One-armed Party secretary leads villagers out of poverty and builds a "green bank" over more than 40 years

The chestnut ripening season is also the busiest time of year for Wen Shouwen, Party secretary of Longquanzhuang Village, Zhucaoying Town, Haigang District, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province: contacting buyers, learning about the market, and analyzing price trends, with not a moment of leisure.

His busyness has been worthwhile. This year's chestnut harvest is bountiful, and these happiness trees that Wen Shouwen spent more than a decade planting for the villagers with one hand are once again laden with fruit.

In the 1970s, Wen Shouwen led Party members and villagers in transforming farmland, enabling this poor mountain gully to achieve a bumper grain harvest; after reform and opening up, he led the villagers to prosperity, and villagers now drive cars up the mountain to tend their orchards. More than 40 years have passed like an arrow, and the choices made back then created Longquanzhuang Village as it is today, and likewise became that feeling of happiness in Wen Shouwen's heart that fills him yet is hard to express. Longquanzhuang, a small village nestled in the deep mountains, shows people its prosperity, beauty and promising future through its magnificent transformation after breaking out of its cocoon.

Wen Shouwen introduces ornamental fish farming in Longquanzhuang on a small bridge in the village (photo taken on July 4, 2014).

1. One hand is just as good "I want to use one hand to let the villagers eat their fill!"

In 1950, Wen Shouwen was born in Longquanzhuang Village. "At that time the village was poor, and a group of us young people were determined to change the face of our hometown, carving large characters into the rocks: Change the sky of Wawayu, change the land of Wawayu." Wen Shouwen said he has never wavered from this idea.

Because he was hardworking and capable, Wen Shouwen was later appointed deputy secretary of the village Party branch and company commander of the militia, and in 1974 was appointed deputy secretary of the commune. But just two days before he was to report for duty, the 24-year-old lost his left forearm to a threshing machine while working in the production team. To make life easier for him, the commune made Wen Shouwen an accounting instructor for the commune, with 300 work points plus 15 yuan per month. At that time, working in the production team, a strong laborer with full attendance earned only 300 work points per month, and not a cent of money.

After working for half a year in this enviable position, Wen Shouwen made an unexpected decision: resign from the job and return to the village to serve as Party branch secretary. Relatives and friends urged him not to be foolish, but he said: "I can't stand enjoying a comfortable life myself while the villagers go hungry. One hand is just as good. I want to use one hand to let the villagers eat their fill!"

Wen Shouwen checks a text message on his mobile phone with his right hand (photo taken on July 4, 2014).

After returning to the village, Wen Shouwen did another thing that shocked everyone: he wanted to reroute the river and build farmland to plant rice. Planting rice in a mountain gully? People were half doubtful. Wen Shouwen took the lead, carrying dry rations and shouldering a shovel and pick as he went to work in the fields. He clamped the shovel handle with his disabled arm, and the stiff handle rubbed the skin under his armpit into blood blisters. Every night he had to endure severe pain to peel off the clothing stuck to his flesh and disinfect the wound with salt water. The villagers, moved by his example, also worked desperately alongside him. That year, the mountain people ate rice for the first time, ate their fill, and said goodbye to resold grain.

Planting fruit trees and setting up factories, Wen Shouwen dared to think and act in that era, but the label of "theory of productivity above all" left the young man at a loss for a time, and he resigned gloomily.

2. After becoming the village's "richest man," he resolutely gave up his own small family to lead villagers on the road to prosperity together

In 1982, Wen Shouwen contracted the village's already bankrupt hardware factory. Thanks to good management, the enterprise quickly flourished and made a profit of more than 4,000 yuan that year. In 1984 the enterprise made a profit of 120,000 yuan, and Wen Shouwen became the village's "richest man."

Although he had become wealthy, Wen Shouwen did not feel good inside. In a small village of 100 households, more than half had borrowed money from him, and many families were so poor they could not even get a wife. The villagers could not live good lives, and he felt uneasy about it. In 1990, Wen Shouwen was once again elected village Party branch secretary. Between his own small family and the larger village family, he chose to give up his household enterprise and resolved to lead the villagers onto the road to prosperity together.

