Yang Jiachen, former Party branch secretary of Guitizhai Village, gave his life to lift villagers toward the dream of shared prosperity
Not long ago, on the second floor of the Guitizhai Village committee building in Haigang District, Qinhuangdao, the Yang Jiachen Model of the Times Hall officially opened. Yang Jiachen was the former Party branch secretary and former village committee director of Guitizhai Village. Under his leadership, Guitizhai leaped from a poor, dirty and disorderly village to a wealthy village known far and wide and envied by all. In the early hours of August 3, 2015, after long-term overwork and exhaustion, Yang Jiachen died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of only 47.
The Yang Jiachen Model of the Times Hall covers 60 sq m and is divided into 4 sections: A Lifelong Commitment, Changing with Each Passing Day, Living and Working in Contentment, and Carrying Forward the Cause. Through a combination of text, photographs, audio and video, and physical objects, it displays Yang Jiachen's outstanding deeds.
Yang Jiachen's dream was to let the whole village live free from worries about food and clothing
Guitizhai, with its long history, was once a famously chaotic village. In 2000, several veteran Party members in the village approached Yang Jiachen and urged him to run for village committee director. At the time, Yang Jiachen contracted a brick factory; business was booming, with an annual income of nearly one million yuan. When relatives and friends heard he was running for village committee director, they all advised him not to clean up a mess left by others.
However, disregarding the opposition of his family, relatives and friends, Yang Jiachen ran for village committee director and was elected by a high vote.
After taking office, Yang Jiachen overcame enormous resistance, cleared arrears on electricity bills, demolished illegally built structures in the village, improved the village's appearance, dug wells and built roads; using idle land in the village, he built an industrial zone and a farmers' market, attracting hundreds of self-employed households to move in; on the barren slopes outside the village, he built a livestock breeding zone and guided villagers to develop large-scale breeding, and the villagers gradually became better off.
In December 2005, when the village "two committees" were re-elected, Yang Jiachen was once again elected village committee director and was elected Party branch secretary with a unanimous vote.
In 2009, Yang Jiachen proposed establishing Qinhuangdao's first rural joint-stock company, the Haigang Agriculture, Industry and Commerce Company. During the old village redevelopment process, Yang Jiachen creatively put forward a new model of "cooperative development, fixed profit returns." With the help of the Haigang Agriculture, Industry and Commerce Company, villagers were transformed into shareholders and took part in the old village redevelopment. From this single item alone, the village collective earned 800 million yuan.
At present, Guitizhai Village's total collective assets have reached more than 2 billion yuan, with an average of 1.5 cars per household and average household savings of more than one million yuan.
In 2012, in order to drive the development of weaker villages, Yang Jiachen also concurrently served as Party branch secretary of Xiaole'an Zhai Village, becoming the district's first Party branch secretary to serve across villages. In early 2015, when the village "two committees" were re-elected, Yang Jiachen, whose health had not yet recovered after surgery for gallstones and cholecystitis, proposed no longer serving as village Party branch secretary. But he could not refuse the trust of Party members and villagers, and resolutely shouldered the heavy responsibility of village Party branch secretary once again.
"In his heart, the people's affairs were bigger than heaven, and his own affairs were nothing"
The villagers' lives became prosperous, and Yang Jiachen also wanted everyone to have care in old age, medical care when sick, secure housing and happiness in prosperity. All villagers over 60 years old could receive a living allowance. A health cooperative foundation was established; for villagers buying medicine and seeing doctors, all remaining costs after reimbursement by the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme were fully reimbursed by the foundation.
In 2006, Guitizhai Village's "moderately prosperous buildings" were completed, solving the housing problem for 196 households. In 2014, the first and second phases of Guitizhai's relocation housing were completed one after another, and all villagers moved into newly renovated homes.
Yang Jiachen was recognized by the whole village as a "good man." Whenever there was any matter, big or small, as long as people found him, there was nothing he would not help with.
Villager He Xiping's mother died early, and he lived with his elderly father by collecting garbage; well into his thirties, he still could not find a wife. With Yang Jiachen's help, he married and had two daughters. Yang Jiachen also put him in charge of household waste collection for the whole village, with an annual pay of 100,000 yuan. On the road to prosperity, he could not let a single person fall behind.
"In his heart, the people's affairs were bigger than heaven, and his own affairs were nothing." That is how the villagers evaluated him.
In 2006, when the "moderately prosperous buildings" were completed, Yang Jiachen proposed allocating housing by drawing lots. What Yang Jiachen drew was the smallest unit.
His family was dissatisfied, and the villagers also felt uneasy. Thinking of his contributions to the village, everyone suggested he choose an ideal home, but Yang Jiachen firmly refused: "Village officials must never seek special treatment."
Yang Jiachen had an iron rule: "My own family members cannot do business in the village." His daughter, unemployed after graduating from university, wanted to rent the village's commercial housing to open a kindergarten; his older brother, in poor health, wanted to rent a small village shop to do business; his wife's older brother wanted to contract a piece of land... All of these he turned down.
Whenever matters involving collective interests were concerned, Yang Jiachen was strict to the point of being almost ruthless. He said: "If my relatives do business in the village, then this bowl of water cannot be held level."
"He was too tired, he worried about too many things, and he collapsed from exhaustion for our sake"
For the development of Guitizhai Village, Yang Jiachen truly worked his heart out.
In the old village redevelopment, the demolition task of 380,000 sq m was completed in just 45 days, with not a single person petitioning, creating a miracle in Qinhuangdao's demolition history.
"During land requisition and demolition, he stayed at the village committee almost every day until the middle of the night. Whatever questions villagers had about land requisition or compensation, they could find him immediately." Village officials said Yang Jiachen never turned villagers away; whenever any household had objections or conflicts over demolition, they all went to him.
"No village's relocation housing could have such good quality." When talking about the village's relocation housing, the villagers praised it endlessly. During the critical period of construction, Yang Jiachen watched over it day and night, often sleeping only three or four hours a day. At the time, he suffered from severe gallstones and often broke out in sweat from the pain. In order to keep working, he told only his family and a few close friends.
In June 2014, after the relocation housing was fully allocated, he finally found time to have surgery. By then the condition was already quite serious; the stones had even ruptured his bile duct. But not long after the surgery, with bandages wrapped around his waist, he began wandering around the village again, checking the quality of the new buildings and the village's public security.
Yang Jiachen loved to wander around the village, inspecting its appearance and public security management... Over 15 years, more than 5,000 days and nights, Yang Jiachen hardly ever took a holiday.
"He was too tired, he worried about too many things, and he collapsed from exhaustion for our sake." Recalling one event after another in Yang Jiachen's life, villager Lu Wenxing could not help but burst into loud sobbing.
At 7:40 p.m. on August 2 last year, Yang Qingsong of the village patrol team saw Yang Jiachen for the last time. Yang Qingsong said that Yang Jiachen attached great importance to the village's public security and was very strict with them, often coming by to patrol; sometimes coming over at one or two in the morning was also common. "I never expected that would be the last time Secretary Yang spoke to me."