463: Chapter 463 They are not invaders

He finished signing, returned the documents, and said: "Have your men line up. Distribute the severance pay—two hundred Ringgit each. After taking the money, you can go home, or you can stay in this country. But one thing must be made clear: if you go home and use this money to buy gasoline to burn down Chinese-owned shops, I will hold you accountable."

Major Shafiq was silent for a moment, stood at attention and saluted, then turned to convey the order. The prisoners of war from the 2nd Division formed into four columns, lining up in front of Alor Setar train station to receive their severance pay.

The person distributing the money was an accountant attached to the Federation of Myanmar Ministry of Finance—this accountant was in his thirties, wore a pair of old gold-rimmed glasses, had sat at a bank counter for eight years, and had never once made a mistake with a single fraction.

He opened his laptop, inserted the pre-loaded severance roster, and each soldier receiving money pressed their right thumb onto the fingerprint scanner, taking two one-hundred Ringgit banknotes. The banknotes were brand new, without a single crease—this batch of severance cash had been specially rush-printed by the Naypyidaw Central Mint, having left the factory just seventy-two hours prior, and bore the portrait of the first Head of State.

Meanwhile, a group of Myanmar soldiers followed a liaison officer into Alor Setar's largest Chinese community—Chinatown. The memorial archway at the entrance of the community had been splashed with red paint by UMNO Youth, and the paint was still wet.

The liaison officer used a loudspeaker to broadcast through each alley, requesting that residents stay indoors, assuring them that the troops would not break into private residences. He left liaison officer business cards at the entrance of every alley, printed with his mobile phone number, which was active twenty-four hours a day.

The elderly in Chinatown initially watched from the cracks in their doors, daring only to show half their faces. It wasn't until a Myanmar military doctor at the street corner bandaged the arm of a young ethnic Chinese boy who had been cut by broken glass—the doctor's first-aid kit was marked in Chinese with "Non-Combat Zone First Aid Team"—that the old man opened his door and brought out a pot of herbal tea. The herbal tea was in an enamel pot, which bore an old advertisement for "Ipoh White Coffee."

The seventh hour of the war. Posts from Malaysian Chinese survivors began appearing on social media.

The first was a photo taken at the entrance to the Alor Setar Chinatown alley—Myanmar soldiers and a liaison officer were standing together, the soldiers' gun muzzles pointed downward, the liaison officer holding a loudspeaker and business cards in his hands. The caption read: "When they came in, their muzzles were pointed at the ground. My dad said this doesn't look like an invasion."

The second was a video of prisoners of war receiving severance pay outside the train station. Major Shafiq was counting the money personally, counting the two hundred Ringgit one by one, signing off, and then walking toward the bus station. The videographer zoomed the Lens in on Major Shafiq's retreating back, with a voiceover in Hokkien: "Two hundred bucks—two hundred bucks to buy a bus ticket home is better than being a human bomb for him."

The third post came from a nurse at the Kedah State Hospital; she had taken a photo of the Myanmar military doctor bandaging the ethnic Chinese boy's wound. The boy had a bandage wrapped around his arm, sitting on an emergency room chair drinking herbal tea, while the Myanmar military doctor knelt in front of him changing the gauze. The caption read: "I've worked in the emergency room for eleven years. This is the first time someone has asked a child if he was scared before stitching him up."

Comments under the posts broke through sixty thousand in the first hour, primarily from Malaysian Chinese, with languages mixed between Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, and English. The most common comment was a single sentence—copy-pasted: "They are not invaders, they are protectors."

1:00 PM sharp. Northern Perak State, Sitiawan Port.

The second landing echelon of the amphibious assault ship "White Elephant" had completely finished landing. The convoy of amphibious assault vehicles formed a column on the North-South Expressway outside the port, heading straight for Ipoh.

Ipoh is the fourth largest city in Malaysia and the capital of Perak State—during the colonial period, it was the world's largest tin mining area, and one of the cities where early Chinese laborers who traveled to Nanyang had the deepest roots. In the city center, there is a monument: the Ipoh Chinese Miner Memorial, with an inscription erected by Chinese people in 1972 to commemorate the Chinese laborers who died in the tin mines between 1870 and 1957; the signature consists of only four characters: "Ancestors are here."

At 2:40 PM, the 1st Battalion of the Myanmar Marine Corps encountered the first organized resistance in the suburbs of Ipoh—not regular troops, but UMNO Youth militia. They had set an ambush at an abandoned tin mine on the outskirts, using civilian pickup trucks modified into armed vehicles, equipped with two general-purpose machine guns and one javelin anti-tank missile, attempting to block the Myanmar Army from entering the city.

A Marine sniper set up an anti-materiel rifle four hundred meters away; the first shot pierced the pickup's engine block, the second went through the shoulder seam of the machine gunner's bulletproof vest, and the third shattered the sight of the javelin launcher.

The hit UMNO Youth members jumped down from the ore washing trough deep in the mine, failing to clear the broken iron ladder. The iron ladder had been sawed off when the mine was abandoned in the 1970s, remaining for half a century, and now half of it had collapsed from the shockwave. The iron ladder crashed into the black water forty meters deep at the bottom of the mine pit, the splash hitting the pit walls, the echoes returning upward, mixed with the residual gunfire, striking the opening of the mine pit one after another. The remaining UMNO Youth members raised their hands in surrender in the abandoned ore washing trough.

At 3:10 PM, the Marine Corps entered downtown Ipoh.

Ethnic Chinese make up over forty percent of Ipoh's population. The Myanmar troops entered the city area led by a liaison officer, who held a list of community leaders and their mobile phone numbers provided in advance by the Ipoh Chinese School Association. The principal of Ipoh Chinese Independent High School was waiting at the school gate, holding a Federation of Myanmar flag—it hadn't been issued; he had sewn it himself last night.

The principal's surname was Chen, he was seventy-one years old, with a head full of white hair and a slightly hunched back. He stood at the school gate, behind him the entire faculty and student body of Ipoh Chinese Independent High School—over two thousand people, from junior high to senior high, all wearing school uniforms, holding homemade placards. The placards didn't bear a welcome message, but a single sentence: "Chinese language shall not die."

The liaison officer took the flag and saluted Principal Chen. Then he led the team through downtown Ipoh, stopping when they passed the Chinese Miner Memorial left over from the colonial era.

The monument was four meters high, with a granite base and a bluestone stele. The front of the monument was engraved with the inscription, from 1870 to 1957, totaling eight thousand three hundred and twelve names of ethnic Chinese miners—there were no individual graves, the names were the graves. In the lower right corner of the monument, the signature area had been scraped off by Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation, and the four characters "Ancestors are here," re-engraved during the 1969 restoration, still bore the scratch marks of the bayonets.

The liaison officer stood at attention and gave a military salute to the monument. The Marines behind him all stood at attention, their tactical visors flipped up on their combat helmets, revealing the faces of young Myanmar men—darker skin, very bright eyes, and the smell of diesel brought out from the amphibious assault vehicle cabin clinging to their cheekbones.

Principal Chen's daughter captured this scene with her mobile phone. She posted it on Twitter, with the caption: "They are not the people who tear down monuments; they are the people who salute before them."

One hour later, at five o'clock. The Federation of Myanmar flag rose above the Ipoh Chinese Miner Memorial—the original monument was not dismantled, no text was covered, and the flag was raised on an independent flagpole next to the monument. The flagpole was welded from iron pipes brought by the son of an old Ipoh Chinese laborer from his own home; the welding was a bit crooked, but after the flag was raised, as the wind blew, the flag unfurled.