Zhang Weishun of Dongliao County, Jilin, gets rich by raising sheep
Zhang Weishun is an ordinary man. Yet in this ordinary man, we can see the success of perseverance in escaping poverty. Recently, after a drive of more than 20 minutes, the reporter arrived at Chengren Village, Anshu Town, Dongliao County, and found Zhang Weishun, the leader of the Weishun Sheep Raising Professional Cooperative.
When asked how Zhang Weishun got into the sheep raising business, he told the reporter that because his family was poor when he was a child, he dropped out of school before finishing junior high and stayed home to help his parents herd cattle, herd sheep and do odd jobs. But he was clever from childhood and quick-witted, and during those years of herding sheep he figured out the tricks of the trade from the sheep themselves. In the early 1990s, Zhang Weishun went to the Dongji market to sell mutton. After earning his first pot of gold, he and his wife went to Dalian to do business in sheep. Over more than 20 years of struggle, they endured countless hardships and tasted all the sweets and bitters of life, and finally gained a foothold of their own and built a foundation for their own business. When bitterness gave way to sweetness, it should have been the time for him to enjoy life, but he did not choose comfort. He resolutely returned to his hometown to engage in the sheep raising business. Zhang Weishun thought this would not only allow him to stay home and tend the land, but also drive more farmers to get rich along with him.
Zhang Weishun is a man who does things cleanly and decisively, and once he decides to act, he acts. From choosing the site to building the sheep sheds, the couple got up before 5 a.m. every day, carrying corn stalks, cutting grass, mixing feed, cleaning and disinfecting the sheep pens on a regular basis, doing a good job of disease prevention, and keeping in touch and communicating with professionals from the town animal husbandry center at all times. Every day they were busy from morning to night, so tired they could hardly straighten their backs. His wife once wanted to give up, but seeing her husband's tenacity, she still stuck with him.
To develop the sheep raising business on a large scale, one must also have solid sheep raising skills. Zhang Weishun often went to the market to ask about prices and went to bookstores to learn. At the same time, he went deep into the homes of other sheep raisers to exchange and learn from experience, and gradually explored a new path of scientific sheep raising. Having discovered the business opportunity of getting rich by raising sheep during his entrepreneurship, Zhang Weishun has now established the Weishun Sheep Raising Professional Cooperative in Chengren Village, Anshu Town, Dongliao County. Today, the sheep at Zhang Weishun's farm have grown from more than 300 at the beginning to more than 1,000 now, and annual income can reach more than 200,000 yuan. Under his leadership, there are now more than 10 specialized sheep raising households in the whole village.
When asked about his plans for the farm in the future, he said that next year he will build standardized sheep pens, feed warehouses and biogas pits, among other things. If you are going to do it, you have to go all out.
Reporter's notes:
It is not only Zhang Weishun. In the past, when interviewing leaders in getting rich, I could deeply feel that these leaders all had tenacity and an unyielding spirit in their personalities. Only in this way could they avoid stopping because of the setbacks and difficulties encountered in the initial stage. They dare to take risks and are good at studying, so they can continuously develop new varieties, continuously improve and innovate technology, and continuously open up new markets. They are all charitable and willing to share, and that is why there is the vivid practice of "one's own wealth does not count as wealth; let everyone get rich together."