During this year’s Water-splashing Festival, Meiyong, a 30-year-old lady of the Dai ethnic group, accompanied by some Dai friends, went to Zhang Yunbo’s office, and there, with traditional Dai etiquette, she acknowledged Zhang as her “godfather.”

On the morning of May 9, 2000, a robber broke into Meiyong’s house and kidnapped her. The robber asked for 40,000 kyat (US$6255.18) in ransom and a police car to take him to the other side of the border, or he would kill Meiyong. Receiving the order to rescue the woman, Zhang Yunbo headed a group of soldiers and rushed to Meiyong’s house.

When they arrived, Zhang took off his uniform and hid his pistol behind his back belt. Pretending to be a driver, he approached the kidnapper. When he was ten meters or so away from the kidnapper, the guy realized the trick and lunged at Meiyong with a kitchen knife. Almost at the same time, Zhang Yunbo pulled out his pistol and killed the kidnapper with three shots.

Ruili City, the place where Zhang Yunbo’s troop is stationed, neighboring Myanmar, is under the jurisdiction of the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. It’s a beautiful and legendary place, as well as being in the forefront in the reform and opening-up policy.

Zhang came to Ruili in 1987, the year when he joined the army. In 1990, also in Ruili, he joined the Communist Party of China. As a Party member and an armed policeman, Zhang is fully aware of his mission: Drilling hard, perfecting military skills and always being ready to fight for the needs of the Party and the people.

On February 3, 1997, one of the country’s most wanted criminals, Pan Zhanbing, barged into the Bo Da Shooting Range on the outskirts of Ruili, killed its three employees and stole the weapons. The event took place several days before the Spring Festival. Zhang Yunbo and his fellow soldiers pledged to their squadron: “We’ll not return to barracks for the Spring Festival celebration unless we catch Pan Zhanbing!”

Three days later, in the morning, a villager reported that a suspect had been found in Mengxiu Village! Despite their tiredness, Zhang Yunbo and his soldiers swiftly rushed at the suspect’s hiding place -- a cottage in a forest of sugar cane. With the dense sugar canes as their screen, Zhang, followed by a team of soldiers, stealthily moved to the cottage. Suddenly, Zhang kicked its door open and pounced on a man who was just pulling out a gun, and grasped him tightly. With the help of the soldiers behind him, he captured the suspect alive. Later, they found it was Pan Zhanbing, and his gun had been loaded.

During Zhang Yunbo’s 15 years in service, he has participated in 28 emergency missions. He has altogether arrested over 90 and rescued two hostages.

The reform and opening-up have boosted the economy of Ruili and turned this remote city on the border between China and Myanmar into a hustling and bustling boomtown.

Always coveting huge profits, smugglers and drug traffickers try every means to seek protection from the armed police force stationed here.

One day in September 1995, two Guangdong businessmen visited Zhang Yunbo, who was the vice political instructor of his squadron then.

“We have ten tons of goods. Would you please use your military vehicle to transport them across the Gazhong Checkpoint? We’ll give you 1,000 yuan (US$127.7) for each ton,” they told Zhang.

“What are the goods? Why don’t you employ civilian vehicles? ”Zhang got suspicious and began probing.

“Some chemicals. It’s safer and more convenient to employ a military vehicle,” one of the businessmen replied.

Zhang at once figured out that they might be drug traffickers attempting to use a military vehicle to pass the checkpoint, and promptly reported this to the criminal police force of Ruili City. Subsequent checks revealed the alleged “chemicals” were, in fact, heroin ingredients.

In March 1997 a Burmese drug kingpin was locked up in the detention house of Zhang’s squadron. The prisoner’s wife tried to persuade the prison guard to help her husband destroy evidence of his guilt. One day, she paid a visit to Zhang Yunbo with 200,000 yuan (US$24,154.6).

“If only you will give my husband a message, you can take this,” she said as she laid the money before Zhang.

“You’ve found the wrong person! An armed police would never put up with this!” Zhang refused her harshly.

Zhang Yunbo looks stout and is often reticent; however, he is also a kind and considerate man with a tender heart under his chivalrous appearance.

Hearing that soldiers Long Mingzhong and Jia Dailin, both from poor families, were worrying about their dropout younger sisters, Zhang, without hesitation, donated 800 yuan (US$96.61) to help the two girls return to school.

To help those soldiers with low literacy in his squadron, Zhang tries his best to run a literacy class and a computer skills class in the barracks. In his term as political instructor of the squadron, six soldiers were enrolled by military academies and 11 other soldiers entered civilian colleges and universities after they had retired from the army.

In March 1992, Zhang Yunbo was invited by the Ruili Primary School of Minority Ethnic Groups to be their part-time political counselor, and he was told that three pupils of the Jingpo ethnic group would soon drop out for economic reasons. From then on, each year Zhang donated 500 yuan (US$60.38) to assist the three children until they graduated. Influenced by the initiative taken by Zhang, donations for poor pupils became a “tradition” for soldiers in Zhang’s squadron and they have altogether helped 17 dropout pupils complete primary school education over the last ten years.

In February 2000, Zhang Yunbo was assigned to go to the impoverished Mengbang village of Pingshan Township, Lianghe County in Yunnan Province, to support the poor. From the first day he entered the village, he tried every possible way to introduce modern agricultural techniques. He helped the villagers put up plastic conservatories to plant marketable vegetables, such as lettuces, mushrooms and cabbage mustard. He made considerable donations, which involved all his wages for the ten months when he worked in the village, to the poor families, helping them to shake off poverty and their children pursue basic education.

(China.org.cn by Chen Chao, August 9, 2002)