Everything condenses into a new green, and the rivers and mountains enter the painting. From the air, the six central provinces of Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and others are like a plump spindle, lying quietly between the rivers. Over the past five years, with innovation as the "silk thread" and green painting, a beautiful picture of Chinese path to modernization in the middle is slowly being woven. On March 20 this year, the General Secretary presided over a symposium on promoting the rise of the central region in a new era in Changsha, Hunan Province. On the new journey of promoting Chinese path to modernization, the General Secretary made a new strategic deployment to promote the rise of the central region in a down-to-earth manner. The development of the central region has reached a higher starting point. Looking at the rise from a new starting point. Following the footsteps of Xinhua News Agency reporters, we are searching for "fields", visiting "valleys", and asking "roads" to touch the pulse of innovation driven, regional coordination, and green rise in the central region. From the perspective of a piece of land, we can see the transformation of the "granary of a great country". "If there is abundant summer grain, it will remain stable throughout the year.". At present, summer grain production accounts for more than half of the wheat harvest in Henan, which accounts for about a quarter of the country. Despite encountering a hot and dry wind during the wheat filling period this year, Qiu Shouxian, a grain grower in Shangshui County, Henan Province, still had a "stone" hanging in his heart: 2100 acres of wheat had a bountiful harvest, with an average yield of 1400 kilograms per mu, which increased in both quantity and quality compared to previous years. Qiu Shouxian pointed to the high standard farmland built in 2020 and revealed the secret of a bountiful harvest: high intelligence, strong intensification, and strong disaster prevention and reduction capabilities. As far as you can see, there are numerous sprinkler irrigation equipment in the fields, as well as hard core equipment for monitoring insect, soil moisture, seedling, and disaster situations. With just one mobile phone, you can "cloud farm" even without being in the fields. Qiu Shouxian's "technology field" is a microcosm of the comprehensive consolidation of the foundation of food security in the central region. The abundance of granaries is the hope of the people. The per capita arable land in our country is small, making it never easy for the people to have a good meal. As an important grain production base in our country, in the past five years, the central region has vigorously promoted the storage of grain in the land and technology, and implemented a new round of grain production capacity improvement actions. About a quarter of the country's arable land has been used to produce nearly one-third of the country's grain, with a total annual output stable at around 400 billion kilograms, and the foundation of the "Great Grain Warehouse" has become more stable. From the south of the river to the banks of Dongting, a grand and high standard farmland construction project has been launched, achieving high and stable grain production and increasing farmers' income. In a provincial-level comprehensive demonstration area for grain production of 10000 acres in Heshan District, Yiyang City, Hunan Province, the rice fields with concentrated contiguous areas and crisscrossing irrigation channels are growing well, with rows of white insect traps neatly distributed. Liu Xiaoyu, a young man born in the 1990s in Jiangsu, took a liking to the "good farmland" here and contracted over 3400 acres of high standard farmland two years ago. Recently, the prevention and control situation for heartworms and other pests has been severe, but he is not at all panicked. Hundreds of insect traps in Tanaka are his harvest "magic weapon". Growing crops can also increase income. Liu Xiaoyu calculated an account for the reporter: based on a yield of 1200 kilograms of wet grain per mu, high standard farmland increased production by more than 100 kilograms per mu compared to ordinary farmland, and machinery costs were saved by 90 yuan per mu. Each increase and decrease resulted in a net increase of 200 yuan in income per mu, with a total increase of 680000 yuan in income from 3400 mu. In the past five years, the central region has vigorously promoted the construction of high standard farmland, and the foundation of food security has become more solid. Among them, Anhui has built 62.56 million mu of high standard farmland, accounting for 75% of the total arable land area, achieving "twenty consecutive harvests", and net output of high-quality grain reaching about 20 billion kilograms per year. "Mai Xiu is at odds, and the family is full of joy.". In recent years, the central region has seized the "bull's nose" of seed industry revitalization, focusing on "optimizing granaries" while "enriching granaries", and solving the problem of large but not optimal granaries. Starting from 2021, Henan Province has been promoting the construction of Central Plains agriculture and grain at a high level. 