On the afternoon of October 16, 2026, in Jinning District, southern suburbs of Kunming, a whistle pierced the sky above Tengjun International Land Port Rail Intermodal Freight Yard. 49 containers filled with plateau vegetables, chemicals, and steel slowly drove out of the platform. This is the first Zheng He high-speed sea rail intermodal train from Zheng He's hometown, with the destination being Myanmar.

The whistle sounded in the hometown of Zheng He

This batch of goods no longer needs to go through customs declaration, inspection, and release all at the border port like in the past. They have completed all customs declaration and clearance procedures in the inland port, loaded and shipped directly, arrived in Vientiane, Laos, via the China Laos railway, and then connected by road to the port of Ranong, Thailand, and transferred to Myanmar by sea. The railway, highway, and sea transportation are linked together to form a line, and the channel network can further radiate to South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean region.

Move customs clearance to the inland hinterland

The key to change lies in the forward shift of port functions. On the day of the first launch of the train, the customs supervision operation site in Tengjun International Land Port was officially put into use. This is the first railway customs supervision operation site built and put into use in Yunnan during the 15th Five Year Plan period. Construction started in January this year and the site code was approved in September. Information sharing and collaborative supervision between the venue and Mohan Port enable enterprises to declare, inspect, and release goods in one go. Once the goods arrive in Mohan, they can leave the country without stopping. Compared to the traditional customs clearance mode, the clearance time is compressed by more than 24 hours, saving two days compared to the traditional Zhenghe train, and reducing costs by more than 500 yuan per container; According to the calculation of this 49 container shipment, a single train can release approximately 24500 yuan in cost space. China Railway Kunming Bureau synchronously coordinates the organization of container sources and the allocation of transportation capacity to ensure that trains depart on schedule.

Does one box connect the Three Kingdoms

The goods are packed in Kunming without changing containers, and will be transported directly to Myanmar. This standardized operation reduces the risk of cargo damage caused by multiple loading and unloading, and also eliminates the cost of repeated handover operations. For highly time sensitive categories such as vegetables and fruits, the two days saved are directly converted into shelf life and quality assurance for overseas terminals; The continuous accumulation of cost advantages for bulk materials such as fertilizers and steel is a tangible profit buffer.

The Zhenghe train has been in operation for one year since its debut in Jinning in 2025. Xu Jing, Chairman of Yunnan International Train Service Trade Co., Ltd., introduced that since joining hands with Tengjun International Land Port in 2023, nearly 10000 standard containers have been shipped, with a freight volume of 210000 tons and a value of over 600 million yuan. This line is supported by the transportation map of the China Laos Railway, which has been open to traffic for four years. It has covered 31 provinces, autonomous regions and cities in China, 19 countries and regions such as Laos and Thailand, and the types of cross-border goods have expanded from more than 10 to more than 3800.

Moving the port function to the inland hinterland, allowing enterprises to handle cross-border export business at their doorstep, is the greatest value of this channel. Yunnan is continuing to improve the multimodal transport organization system of sea, highway and railway, deeply tap the value of inland land port hubs, promote the organic connection between the China Laos railway and the new land and sea channel in the west, and the Yangtze River Economic Belt, so as to make the road of cloud products to the sea more stable and wider.Editor/Yang Meiling