Fu Zhihuan felt as though he had been put on the spot, and he had initially come listen to the suggestions from the five provinces of the Southwest as to how to open up West, and how the railway would open up the West. Having worked in the railway for several decades, Fu had been deeply immersed in science, technology and its operations; he was no stranger to the early stages of the railway into Tibet, and, more than two months previously, Vice Minister Sun Yongfu had led an inspection group back from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and reported to him in exhaustive detail. Without reference to his script, he spoke frankly, "The dream of a railway into Tibet is the dream of a century, suggested in Sun Yat-sen's original strategy for building a country. However, it was merely a dream on paper. The people who were able to realize it were Chinese Communist Party. Beginning in the 1950s, the railway into Tibet had already experienced three steps forward and three steps back, the first of which was 1956-1961, when the head of the Qinghai-Tibet Road Management Bureau, General Mu Shengzhong, brought the engineers of China Railway First Survey and Design Institute, and for the first time, took a jeep for an on-site survey of the Qinghai-Tibet line, soon after, experts from the Soviet Union helped to implement the first aerial survey of the line, however, in 1961, three years of hardship led to the project finally being abandoned. The second time was when, in 1974, Chairman Mao Zedong granted an interview with the Nepalese monarch Bilandela, again raising the idea of constructing the Qinghai-Tibet Railway across the Himalayas, and over a thousand inspecting personnel climbed the ridge of the world to conduct an on-site inspection, but, in 1978, this attempt was once more abandoned. However, on the Fenghuoshan Mountain we left the foundations for the 500m of railway, as an experimental segment. The third time was in the early 1980s, when, for a time, the Yunnan-Tibet Railway was listed as a national engineering project, to the extent that the general headquarters of the railway were established in Kunming, however, in the end, this too had to be abandoned. There were many causes for its abandonment, an important one of which was lacking money, but the most important reason was that many challenges of world-class technology had not yet been overcome at the time."
Jiang Zemin looked up and asked, "The Yunnan-Tibet Line, the Sichuan-Tibet Line, the Qinghai-Tibet Line, which line are you inclining towards?"
"The Qinghai-Tibet Line!" Fu Zhihuan had prepared his answer in advance.
"Why?"
"Because," Fu Zhihuan said cautiously, "in terms of length, from Kunming to Lhasa, the Yunan-Tibet line is 1,960 kilometers long, and passes through the hilly region of the Tibetan Plateau, a region of high mountains and deep valleys, crossing the Hengduan mountain range, and Jinsha River, the Nujiang River, and Lancang River, the three flood drainage systems, five deep geological fault zones, the geology is complex, and it has glaciers, mudslides, landslides, rockslides, geothermal areas, and sandstorms among other things, it would require 970 kilometers of tunnel and bridges, predicated at 53% of its total length. The Sichuan line, beginning in Chengdu, would be 2,024 kilometers in length, and the terrain is even more complicated than the Yunnan-Tibet line; only the Qinghai-Tibet Line with its zero kilometer marker in the south of Golmud would have just over 1,200 kilometers, would cross the Kunlun Mountains, the Tanggula Mountains, and although its elevation above sealevel is high, the topography is comparatively flat. Comparing the three lines, the Qinghai-Tibet line would be the first choice, being shortest in length, requiring the least engineering, the least investment, the shortest construction time, and the least construction cost. Secondly, its terrain is even, so any unexpected damage can be repaired quickly, and it is also strategically advantageous in the case of war. Thirdly, the research into related construction technology is ongoing."
Jiang Zemin first chuckled, and then indicated his wish for Fu Zhihuan to continue speaking.
"In the troubled fifty years of hardship of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the many years of permafrost, the problems of the oxygen poor mountains and environmental concerns have not yet been resolved, as our national strength at the time did not yet permit it. Half a century of preparations have finally arrived at the point where they can emerge from their cocoon. As for the question of permafrost, Cheng Guodong and many other experts of the National Academy of Sciences at Lanzhou are able to help to resolve the exceptionally difficult problem of building on permafrost."
"Wait a minute, Zhihuan, if the problem of the permafrost mechanism were solved, would there still be the issue of engineering technology?" Jiang Zemin, who had been bent over to write, suddenly raised his head—he had originally been a student of science and engineering, and was extremely interested in questions in the category of science, and he had interrupted with a question.