Post-80s Generation Native Returns to Xiaochang to Start Anew, Taking Root in the Deep Mountains to Lead Villagers Out of Poverty Toward Prosperity

Liu Chao, born in the 1980s, is the child of an ordinary farming family in Bijia Village, Xiaowu Township, Xiaochang County. In 2002, while in the second year of junior high school, he dropped out and went to Xinyang, Henan, to work. Later he succeeded in business in Luohe, opening 6 shops in succession and amassing assets worth millions of yuan. In 2015, he gave up his comfortable city life and returned home to start a business again, transferring land to build an ecological agriculture landscape demonstration park, with plans to establish a tea planting and ecological breeding cooperative to lead the village's parents and elders out of poverty toward prosperity.

He Dropped Out of School to Learn a Trade in Xinyang, Then Started a Successful Business in Luohe with His Wife

Liu Chao was born in 1985 in Bijia Village, Xiaowu Township, Xiaochang County. Both his parents were ordinary farmers, and the family was financially strained from the start. In 2002, due to the family's poverty, Liu Chao, then in the second year of junior high at Xiaowu Township Forestry Middle School, dropped out. Through a relative's introduction, he came to a food shop in Xinyang to apprentice in making cakes, cookies and other snack pastries.

A child who came out of the mountains is especially able to endure hardship. Apprenticing at a food shop in Xinyang, Henan, Liu Chao was not only clever and eager to learn, but also especially diligent; he always rushed to do the dirty and heavy work in the shop. During his apprenticeship, he rarely went out to stroll the streets. Whenever he had time, he liked to stay in the shop working alongside his master. His master also thought highly of this child who had come out of the depths of the Hubei mountains, and passed on all his skills without reserve.

While learning his trade in Xinyang, Liu Chao met Zhou Xiaojing, a girl of the same age from Luohe, Henan. They both apprenticed at this food shop, encouraging and looking after each other in work and life, and stayed in Xinyang for 6 years. In 2008, Liu Chao and Zhou Xiaojing walked hand in hand into marriage. After marrying, the two went together to Luohe and opened a cake shop. Because their cakes tasted good and the prices were fair, they quickly captured the market, and the cake shop's business was booming. After earning some savings, Liu Chao and his wife Zhou Xiaojing did not put the money in the bank, but instead opened a teahouse, allowing the teahouse and the cake shop to complement each other - and the teahouse's business was just as booming.

Later, using the snowball method, they opened 6 shops in succession, including a famous cigarettes and liquor shop and a clothing store, and every shop did quite well. In just 8 years of doing business in Luohe, Liu Chao accumulated millions in capital. Just as he was preparing to invest in his next project, Liu Baicheng, the Party branch secretary of his home village of Bijia, came to find him. After a long heart-to-heart talk, Liu Chao resolutely decided to return to his hometown of Bijia Village deep in the mountains to start a business again.

He Returned to Bijia Village Alone, Leading His Fellow Villagers Down the Road Out of Poverty Toward Prosperity

Liu Chao's hometown, Bijia Village, is located on Bijia Mountain in Xiaowu Township, Xiaochang County, at an altitude of 700 m. Remote and with poor transportation, it belongs to the "old revolutionary, minority, border and poor" areas and is a typical impoverished mountain village. The village has only 56 households and village-level debt of more than 140,000 yuan. In August 2015, the Xiaogan Municipal People's Congress, the Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, the Municipal Forestry Bureau and the Municipal Poverty Alleviation Office stationed themselves in Bijia Village, opening the curtain on targeted poverty alleviation work. After considering the village's actual situation, village Party branch secretary Liu Baicheng persuaded Liu Chao to return to the village to start a business again, transfer land to build an ecological agriculture landscape demonstration park, and guide the villagers to develop tea, fruit trees, medicinal herbs, specialty planting and breeding to increase the income of the impoverished population.

After winning over his wife Zhou Xiaojing, Liu Chao handed over the 6 shops in Luohe, Henan, for her to manage, said goodbye to their 2 children, and returned to his hometown of Bijia Village. In the past, the villagers relied on planting China fir and other traditional cash crops as their main source of income, but China fir takes more than ten years to mature. Considering the current good prospects of the tea market, Bijia Village's climate and geographical conditions are very suitable for growing original ecological tea, but the villagers took a wait-and-see attitude, and with a large number of young and middle-aged laborers in the village going out to work, the tea economy was difficult to open up for the time being. He decided that, on the basis of taking the lead in planting tea himself, he would focus on cultivating several tea-growing households, so that the villagers could see the economic benefits brought by tea growing - only then could everyone be motivated to develop the tea industry.

In October 2015, after submitting his application to join the Party, Liu Chao invested 1.2 million yuan to begin building the ecological agriculture landscape demonstration park. At the high price of 300 yuan per mu, he transferred more than 200 mu of barren hills and slopes, then hired excavators to improve the barren hills and slopes. From March 3 to 10, 2016, he hired villagers to plant 700,000 high-quality tea seedlings, 1,000 landscape tree seedlings, and fruit tree seedlings such as pear and pomegranate on the 200 mu of improved barren hills and slopes. At the end of March, he invested another 700,000 yuan to begin building a tea processing factory. Liu Chao said that after this ecological agriculture landscape demonstration park integrating planting and breeding is established, he will then set up a company-plus-farmers planting and breeding cooperative to lead all the villagers together down the road out of poverty toward prosperity.

The construction of Liu Chao's ecological agriculture landscape demonstration park broadened the villagers' horizons. While working in his demonstration park, the villagers learned advanced original ecological tea planting and management techniques, and also applied them to the development and management of their own tea gardens. Driven by Liu Chao, Bijia Village's original ecological tea gradually developed from scattered planting into large-scale operation, and the village's total planting area suddenly expanded to more than 300 mu this year. Liu Chao hopes that, with his leadership, the village's specialty planting and breeding industries can develop as quickly as possible, the villagers' wallets begin to bulge, and smiles gradually multiply.