Xisha Zhongjian Island is only 250 kilometers away from Vietnam, and is an important barrier for China to defend its sovereignty in the South China Sea, with great strategic value.
Zhongjian Island is located at the southwest end of the Paracel Islands, 178 kilometers away from Woody Island, the station of Sansha City in the northeast, only 250 kilometers away from Vietnam to the west, and 330 kilometers away from Da Nang, Vietnam8 km, width 22 km with an area of about 75 square kilometers, the south-central southwest side is an outcropping sandbar, 1850 meters long from east to west, 800 meters wide from north to south, with an area of only 15 square kilometers, surrounded by not too obvious sand bank, low-lying in the middle, but not obvious, the overall terrain is relatively low and flat, at low tide, the altitude can reach 2 meters to 3 meters, but at high tide, there is only 1 meter left, and the area is only 1% at low tide, which is equivalent to the size of two football fieldsA small lagoon of 5 meters.
Because of the abundance of horseshoe snails here, it is often called Luo Island by local fishermen, and it happens to be located in the middle of the Yongle Islands to the Nansha Islands, also known as the halfway road, since ancient times it is the inherent territory of our country, in 1935, ** when the South China Sea Islands were named, it was named Tulaitang Island, in 1946, Zhongjian ** successfully recovered the Xisha Islands, in order to commemorate this**, after in 1947 Tulaitang Island was renamed Zhongjian Island, and then many islands in the South China Sea were coveted by Vietnam, in 1974, after the Battle of the Xisha Sea, In the 70s, Vietnam once again set its sights on the island, and our country successfully held the island in the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, and since then, this small island has been firmly in the hands of our country.
Zhongjian Island is located on the edge of the Paracel Islands, and is an important gateway to Vietnam, which plays a vital role in China's strategic planning to defend the Paracel Islands, and Zhongjian Island is only 323 kilometers away from Sanya City, Hainan Province, 800 kilometers away from Shenzhen, is China's southern coastal area deep into the South China Sea, leading to Indonesia, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian regions of an important passage, in addition to the island is located in the sea area is rich in fishery, oil, natural gas and other important resources, its strategic significance and economic value can not be ignored, China also realized the importance of Zhongjian Island for the first time, so after the successful recovery of the island, it began to send troops to garrison the island, but the harsh environment of Zhongjian Island is unimaginable, since 1975 China's first batch of garrison officers and soldiers arrived in Zhongjian Island, the soldiers held tents, actually spent three years of hard years in the abandoned merchant ships, in order to improve the environment on the island, the development and construction of Zhongjian Island also officially began.
Because Zhongjian Island is a sandbar, similar in nature to a desert, and the island is long flooded by seawater, sandy salinization, soil erosion is very serious, and it is not suitable for plant growth, so it has long been regarded as a desert island, even known as the South China Sea Gobi, more seriously, it is around the typhoon activity trajectory, perennial typhoon ravages, it is not easy to develop Zhongjian Island, but the Chinese people never give up, after several years of construction, in 1978, the island finally built the main building of the garrison, Warriors have also moved out of dilapidated merchant ships, and life on the island has improved, but it is still not free from the raging sand.
In order to prevent wind and fix sand, the most effective way is to plant trees and green the ecological environment, but Zhongjian Island is full of coral sand at a glance, the sand mobility is great, the vegetation can not take root in the ground, a wave, a strong wind, will be swept into the sea, in order to successfully plant trees on the island, the soldiers take advantage of the opportunity to visit relatives, business trips, etc., as long as they can return to the mainland, they will definitely carry back bags of soil, saplings, bird droppings, artificial land on the sand island, although after the typhoon, often the previous efforts are lost, But no one claimed to give up, in the high temperature, humidity, wind and other harsh conditions, after repeated attempts, finally in 1982, the island successfully planted a coconut tree, soon, masson pine, climbing vine and other adaptable plants took root on the island, until the end of 2009, the island has more than 3,000 masson pine, more than 2,000 square meters of climbing vines, as well as hundreds of coconut trees, sheep's horn trees, poultry pens, vegetable gardens are readily available, once that barren sand island, has long been a thriving.
However, in 2009, Typhoon Kaisana swept in, the parapet wall was destroyed, the vegetable field pigsty was a mess, after a typhoon, the island was only left with 7 tons of fresh water in the pool, and even the hard-planted trees were mostly down, but the damage caused by the typhoon was not large, and the soldiers quickly regained their strength, rescued the island's ecology as soon as possible, and replanted a large number of trees.
However, in 2013, only 4 years after the last typhoon, Typhoon Haiyan and Lily once again gave Zhongjian Island a heavy blow, when the typhoon passed, the entire island was almost completely submerged by the sea, due to the huge waves constantly crashing against the bunker, the sea water poured in, only a stone table remained in the bunker was still exposed on the water, two guard soldiers held ** curled up on the stone table, relying only on a bottle of water, 4 pieces of chocolate, and a belt of compressed biscuits, and held on the stone table of the bunker for a day and two nights.
After the typhoon, Zhongjian Island was in a mess, super strong wind and waves blew away nearly two meters of sand, the entire island lost at least 20% of the land area, the vegetation on the island was seriously damaged, 30,000 square meters of climbing vines were uprooted, even the main building of the garrison was blown 7 degrees skewed, the island's power generation room, fresh water pool was eroded by seawater, resulting in water and power outages on the island for many days, the soldiers ate salty water and cooked rice for a difficult time, and saw that the achievements of more than ten years of island building were about to be wasted, but the soldiers were not annoyed by this, Instead, they were rescued as soon as possible, and found that mangrove forests could withstand super typhoons during the typhoon, so they began to plant a large area of mangrove forests on the island.
After more than 20 years of construction, rising from failure again and again, today's Zhongjian Island is lush with vegetation, evergreen all year round, and there are more and more habitable buildings around.
Although the island reef is huge, but the land is basically highly mobile sand, reclamation for expansion is still difficult, and at present can only live in the defenders, but with China's infrastructure strength and advanced island-building technology, the expansion of the island in the future is just around the corner, finally, pay tribute to every defender of the motherland, thank them for their hard work.