In 1953, Xishuangbanna was under the jurisdiction of the Simao District Administration, and in 1953, the three counties with a high concentration of Dai nationality were established from the Simao District Administration, namely Cheli, Yiwu and Fohai. In 1960, Cheli County was renamed Jinghong County, Yiwu County was renamed Mengla County, and Fohai County was renamed Menghai County.
As early as the early years of the country, Mr. Sun Yat-sen put forward a plan to build a railway from Guangzhou to Simao in Yunnan Province in the "National Founding Strategy" to achieve the purpose of strengthening border defense and developing the economy. Among them, the Shifo Railway from Shiping to Fohai is an important part of this plan.
Mr. Sun Yat-sen proposed that the starting point of the Guangzhou-Simao railway is from Guangzhou to Funing, Yunnan through Nanning, and then to the Yunnan-Vietnam railway station Mengzi Bisezhai, which was an important transportation hub at that time, and is the only special station of the Yunnan-Vietnam railway, which leads to Kunming and goes down to Haiphong, Vietnam, and connects a Jasper railway in the middle.
From the Bise village through an old, Jianshui to a jasper railway terminal station Shiping, the starting point of the Shifo railway is here.
After Long Yun took charge of Yunnan, the society was relatively stable, and the politics and economy had developed well, so he was committed to aiding the border and put the preparation of the Shifo Railway on the agenda.
During the Anti-Japanese War, Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Nankai University went all the way south to merge in Kunming to establish Southwest Associated University. At that time, Nankai University set up a frontier humanities research laboratory, which specialized in researching the language, customs, and socio-economy of the frontier ethnic groups.
Yunnan Provincial Chairman Long Yun took advantage of this opportunity to entrust and allocate funds to the Frontier Humanities Office of Nankai University to conduct a survey on the language, folk customs, socio-economic and geography of the Honghe Hani, Yi, Wenshan Miao, Simao Dai and other fraternal ethnic groups.
The results of the survey mainly include the distribution of ethnic minority languages along the Shifo Railway, the language manual used by railway employees, and the socio-economic survey report along the Shifo Railway.
In the spring of 1940, Zhou Baoxin, an engineer of the Xukun Railway, was seconded to survey the railway line from Shiping to Mojiang, thus starting the survey and preparation of the Shifo Railway.
In 1941, the Preparatory Committee for the Shifo Railway Project was formally established, and at the same time, the first survey team was formed, with Lu Weihong as the team leader, to continue the construction of the line between the Kanmojiang River and Ning'er. Construction began in April 1942 and was completed in May, covering a distance of 185 kilometres.
In September 1942, after the first survey team accumulated practical survey experience, the preparatory committee immediately organized six survey teams to carry out the survey and mapping work of the Shifo Railway in an all-round way.
In that year, the Japanese army invaded western Yunnan, and the situation of the Anti-Japanese War in Yunnan was severe, but the survey teams still overcame many difficulties and pushed forward the survey of the Shifo Railway step by step, and by April 1943, a total of more than 2,150 kilometers of survey routes were surveyed.
Subsequently, due to the impact of the war and the political changes in Yunnan in 1945, the provincial chairman Long Yun**, who supported the construction of the railway, interrupted the preparation for the construction of the Shifo Railway. So far, the masses of various nationalities in the Yunnan border areas have lost an opportunity to absorb the advanced technology and culture of the hinterland, and they can only reluctantly continue the farming method of slash-and-burn cultivation on remote and barbaric land.
Although the war interrupted the process of integration and mutual development between the interior and the frontier, the survey team members left a large number of valuable survey data, drawings and reports, which provided valuable scientific basis for the later construction of the China-Laos Railway.
In 1963, a 10-kilometer railway from Shiping to Baoxiu Town was built, which should be regarded as a part of the Shifo Railway