Deep within the folds of the Wuling Mountains, Xiushan County has written a remarkable new chapter in its history.
At the Xiushan railway freight yard in Chongqing, dozens of shipping containers stand neatly stacked, filled with petroleum coke and chrome ore imported from Southeast Asia via the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. They await the arrival of freight trains that will carry them to factories across the surrounding region—a routine scene that has become part of daily life here.
Xiushan sits at the heart of the Wuling Mountains, far from any coastline, and its open economy was once severely constrained by geography. Today, domestic and international goods converge and flow through this small inland town, while cross-border e-commerce accelerates its rise. This once-isolated city has carved out a bold new path toward global connectivity.
How did a remote mountain town transform itself into a frontier of openness? According to Zhang Shunqiu, deputy director of the Xiushan Corridor Economy Development Center, "Opportunity always favors those who are prepared." Xiushan's outward breakthrough is credited not only to the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor but also to the logistics network and rural e-commerce infrastructure built years earlier.
Situated at the crossroads of Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces, Xiushan took a pivotal step as early as 2009 with the construction of the Xiushan (Wuling) Modern Logistics Park. From that foundation, the county gradually built a logistics network radiating across the region, eventually becoming a regional trade and logistics hub. While this network didn't immediately transform its open economy, it laid the groundwork for rapid growth in rural e-commerce. In 2018 and 2020, Xiushan earned the dual honors of "National Demonstration Logistics Park" and "National E-Commerce Demonstration Base"—becoming the first county-level logistics park in China to hold both national designations simultaneously.
The opportunity arrived at precisely the right moment. In 2020, as the eastern hub of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor took shape, Xiushan was designated as a key node city along its eastern route. Zhang Shunqiu recalls that the county immediately began planning its own maritime passage—a direct route from the Wuling Mountains to Qinzhou Port in Guangxi. In October 2021, the first Wuling Mountain freight train departed from Xiushan loaded with construction materials, marking the beginning of a new era in foreign trade.
To better serve surrounding areas, Xiushan took the lead in establishing the Wuling Mountain Cooperation and Development Alliance for the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, integrating cargo from more than 40 regional enterprises. By pooling volumes to negotiate lower rail freight rates, the alliance achieved a 60% reduction in maritime container costs and brought overall regional logistics costs down by approximately 20%.
With New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor trains, China-Europe freight trains, and ASEAN cross-border road services now operating, Xiushan has built a multi-directional transport network: shipments reach Europe in 14 days, ASEAN countries in 2 days, and service extends to over 10 surrounding counties and districts. The once-isolated Wuling Mountain region has now become connected to ports, rivers, and the wider world.
At the Wuling Mountain (Xiushan) International Logistics Hub, containers are neatly arranged in the dry port, cargo trucks move continuously, and multimodal transport operations run at full efficiency. The hub, which became operational in July 2025, features three major functional zones—a road freight port, dry port, and riverside processing area. It serves as the cornerstone project for Xiushan's modern collection and distribution system, supporting the development of international logistics, multimodal transport, and smart logistics.
"Thanks to lower freight rates and shorter transit times, more and more enterprises are choosing the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor for foreign trade," said Tian Jingyou, deputy general manager of Xiushan Guanglian Lugang Yunzhi Logistics Branch. He cited the example of a zinc mining enterprise in Baojing County, Hunan Province. Previously, the company imported zinc concentrate from Southeast Asia via sea to coastal ports, then transported it by truck over long distances to its plant—a process that was both time-consuming and costly. In 2025, the company switched to the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, routing cargo through Xiushan for distribution to its facility. The results were immediate: transport time was compressed from over 20 days to roughly one week, and overall logistics costs were cut in half. Tian added, "Last year, the company imported about 6,000 tons of zinc concentrate through the corridor. In the first seven months of this year, volume has already surged to 21,000 tons."
As corridor trains operate on a regular basis and bulk commodity trade accelerates, local agricultural products such as Xiushan citrus and tea have also found their way overseas. Zhang Shunqiu provided impressive figures: corridor cargo volume in 2025 has grown seven-fold compared to 2023; in the first half of this year alone, Xiushan handled 1,284 TEUs with a cargo value of 224 million yuan, representing year-on-year increases of 19 times and 48 times respectively.
While strengthening its corridor economy, Xiushan has simultaneously expanded its e-commerce sector. On November 7, 2025, the Wuling Mountain (Xiushan) International E-Commerce Industrial Park officially opened, marking a critical step in Xiushan's transformation from a rural e-commerce benchmark to an international e-commerce hub city.
Sun Wenyi, general manager of Pangu Xiushan Cross-Border E-Commerce Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as Pangu E-Commerce), cited "three advantages"—solid e-commerce foundations, solid industrial foundations, and solid corridor infrastructure—to explain the company's decision to invest in Xiushan. As one of the first enterprises to settle in the industrial park, the Pangu Xiushan Cross-Border E-Commerce Cluster Zone has already attracted 40 e-commerce companies within just over six months and has trained 40 local entrepreneurs to launch cross-border e-commerce OPC (One-Person Company) projects.
Yang Ding, a 30-year-old Xiushan native with years of domestic e-commerce experience, heard about the city's cross-border e-commerce initiatives in May and promptly enrolled in free training. With guidance from Pangu E-Commerce, his personal online store was soon up and running. "I'm just getting started, and I've already made nearly a thousand yuan in profit. It will only get better," he said with confidence.
"Currently, the industrial park has gathered 668 young e-commerce professionals," Zhang Shunqiu noted. Xiushan is building a full-cycle talent development system for the cross-border e-commerce industry, addressing the challenge of attracting and retaining talent in county-level regions, and positioning cross-border e-commerce as a preferred path for young people returning home to start businesses.
Xiushan has also adopted a profit-sharing model that links leading cross-border e-commerce enterprises, agricultural cooperatives, and farming households to solve the problem of "difficult exports and poor sales" for specialty products. In 2025, agricultural product exports surpassed 150 million yuan, with Xiushan's Polygonatum and tea industries forming cross-border industrial clusters exceeding 100 million yuan each. More than 12,000 farming households have joined the cross-border industry chain, with average annual household income increasing by over 8,000 yuan.
According to official data, in the first half of this year, Xiushan achieved online retail sales of 1.18 billion yuan and cross-border e-commerce sales of 110 million yuan. In 2022, Xiushan's total import and export volume was just 73.5 million yuan. From January to July this year, that figure has reached 280 million yuan, representing a year-on-year growth rate of 51.2%.
More than 90 years ago, Red Army soldiers traversed the rugged mountains of Xiushan on foot, forging a revolutionary passage that connected Hunan, Guizhou, and Chongqing, and sowing the seeds of revolution across the Wuling Mountains. Today, leveraging its position as an eastern node of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, Xiushan enables domestic and international goods to converge and flow along a new "Long March" route. The spirit of breaking through blockades and fighting for liberation that defined those early days has now been transformed into the driving force behind Xiushan's determination to overcome geographic limitations and open itself to the world.