37 new crop varieties have been approved, with a total promotion of 150 million mu. Some high-quality wheat and corn varieties have become the leading varieties in the Yellow Huaihai region; In 2023, the trial planting of the low cadmium rice variety "Zhenliangyou 8612" in Hunan Province was fully successful, and "Xizi 3" was the first to pass the national approval... With the support of "high-quality granaries", Henan, Hubei, Anhui and other regions have promoted the construction of the "grain head and food tail" and "agricultural head and work tail" industrial chains, rising to a trillion level modern food industry cluster, making the "great country granary" move towards the "Chinese kitchen" and enter the "world dining table". From a series of "valleys" to see the new development of central China, Wuhan Optics Valley, Hefei Sound Valley, Taiyuan Jinchuang Valley... Each science and technology innovation landmark outlines the deep logic of relying on innovation to drive high-quality development in the central region. In the past five years, the central region has kept in mind its instructions, accelerated the gathering of innovative development factors, and accelerated the construction of a modern industrial system. The proportion of national strategic emerging industry clusters and national advanced manufacturing industry clusters in the country reached 27.3% and 17.8%, respectively; The total economic output is stable at over 21% nationwide, with Henan, Hubei, and Hunan ranking among the top ten in terms of total economic output. By the end of 2022, Wuhan Optics Valley's electronic computer production has reached 13.39 million units, fiber optic cable production has reached 57.69 million core kilometers, and integrated circuit wafer production has reached 1.56 million pieces. It has developed into the world's largest fiber optic cable research base and optical device research base. In Hefei Shenggu, a voice command is issued to the mouse, and a resume with concise expression and simple color matching is generated immediately; Relying on the iFlytek robot super brain platform and iFlytek Starfire model, AI scanning and dragging robots can recognize complex speech and gesture commands, "say where to scan, point to where to scan.". Driven by iFlytek, as of the end of 2022, the number of companies settled in Shenggu has exceeded 2000, with an annual output value exceeding 200 billion yuan, forming a new generation of information technology industry cluster with intelligent voice and artificial intelligence industry as the core. As a major coal province, Shanxi has gathered innovative resource elements from the whole province, built the Jinchuang Valley Innovation Drive Platform, and achieved new breakthroughs in key core technologies such as high-speed cars and 8-inch silicon carbide long crystal furnaces. Zhengzhou firmly grasps its geographical advantage, builds a computing hub, and empowers thousands of industries. The new generation Songshan supercomputer equipped at the National Supercomputing Zhengzhou Center can perform 1 billion double precision floating-point operations per second; The National Supercomputing Internet Core Node Project is stepping up construction...... Supported by computing infrastructure, the traditional equipment manufacturing industry in the central region is transforming to intelligent, green and high-end. In the first quarter of this year, the export of high-end equipment in the central region increased by 42.6%. Sany Heavy Industry in Changsha realized real-time online access to 16000 devices and 46000 cameras on its industrial Internet platform. Through data analysis and system optimization, it realized cost reduction and efficiency increase. Last year, it saved 112 million yuan in energy costs. Through intelligent and digital transformation, Sany Heavy Industry has successfully developed unmanned dump trucks, intelligent all terrain cranes, etc., transforming its products into mobile intelligent agents. In Jiangxi, Jiujiang Petrochemical, located on the banks of the Yangtze River, has become the first intelligent manufacturing demonstration enterprise and benchmark enterprise in the national petrochemical industry by upgrading its technology and preventing every drop of oil and sewage from flowing into the Yangtze River. Yu Xin'an, Vice President of the China Regional Economic Association, stated that from the perspective of the modernization development process of major countries, the economic circle mainly focuses on the border, and the development of the central region has always been a difficult problem. Driven by innovation, the central region has accelerated its rise, which is supporting the "backbone" of China's development landscape and creating an important strategic support for Chinese path to modernization. On the way to Jinzhai County, Anhui Province, driven by a "road" to see the effectiveness of collaborative development, Chen Qixin, Secretary of the Party Branch of Liluocheng Village, Fushan Township, Shangcheng County, Henan Province, sighed