He raised cattle to pay off gambling debts, and embarked on the road to prosperity

Just after the 2016 Spring Festival, 45-year-old Long Chuang brought his wife to raise cattle on Duimen Mountain not far from home, and embarked on the road to prosperity.

Chasing a dream turned him into a "prodigal"

In August 1996, Long Chuang, a primary school graduate, came to Guangdong to work with friends from his village, harboring the dream of getting rich through work. Because of his limited education and lack of any specialized skill, he had to do heavy manual labor in a factory, often working more than 10 hours a day. Once, from extreme fatigue, he accidentally had his right thumb crushed off by a machine, and after becoming disabled he could no longer stay at the original factory.

After returning to his hometown, in order to cover daily living expenses such as oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar, Long Chuang had to take odd jobs all over the county town during the slack farming season. During that period, feeling empty inside, he could not resist the encouragement of his coworkers and picked up the bad habit of gambling. Not only did he fail to earn money from working, but he also fell into a considerable amount of debt.

The "returned prodigal" raises cattle

The matter of selling cattle to pay off gambling debts became a burden that made him unable to face his family with his head held high, and he secretly vowed to work and earn money, buy back a few cattle to restore his "face" in front of the villagers. He did not go to find his angry wife, nor could he let go of the elderly and young at home; he just worked desperately while inquiring about news of his family back home. By a chance opportunity, he saw a report about Shibadong Village developing Xiangxi yellow cattle breeding and helping poor households escape poverty and become prosperous, so he resolved to go home and go all out.

Long Chuang rushed home overnight, and the day after arriving he went to the local credit union to apply for a loan to raise cattle. During the pre-loan investigation, the credit union learned of his former "bad habits" and flatly refused his loan application. So he went to Hunan Demu Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and found chairman Yan Dezhong, wrote a guarantee that from then on he would no longer play cards or gamble, and asked for support to raise cattle. After listening in detail to Long Chuang's situation, Yan Dezhong did not reject him, but promptly sent Wu Zhongming, the person in charge of the company's cooperative, specifically to the local credit union to coordinate and guarantee the loan for him, supporting him in building a Xiangxi yellow cattle breeding family farm and turning from a "prodigal" into a "cowherd".

Diligence helps the "cowherd" escape poverty

After Long Chuang's family farm was established, he felt at ease, had somewhere to put his energy, and knew that the next step was to seek returns through hard work and careful management. So he spent all day with the cattle, eating and living at the mountain farm and raising them meticulously. When a cow got sick, he promptly called a technician to treat it; when a cow gave birth, he personally acted as the "midwife"; when a calf was weak and could not walk up the mountain, he carried it in both hands; when it was cold, he wrapped his own cotton-padded jacket around it... After some time, his actions moved his family. His wife, who had long been working away from home, came back with 30,000 yuan of "private savings" and actively supported him and 3 other farming households in jointly investing more than 80,000 yuan and over 300 workdays to build by their own efforts a grazing passage nearly 4 km long. To save costs and improve overall breeding efficiency, he grazed cattle while farming land, collecting discarded crop straw such as corn and rice from farming households to use as fodder. At the same time, he also used cattle manure to raise earthworms, and raised fish and free-range chickens, with an annual income of more than 150,000 yuan.

Now Long Chuang's family lives and works in peace and contentment, full of happiness. Through raising cattle to escape poverty and become prosperous, not only have the family's conditions improved, but they have also become a happy household envied by all the local villagers. Long Chuang has also gone from being a "prodigal" in the past to becoming the leader of the poor households in his village in escaping poverty and becoming prosperous through cattle raising.