Desert blooms into life under corps' caring hand

SHIHEZI, Xinjiang - Sixty years ago, 200,000 soldiers arrived in the Gobi desert to build an oasis.

The men took off their uniforms, rolled up their sleeves and got to work, laying the foundation for new cities to flourish.

Shihezi, which now boasts a population of 320,000 with tidy streets and modern architecture surrounded by trees, was a settlement with only a dozen households when the pioneers arrived in far West China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.