An offensive launched a year ago Sunday has seen opponents of the military seize much of the 480-kilometre-long (300-mile) route that connects second city Mandalay to China, Myanmar's biggest trade partner. Control of the road denies the junta lucrative taxes, threatens its bases in the central plains, and is a huge morale booster for its opponents as the civil war grinds through its fourth year.
More than $2 billion worth of trade passed through Muse in the 2023-2024 financial year, according to the junta's commerce ministry. Analysts say much more goes through off the books.
Around 30 kilometres further on is the town of Kutkai, infamous for the production of methamphetamine and normally home to around 50,000 people. The fighting that has pushed the military out has scattered many of its residents and scarred the town. Rubble littered across an open patch of ground was all that remained of the main market, flattened by a military airstrike.
Roughly halfway along the highway, the city of Lashio embodies the biggest defeat the junta has suffered since it seized power in 2021. Its four-lane toll gate was riddled with bullet holes and several panels were hanging loose, remnants of fierce fighting for the city where around 150,000 people lived before the offensive. Lashio was famous as the terminus of the "Burma Road" built by the British usng local labour to supply Chinese forces battling Japanese invaders during the Second World War. The military is trying to keep people away, and on Wednesday launched its latest airstrike on Lashio, according to local media and a rescue group.