually cleared the area until it was nearly empty.
“1 o’clock. Wind 8 knots, 30 degrees,” I reported the coordinates immediately. A soldier was sneaking behind a building to return fire at the black-clad men. He was a clear target for us.
"Pung!" The heavy thud of the rifle sounded. The soldier’s body jerked a few times before he breathed his last—denied the chance to go home. I followed the situation closely.
The remaining soldiers began to break formation, retreating in disarray. They were only trained to shoot bare-handed civilians; faced with actual armed combatants, they ran with their tails between their legs. In a country where the military leads, they always run when they meet the real thing—they've never fought anyone but their own people.
“Don't move. We'll pick them off right here.”
I found the primary target. The high-ranking officer who had given the order earlier was crouching, running to stop by the body of the first soldier, peering past the edge of the building to assess the situation.
"Pung!" Following the second shot, that officer collapsed in the same manner as his subordinate. I couldn't help but smile with satisfaction at taking down their leader.
The black-clad group moved quickly, zig-zagging through alleys and appearing in side streets with expert knowledge of the terrain. They lured and picked off the Burmese soldiers one by one until the troops were terrified.
The military jeep sat abandoned, driverless. The surviving soldiers threw down their weapons, stripped off their outer uniforms, and ran into the city to hide. The black-clad group didn't miss the opportunity, chasing them until they disappeared from sight.
“Mission complete.”
Sawn turned to high-five me, his face calm but his eyes satisfied. “The failure to declare this land as ours, the silence while people are shot in the streets—that isn't a tactic. It’s the betrayal of a leader.”
Every word he spoke reflected an extreme brand of patriotism. We both quickly packed our gear. I slung the rifle bag over my back and ran to the motorcycle. He kicked the engine to life, soaring down from the peak to stop quietly at the roundabout below just moments later.
“Long San!”
Sawn shouted, raising a hand to greet someone standing there before revving the engine and heading back home immediately.
The crimson light of the setting sun stretched across vast rice fields... a scene you would never see in Europe. It was the balance of nature, sharing a simple, unhurried life. The playful laughter of young rural men and women after their farm work looked so bright, contrasting sharply with the images of death we had just witnessed.
“You still holding up?” Sawn asked curtly, but with a slight smile as he walked to put the rifle back into its place in the armory.
“Where else are we going?” I asked, looking at him hesitantly. Part of me was cursing him in my head...
“Ha! Ha! Ha! Scared already?” He roared with laughter at my uneasy expression.
“Let’s go find Jetdoe!”
“And those soldiers?”
“Soldiers in this region have no honor... they’re just hired guns with an affiliation, slaughtering bare-handed people on their masters' orders.” Sawn spat with a voice full of loathing. “They aren't warriors. Just idiots who know how to pull a trigger.”
“Do you ever get bored of war? No matter where it is, it’s all the same... in the end, it’s just the desire of a few elites.” I wanted to know what he truly thought deep down, but this event told me his heart possessed a strong sense of justice.
“I damn well hate them!” he roared, his eyes flashing with a long-simmering rage. “Being a soldier means your body is stronger—instead of using that to protect the weak, they use it to gang up on them. There's nothing to respect.”
“If this world had no religion, no politics, no race, or even laws... do you think it would be a better place to live?”
“Maybe... so we wouldn't have to fight. Or would it be even more of a disaster?” He frowned, hesitating.
“.......................”
A swarm of wild butterflies fluttered, playing with the wind.
“Mark my words... soon, there will be no more war in this world.” I finished with a calm, steady voice that made him turn to look.
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