They are at the forefront of poverty alleviation, leading the villagers to move out of poverty and uproot the roots of poverty. They have dirt under their feet but true feelings in their hearts. They teach techniques step by step and write their papers on the land of the motherland. In the past ten years, they have worked hard and ushered in great changes in the mountains and villages and beautiful mountains and rivers.
In the early morning, the sun illuminates the Pamir Plateau in the western border of China. This is Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, where the story of the movie "Visitors from the Iceberg" takes place.
Ta County In Pile Village, Maryang Township, more than 100 kilometers west of the county seat, First Secretary Reheman almost stayed up all night because there was a happy event in the village today.
Reheman Wufuer, the first secretary of Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: The village is very lively today, and one villager is getting engaged. As for the Tajik nation, this engagement is lively.
Reheman is not a native of Piller Village, but he is the most trusted "first secretary" of the villagers.
The selection of "first secretaries" in villages is an important measure for the party and the state to send party members and cadres to the forefront of poverty alleviation and strengthen grassroots work. Reheman once served as deputy mayor of science and technology in Bole City, Xinjiang. In 2018, he was dispatched by the autonomous region to Pile Village as the first secretary to lead the villagers out of poverty.
Reheman Wufuer, the first secretary of Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: I was under a lot of pressure at the time. I saw this village from TV. I thought this village was still so difficult, so before I came here in 2018, I was the first to sign up.
Eleven years ago, Piller Village became well-known to people across the country because of a grassroots program. That year, the TV station followed 80 children in the village on their difficult journey to school. They climbed mountains, glaciers, and climbed cliffs for four days and three nights to reach the school 110 kilometers away.
Reheman Wufuer, the first secretary of Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: On such a high cliff, the water is so fast. I was crying while watching the film. I said I must go to this village and asked me to find a way to get there. It is also very difficult to do one perfect thing in this life. But it was a very honorable thing to do it. I came with this confidence.
Areas with difficult conditions like Piller Village are the most difficult in the battle against poverty. When he first entered the village, the difficulty here was beyond Reheman's imagination.
Reheman Wufuer, the first secretary of Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: makes me feel cold. Why? The first is that there is no water, and the second is that there is no electricity, no roads, and no signal. The common people have no skills and know nothing. It is very difficult to find a junior high school student in the village. I couldn't sleep that night because it was so difficult to change.
Less than two months after arriving in Piller Village, Reheman did not even have the last words to his mother because there was no mobile phone signal.
Reheman Wufuer, First Secretary of Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: It was March 2018. My mother passed away. She passed away on March 1. There was no signal, and she didn’t know about it for three days. Others informed the village through the county police station. After returning home, my mother had been buried and I never saw her for the last time.
The backward infrastructure in the village left Secretary Re with regrets in his life and strengthened his determination to lead the villagers out of poverty. However, how can a village with such difficult conditions get rid of poverty?
Reheman Wufuer, the first secretary of Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: Traditionally, people rely on sheep and yak. This nation is also a very hospitable nation. When relatives, friends, or guests come over, a sheep is slaughtered, and more than 2,000 yuan (yuan) is lost after slaughtering a sheep. They are already very poor, and they do not consider this issue of income and expenditure. The fellow villagers are hospitable, but we have to save this money, so we think of ways to raise pigeons, chickens, and geese.
Raising chickens and growing vegetables are commonplace things in the countryside, but they are pioneering in Piller Village. In the days when there were no roads, it would take villagers here two days to buy a green onion.In 2019, Reheman thought of letting everyone develop breeding and engage in garden economy , but no one was willing to try it at the time.
Reheman Wufuer, First Secretary of Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: This chicken can weigh up to 8 kilograms. If you think about it, if a chicken reaches 8 kilograms, it will almost weigh as much as a lamb, and a chicken costs four to five hundred yuan. There are also our local native chickens, which are probably very rare in the city. Now a native chicken can be sold for 150 (yuan) or 180 (yuan). We will try to raise them first, and then encourage people to raise them.
Secretary Re and the poverty alleviation team led the villagers to raise ostriches, rabbits, chickens, and geese. In places where crops could not be grown, breeding was used to support the villagers' source of income. After the village developed the courtyard economy, the average annual income of each household increased by more than 500 yuan than before.
Reheman once served as the deputy dean of Vocational and Technical College and knows the importance of mastering skills. "Poverty alleviation must first support aspirations, and poverty alleviation must support intelligence." As long as villagers master a craft, they will not worry about losing income. He wanted to use his good cooking skills to provide skills training to the villagers.
