Xinjiang is located in the northwest region of China, which has been China's territory since ancient times. As early as the Han Dynasty, China set up a special institution in Xinjiang to manage the affairs of various ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, the Western Regions Protectorate, and the successive dynasties and dynasties that followed have never given up their jurisdiction over Xinjiang.
In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the Kokand state of Agubai and Tsarist Russia took advantage of the outbreak of war in Xinjiang and occupied most of Xinjiang. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Zuo Zongtang later raised his own military food, sent troops to suppress the Agubai forces, expelled Tsarist Russia from the Ili region of Xinjiang, and recovered Xinjiang. During the Republic of China period, although the central government changed too quickly to govern Xinjiang, successive leaders in Xinjiang were very clever and never let Xinjiang split off the motherland.
At the end of the Liberation War, with the efforts of people from all sides, Tao Zhiyue, commander of the Xinjiang Garrison District, led the Kuomintang troops stationed in Xinjiang to revolt and reorganized into the 22nd Corps of the People's Liberation Army, and the Revolutionary National Army of the Three Districts of Xinjiang was reorganized into the Fifth Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. After the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang, Wang Zhen led the Second Army of the First Corps of the First Field Army and the Sixth Army into Xinjiang. When Xinjiang was just liberated, there were hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in Xinjiang at that time, and the grain of these troops had to be transported from Qinghai, Gansu and other places, in order to reduce the pressure of transportation and the burden of the local people. In January 1950, the Platon Army troops stationed in Xinjiang began to devote their main energy to production and construction, and achieved most of the self-sufficiency in grain and all self-sufficiency in edible oil and vegetables that year.
In October 1954, in order to consolidate national defense and for the troops to be able to take root in Xinjiang for a long time, the central government ordered the second army of the first corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army stationed in Xinjiang, most of the Sixth Army, all of the 22nd Corps, and most of the Fifth Army to be collectively reorganized into the "Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps of the Xinjiang Military Region of the Chinese People's Liberation Army", whose mission was to combine labor and force, reclaim the border, and be under the dual leadership of the Xinjiang Military Region and the Xinjiang Sub-bureau.
At the time of the founding of New China, when China had just experienced decades of civil war, many places were sparsely populated and had low productivity, and many Xinjiang production and construction corps were established, such as the Inner Mongolia Production and Construction Corps, the Yunnan Production and Construction Corps, and the Heilongjiang Production and Construction Corps. However, due to the needs of the development of the times, these corps were abolished successively, and only the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps remained.
Today, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps has grown to 3.2 million people with more than 100 regiments and more than 2,200 companies in 14 divisions. It is worth mentioning that many people who do not understand the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps think that the division of the corps is the division in the army, but in fact, it is not, most of the divisions of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps are county-level cities, such as Shihezi City is the Eighth Division of the Corps, and Aral City is the First Division of the Corps. However, the cities of the Xinjiang Production Corps cannot be completely equated with the cities in the interior, and the divisions of the Corps undertake the special mission of stabilizing national defense and promoting long-term peace and stability on the border.