all the way. 20 years ago, it took only half an hour to travel to Jinzhai County, which is separated by a mountain range. Nowadays, this "road" has become a path of common prosperity and collaborative development. Located in the revolutionary old area of the Dabie Mountains, Liluocheng Village is situated at the junction of Henan, Hubei, and Anhui provinces. The mountains block it, causing traffic congestion, poverty, and backwardness. In the past decade, the dead end road between Liluocheng Village and Macheng City in Hubei Province and Jinzhai County in Anhui Province has been opened up; In 2020, the local government invested 33 million yuan to build a 7-meter-wide and 3.5-kilometer-long circular tourism road. That year, all 180 registered impoverished households in this provincial-level poverty-stricken village were lifted out of poverty. The "end of the road" has been opened up, and the villages of Liluocheng, Macheng, and Jinzhai have formed groups to develop cross regional tourism, attracting each other and receiving 300000 tourists annually. Tourism is booming, and agricultural products such as tea, oil tea, and black fungus have a way out. Villagers have become wealthy and are moving to small western-style buildings. Chen Xianfu, a villager from Liluocheng Village, was grateful for the changes brought about by transportation and named his farmhouse "Transportation Restaurant", earning over 100000 yuan per year. The story of Liluocheng Village is a true portrayal of the collaborative development in the central region. As a comprehensive transportation hub in China, the central region is connected by highways in all directions, railways are convenient and efficient, and the "Air Silk Road" connects the world. Under the new development pattern, the central region is transforming its transportation advantages into collaborative development advantages. Last year, the entire Jianghuai Canal was connected, ending the history of poor water transportation between the middle reaches of the Huai River and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. This has brought closer cooperation and development between Anhui and Henan, and also deepened the integration of the central region into the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta. "A truck can only transport seven or eight cars, while an inland river roll on/roll off ship can transport more than 300 cars at once, significantly reducing costs and increasing efficiency." Li Haomiao, Chief Economist of the Development and Reform Commission of Hefei City, said that compared to road transportation, the logistics cost of transporting goods in the same batch through the Jianghuai Canal waterway can be saved by about 50%. Relying on the Jianghuai Canal, the Hefei Production Service National Logistics Hub covering an area of over 6000 acres was approved in July last year. Three vehicle bases, namely Jianghuai, NIO, and Volkswagen, have been established within a radius of 5 kilometers, with Paihe Port as the center; Within a radius of 10 kilometers, it covers 70% of advanced manufacturing enterprises in Hefei, with a total industrial output value exceeding 700 billion yuan. The central area is connected, and the roads are connected. The transportation in central China is well connected, providing a broad channel for industrial transfer in the eastern region, resource export in the western region, and economic and trade exchanges and cooperation between the north and south. It plays an indispensable role in the construction of a unified national market. Nowadays, with Zhengzhou as the center, high-speed rail connects to the whole country, forming a two-and-a-half-hour economic circle covering surrounding provincial capitals and the Beijing Tianjin Hebei urban agglomeration, and a 4-hour to 6-hour economic circle covering the Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, and Chengdu Chongqing dual city economic circle. The formation of freight aviation hubs is accelerating, making inland hinterland more open and cutting-edge. In the central region, there are cargo airport clusters such as Changsha Huanghua International Airport, Hubei Ezhou Huahu International Airport, and Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport. Among them, Huahu International Airport is the first approved professional cargo hub airport in China, with the largest express package processing system in Asia. Goods depart from here and reach the whole country in one day and the world the next day. In the past five years, the total cargo volume of airports in the central region has reached nearly 7 million tons. To further strengthen regional cooperation, in March this year, Henan and Anhui provinces jointly signed a cooperation agreement in the field of transportation; Jiangxi, Hubei, and Hunan jointly signed the Action Plan for Coordinated Promotion of High Quality Development among the Three Provinces in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River, strengthening the connection with other major development strategies, and better integrating and supporting the new development pattern. (Lai Xin She)