Reheman Wufuer, the first secretary of Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: What we are learning this afternoon is Xinjiang ramen. There are two steps. The first is to put the noodles into the pot first. When the noodles are cooked, we will proceed to the second step, stir-frying. Okay, everyone looks at it carefully and pay attention to me.
But at that time, no one in the villagers who was accustomed to naan and milk tea was willing to participate. Secretary Re came up with another idea, so that everyone who came to participate in the training would be responsible for the meal, and this made the villagers interested. The villagers are more interested in learning. One person from each household comes to learn how to stir-fry, pull noodles and make pilaf with him.
Culinary skills training not only enriches the villagers' dining tables, but outstanding students like Hanimu also find jobs in restaurants in the county.
Hanimu Dubire, a villager in Pile Village, Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: Secretary re trained us to cook. I found a job in a county restaurant and met my boyfriend. I will get married this year.
At today's engagement ceremony, Secretary Re led several students who had already graduated to prepare for the banquet.
One of today's guests came all the way from Kashgar.
Guo Yukun, Secretary of the Party Committee of Maryang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: I was transferred to Kashgar and haven’t come back for ten years. Just two days ago, I received a call from Bahaguli inviting me to attend her wedding. In fact, I also wanted to come and see the changes in the village and see the children back then.
He is Secretary Guo Yukun who escorted the children in the video and wanted to "pick up all the children."
More than ten years ago, it was Secretary Guo and the comrades from the township government who sent the children to the county town to go to school twice a year in winter and summer.
Back then, the little girl wearing pink clothes and following Secretary Guo closely on the way to school was the heroine of today's happy event.
Guo Yukun, Secretary of the Party Committee of Malyang Township, Ta County, Xinjiang: I really can’t imagine that the changes have been so drastic. Every house has a cement road. Look at how beautiful the houses are. In the past, they were all mud houses. I just remembered it, as if it was yesterday.
Put on the chef uniform and Hot Secretary will instantly become "Hot Chef". There were 150 guests at today's engagement party, and Reheman had no time to spare. The main dish he prepared was a large plate of chicken, which is a "hard dish" in the village banquet.
After ten years away, Secretary Guo still remembers the cliff road he took to send his children to school. Everyone specially used drone to see this road.
After ten years of wind and rain erosion, the road has been washed away, leaving a deep mark on the cliff. Ten years ago, children's wishes were heartbreakingly simple.
In ten years, the children's wishes came true. In 2013, the country built a gravel road; in 2015, the Pile Village Bridge was built across the Yarkand River; in 2019, a new asphalt road was built to the entrance of the village. Back then, it took four days and three nights to go to school, but now it can be reached in four or five hours by car. The mountains that were inaccessible back then are no longer a barrier.
In ten years, the children have grown up, they have walked out of the mountains and embraced a broader life.
Now, photovoltaic generators have been successfully installed, and the village has electricity and water; the Internet will also be connected in 2019. By 2021, more than half of the 116 households in Piller Village have moved to resettlement sites in the county. The 48 remaining households develop farming and sewing at home, and work as road guards and border guards at the same time. The per capita annual income has increased from one to two thousand yuan ten years ago to tens of thousands yuan now.
This has been ten years in Piller Village, a remote ethnic minority village in China that has emerged from deep poverty and become moderately prosperous.
This is China’s ten years. Groups of party members and cadres have gone deep into impoverished villages and led the people to change the local landscape. China’s nearly 100 million rural poor have all been lifted out of poverty.
In Gulang County, Gansu Province, more than 3,000 kilometers away from Pile Village in Xinjiang, villager Li Yingchuan got up early at dawn. During this time, the cantaloupes in his greenhouse are almost ripe. In the middle of the night, he was thinking about the harvest of his shed.
Cantaloupe is the main variety grown in greenhouses in Gulang County. Li Yingchuan invested 20,000 yuan to plant a greenhouse. He thought that there would be a bumper harvest in May, but in the past two days, he found that the situation was not good.
Li Yingchuan, a villager in Fumin New Village, Gulang County, Gansu Province: is sick. Take a look at these leaves. You see, this is a clue. It's really frustrating.
If the pests and diseases continue to spread, the cantaloupe harvest in this greenhouse may be lost. Not to mention not making any money, you might even lose money. Uncle Li thought of finding someone.
From the day it was planted in the greenhouse, Uncle Li called him frequently.
He is the person that Uncle Li is anxious to find, Chen Lihong, the science and technology commissioner from the county horticulture station.
Gansu Province Gulang County Horticulture Station Science and Technology Commissioner Chen Lihong: I think it is powdery mildew. It is normal to get powdery mildew on melon crops.
As of the end of 2020, the country has sent 289,800 science and technology commissioners into the countryside to teach farmers technology step by step.
