On this day, 26 years ago, on December 6, 1999 (October 29, 1999 in the lunar calendar), the entire southern Xinjiang Railway was put into operation. On the morning of December 6, 1999, the whistle sounded in Kashgar City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, an important town in the western border of my country, and the entire southern Xinjiang Railway with a total length of 1,446.37 kilometers was officially put into operation. Li Peng, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, made a special trip to attend the celebration meeting and cut the ribbon for the first train. The construction of the Southern Xinjiang Railway is a far-sighted pawn laid down in advance by the Party Central Committee and the State Council for the implementation of the western development strategy. To develop the western region, we first need to build roads. In the early 1970s, Premier Zhou Enlai personally reviewed the design plan of the Southern Xinjiang Railway. In 1971, the construction of the Southern Xinjiang Railway started. On August 30, 1984, the Southern Xinjiang Railway was opened to Korla, ending the history of no railway in southern Xinjiang. After the 1990s, the construction of the Korla-Kashgar section of the Southern Xinjiang Railway (referred to as the Western Extension Project) was included in the National Ninth Five-Year Plan. On December 8, 1998, General Secretary Jiang Zemin wrote an inscription for the builders of the southern Xinjiang railway: "Repair the southern Xinjiang railway to benefit the people of all ethnic groups. In October 1993, thousands of survey and design personnel from the First Survey and Design Institute of the Ministry of Railways drove into the vast Gobi Desert. In four years, they traveled through thousands of mountains and rivers in southern Xinjiang, drawing 66 tons of drawings alone., the optimized route was selected. In April 1996, after the Western Extension Project of the Southern Xinjiang Railway was included in the key projects of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, the Ministry of Railways borrowed 2.5 billion yuan from banks to raise construction funds and mobilize elite soldiers; on July 6, the Southern Xinjiang Railway Construction Command was established, and more than 10,000 railway construction troops marched westward. The Southern Xinjiang Railway starts from Turpan in the east and crosses the Tianshan Mountains. On the northern edge of the world-famous Taklimakan Desert, it gallops along the ancient Silk Road and heads straight for the thousand-year-old ancient city of Kashgar. The total length is 1,446.371 kilometers. Among them, the Turpan to Korla section was completed and delivered into operation in 1984, with a total length of 476.49 kilometers. The project opened this time is the Korla to Kashgar section, with a total length of 969.881 kilometers and a total investment of 6.3 billion yuan. It is a key construction project of the country during the Ninth Five-Year Plan. It started on September 6, 1996 and reached Kashgar City in May this year. It took three years and three months.