In order to establish a collective enterprise, he used his own family's money to pay off the loans the village owed, and used his own enterprise's equipment as collateral to take out new loans. Under his management, the village-run enterprise thrived, but a few years later, under the influence of the broader economic situation, payments could not be collected, and the once-flourishing enterprise suddenly went bankrupt, and his own enterprise was also auctioned off. Under heavy mental pressure, plus gallbladder removal, diabetes and heart disease, he resigned again.

During this period, Wen Shouwen had several opportunities to leave Longquanzhuang, but he always said: "My dream of leading the villagers to prosperity has not yet come true, so I cannot go anywhere. If my hometown becomes better, I will be comforted even when I am old; even if it does not become better, I will not regret it, because that would mean I lacked ability."

In 1999, facing for the third time the choice of whether to serve as Longquanzhuang's Party secretary, Wen Shouwen was approaching the age of 50. Unwilling to let him endure hardship and exhaustion, his relatives tried to dissuade him one after another, and his younger brother offered an annual salary of 100,000 yuan to keep him. "My hometown is too poor, and the villagers want prosperity and long for prosperity, with urgent feelings and high hopes." Wen Shouwen had never forgotten this over the years. Wen Shouwen still chose to take up this burden again. "Because since I was young I have had one dream - to let the villagers eat their fill and make my hometown better." For the dream of prosperity for the whole village, he began a new struggle.

3. Tiny chestnuts build a "green bank," and he moves villagers into villas

In 1999, Wen Shouwen learned that "JD chestnuts" produced in an area about 400 km long from east of Beijing to Shanhaiguan and about 300 km wide from south of Chengde to the Bohai Bay had an excellent taste and were in short supply on international and domestic markets. He immediately saw the direction for Longquanzhuang's development: Longquanzhuang was within the geographical range of "JD chestnuts," and the village had large areas of mountain land suitable for planting chestnuts.

So Wen Shouwen began leading the villagers in planting chestnuts.

In order to bring water up the mountain, Wen Shouwen made 15 trips to the water affairs department and secured funding for the village, dug 9 large-mouth wells, and built 8 water-diversion-up-the-mountain projects, achieving a water source in every gully.

With no road into the mountains, Wen Shouwen led the villagers in building the roads themselves. For more than ten hours a day, when thirsty they drank cold well water, and when hungry they ate cold dry food. The physically weak Wen Shouwen ran a high fever and collapsed at the work site. His wife, distressed, said: "Let's stop, let's not suffer like this anymore." But he said: "All the villagers in the village are watching us. If we don't do it, we destroy the village's hope of prosperity! No matter how hard or difficult it is, I must keep going." In this way, the village built a total of 43 mountain access roads, nearly 40 km.

To date, Longquanzhuang Village, with 102 households and 360 people, has 5,000 mu of chestnuts, more than 400,000 trees, and 1,200 trees per person. This year chestnuts are expected to yield 600,000 kg, and this alone will bring each villager an average income of at least 17,000 yuan. From "relying on resold grain for food year after year and on the credit cooperative for money" to "driving cars up the mountain and down to the fields," the improvement in life makes the villagers sigh with emotion. Before the 2014 Spring Festival, the villagers moved into three-story 165 sq m vertically separated townhouse-style buildings. This year, Longquanzhuang Village will also invest about 3 million yuan to build a 700 sq m comprehensive service building for the villagers' center, 2 cultural squares of 8,000 sq m and 400 linear m of cultural walls, and purchase some fitness equipment, enriching the villagers' leisure and cultural life.

Tiny chestnuts have created a prosperous life for the people of Longquanzhuang and created a brand-new atmosphere in Longquanzhuang Village.

The chestnut trees standing quietly among the mountains have become a "green bank," silently speaking for Longquanzhuang.