Chen Lihong is responsible for guiding the planting of more than 6,800 greenhouses in 7 immigrant villages on Huanghuatan. Anyone in the ten miles and eight villages who encounters problems with their cultivation will come to him.
"Leading the masses to develop production" is the job responsibility of the science and technology commissioner. In order for the villagers to find him at any time, Chen Lihong left his phone number with each farmer.
Gansu Province Science and Technology Correspondent of Gulang County Horticulture Station Chen Lihong: is for convenience of contact. Because they grow melons in a shed, they can see the phone number when they go out, making it easier to contact them. After
teaches on-site, he will send a WeChat message or write a note to give instructions. This has become Chen Lihong's work habit.
After leaving Li Yingchuan's house, Chen Lihong rushed to the nearby Sunshine Village. Because there is another problem with the greenhouse in the neighboring village.
Along the way, all the folks I met knew Chen Lihong. Nine years ago, he was sent to these seven villages as a special science and technology commissioner. He went in and out of the village greenhouses almost every day to guide everyone in planting.
For convenience, Chen Lihong always rides this 28 bicycle . He is a tall man of 1.9 meters and rides a big 28 bicycle. He is the most familiar figure in the village.
Nine years ago, Chen Lihong was sent to the Huanghuatan Ecological Immigration Zone. When he first entered the village and contacted the villagers, he was a little dumbfounded.
He found that although the villagers had been farming for most of their lives, they had no experience in growing greenhouses. They all moved from the mountainous area in southern Gulang County.
Gulang County is one of the 23 deeply impoverished counties in Gansu Province. It has little rain all year round and the land is desertified, making it an extremely barren area.
This is where Li Yingchuan lived in the past.
Li Yingchuan, a villager in Fumin New Village, Gulang County, Gansu Province: On the mountain, we mainly grew wheat, peas, and potatoes.. If it rains, we people will have some income; if it doesn’t rain, we will have no income. There is no technology anymore.
In 2015, the pace of change in Li Yingchuan's village accelerated. In the decisive battle to eradicate poverty, the party and the country began to implement an important policy: relocation and resettlement, to relocate registered poor people living in places where "one area of water and soil cannot support one person" and build a new home.After this policy was proposed, nearly 10 million people moved out of the poor valley and started a new life in five years. This is the most powerful support for the poor.
Gulang County implemented the Huanghuatan ecological immigration relocation poverty alleviation project, relocating 62,400 people in 11 townships and towns in the southern mountainous areas, and resettled them in the newly built oasis towns and 12 new immigrant villages in Huanghuatan. In 2018, Li Yingchuan and more than 4,000 villagers in the village moved into Fumin New Village and started a new life.
Gansu Province Gulang County Horticultural Station Science and Technology Commissioner Chen Lihong: We must make it possible for them to move, stabilize, have industrial development, and get rich. Our job is to teach them face to face, step by step, how to plant a sunhouse well and how to think about giving them good benefits.
is like this, and he is looking for him one by one every day. He rides his bike, and he is busy from dawn to night, and his shoes are worn out several pairs.
Gansu Province Gulang County Horticultural Station Science and Technology Commissioner Chen Lihong: walks around forty or fifty sheds a day, but I’m walking nonstop anyway, which is quite expensive. I wear size 47, and my feet are very big, and it is difficult to buy shoes every time I buy them. They are too big to wear, so I bought them all once. Buy more and it's cheaper.
In 2019, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during his inspection in Fumin New Village that "making people's lives happier is the cause of the Communist Party." Nowadays, in addition to the horticulture station where Chen Lihong is located, the village also guides the wolfberry planting, the Forestry and Grassland Bureau guides the greenhouse planting, and the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau guides the greenhouse planting and the greenhouse sheep raising, and the planting and breeding are developing. Even fruits like dragon fruit , which once could only grow in the south, can now grow in the desert areas of Gansu in the north of . During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China carried out poverty alleviation relocation for nearly 10 million poor people, which is an unprecedented feat in the history of human poverty reduction.
The more soil there is under your feet, the more true feelings you will be accumulated in your heart. A total of 289,800 science and technology commissioners, 255,000 village work teams, more than 3 million first secretaries and village cadres, nearly 2 million township cadres and millions of village cadres, as well as more than 1,800 comrades who cannot be forgotten, have sowed the seeds of hope on the vast land of the motherland and took root and sprouted in areas with concentrated poverty.
The countryside is at dawn, and the mountain villages are changing dramatically. By 2021, 128,000 poor villages in China will be out of the list, 832 poor counties will be lifted out of poverty, and nearly 100 million people will be lifted out of poverty, creating a miracle in the history of human poverty reduction!
