The village-residency story of Zhang Xiucun, first secretary of Nanwa Village, Shanting District, Zaozhuang, Shandong
"Five visits to the thatched cottage" to bring in a good secretary (Most Beautiful Grassroots Cadre)
- Remembering Zhang Xiucun, first secretary of Nanwa Village, Shanting District, Zaozhuang, Shandong
Reporter Wang Pei
During that period, Xu Wenhe ran over to the neighboring village every few days, just for Zhang Xiucun (see photo above, left, file photo).
Zhang Xiucun was originally a senior economist at Shandong Airlines Group. After the 2013 Spring Festival, he was assigned as first secretary to a famously poor village - Dongshuiyu Village, Shancheng Subdistrict, Shanting District, Zaozhuang City. Two years later, the villagers of neighboring Nanwa Village all knew that Dongshuiyu Village had built new roads and new houses, and life there was getting more and more prosperous. So Xu Wenhe, the village party secretary of Nanwa Village, could no longer sit still.
"Liu Bei paid three visits to the thatched cottage to persuade Zhuge Liang to come out; I've already come five times, so please come and help us!" Xu Wenhe went straight to his door to ask him. Seeing the old secretary's expectant eyes and thinking of the deep bond with the people over the past two years, Zhang Xiucun made up his mind on the spot: "As long as I don't leave, I will definitely come to Nanwa Village!"
In 2015, after finishing his two-year term in Dongshuiyu Village, Zhang Xiucun came as promised.
Party building first, and a model party branch was established
"Over here there will be a senior activity center, a senior rest room, the village committee and a meeting room. Opposite is a welfare supermarket where villagers can get grain, oil, rice and flour for free. Between the two buildings, a stage will also be set up facing outward." Standing on the slope along one side of Nanwa Village's main road, Zhang Xiucun gestured to the reporter while pointing at a two-story brick-and-tile house under construction. He already had the prototype of the village comprehensive service center in mind.
But when he first entered the village, Zhang Xiucun had been doused with a bucket of cold water. He admitted frankly that at the first village branch meeting, in less than 5 minutes, an old party member was already snoring away.
At that time, Nanwa Village had a total of 36 party members, with an average age of 61.7, and village party secretary Xu Wenhe had not even finished primary school... Party members were older, less educated, less capable, and organizational work was lax, which became the biggest obstacle constraining Nanwa Village's escape from poverty and pursuit of prosperity.
"If we can't change the village's poor and backward appearance, why should the people trust the village leadership team?" Zhang Xiucun felt that effort had to be put into "reshuffling" the village party branch and village committee.
He first made a "three-point pact" with himself: do not eat a single meal from the villagers, do not trouble the villagers, and do not reimburse a single cent in the village. Then he began to "reshuffle" the village party branch and village committee: hold daily coordination meetings, establish a duty system, and develop capable young people to join the party and the village committee... Organizational development became routine work in the village. At present, the Nanwa Village party branch has become a municipal-level party-building demonstration village.
With a team in place, Zhang Xiucun had confidence in his work. He led village cadres in household visits and tailored poverty-alleviation plans for poor households. Using 300,000 yuan in provincial industrial support funds, he bought 400 sheep to help 67 poor households develop breeding; guided 60 households toward employment and work; and provided long-term bottom-line assistance to 38 poor households with no labor capacity, without missing a single one...
Hawthorns took to the skies, creating a good industry to enrich the people
Nanwa Village lives by the mountains, with much barren hillside and little arable land. The villagers mainly grow hawthorns, but the price is low, there is no sales channel, and they are not easy to store, so rotten hawthorns can only be thrown away, which pains people's hearts.
"Wouldn't it be enough to make them into hawthorn strips?" Zhang Xiucun, who was familiar with aviation operations, immediately thought of airline catering and letting hawthorns fly into the sky! He calculated this account clearly: to raise the value of agricultural products, the best way is to extend the industrial chain. With Shandong Airlines' help, Zhang Xiucun raised 2 million yuan and established Zaozhuang Nanling Aviation Food Co., Ltd. Nanwa Village's small hawthorns hitched a ride on big airplanes and flew to every corner of the world. Today, the village processing plant can produce 5,000 bags of hawthorn strips per day.
That was not all. Zhang Xiucun then turned his mind to the hawthorn packaging bags. During that period, he ran to advertising companies every day, studied the advertising business, and designed the packaging himself. After commercial negotiations, advertisements such as Taierzhuang Ancient City and Friendly Shandong appeared on the packaging paper.
According to calculations, the purchase price of hawthorns is 0.45 yuan per jin; processing 1 jin of preserved fruit uses 3.5 jin of ingredients; preserved fruit sells for 20 yuan per jin; plus advertising revenue of 8.33 yuan per jin, direct income reaches 28.33 yuan, and added value instantly increased by nearly 20 times! Nanwa Village can steadily increase income by 1.14 million yuan each year.
Recognized by villagers, forging a long-lasting true bond
"It would be best if you never leave; all of us, men and women, old and young, agree!" 84-year-old Wang Xuejin had not expected that Nanwa Village, where he had lived his whole life, could still undergo such a great change.
"Rural work is the most concrete, and the peasant masses are the most practical." Zhang Xiucun said that which things are real deeds done for the people and which are "vanity projects" is clearest in the people's hearts.
On his fifth day in the village, the village ended its history of having no streetlights. Zhang Xiucun also contacted the public security department to set up a guard room in the village and install 18 surveillance devices, greatly improving public security.
No one could have imagined that these were only the beginning of the village's great transformation. Hardening roads, digging water wells, building a bridge across the river, clearing the three piles and five stacks... For nearly two years, Nanwa Village has been changing every day.
In 2013, Dongshuiyu Village had difficulty accessing drinking water. Zhang Xiucun personally led village cadres in doing blasting and digging water pools, and built a reservoir of more than 20,000 cubic meters, solving the irrigation problem for more than 500 mu of land, but he himself gained an extra disability certificate: while measuring the water pool once, Zhang Xiucun fell from a platform more than 5 meters high, injuring his right leg with traumatic synovitis and a meniscus injury, and was assessed as having a level-four disability.
Originally meant to serve as a village-resident secretary for one year, he stayed for 4 years. Today, the people in the villages where he has served all firmly recognize Zhang Xiucun as their first secretary.