71 years ago today, on August 6, 1954 (July 8, 1954 lunar calendar), New China established the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. In the early days of entrepreneurship, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps opened up land on the Gobi. On August 6, 1954, according to the order of the Central Military Commission, the Fifth and Sixth Divisions of the Second Army of the People's Liberation Army, the 16th and 17th Divisions of the Sixth Army, the 22nd Corps and a part of the Fifth Army formed the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which was subordinate to the Xinjiang Military Region of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. It was the earliest reclamation unit in New China. Soldiers of the Corps, armed with guns and picks in one hand, reclaimed a large amount of wasteland and built a large number of agricultural and industrial enterprises. In the winter of 1949, the People's Liberation Army crossed the "Sea of Death" Taklamakan Desert and peacefully liberated Hotan, an important town in southern Xinjiang. Zhang Yuanfa, a veteran soldier who participated in the trekking across the Taklamakan Desert in the winter of 1949 In the 1960s, more than 120,000 young intellectuals from Shanghai, Jiangsu and other provinces and cities came to Xinjiang to join the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps In the early days of entrepreneurship, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps opened up wasteland in the reeds