On the road to prosperity, Zhang Zhenyong gladly serves as a willing ox

Zhang Zhenyong is the director of the Ailin Management and Protection Station of the Kuduer Forestry Bureau. He is not only an expert at raising cattle to get rich, but also a "willing ox" on the road to prosperity for the workers.

With commercial logging of natural forests fully halted across the forest region, the workers engaged in production all put down their chainsaws and axes. In order to change these workers' mindset and ensure they all had work after being reassigned, Zhang Zhenyong began to think things over. After discussing and conducting surveys with the leadership team members many times, he finally decided to lead the workers in developing a cattle-raising business through pooled funds and shares.

A cattle barn 60 m long and 12 m wide was built, able to hold more than 100 head of cattle at most, complete with a workers' rest room, a feed-mixing room, a fermentation pit, and a garage. Zhang Zhenyong has one principle in raising cattle: he never feeds them "concentrated feed." He has always insisted on raising cattle with green grass and crops, because this makes the meat fresh, tender, and pure, and it can also fetch a much higher price. As for how to solve the feed problem for penned cattle, the meticulous Zhang Zhenyong had already thought of a solution. Zhang Zhenyong borrowed dozens of mu of land from his own family and the wheat station, and planted highland barley, carrots, and rutabaga. After the wheat station's autumn harvest, the remaining barley stalks were hauled back, mixed with highland barley, crushed, fermented, and fed to the cattle. Eating these, the cattle grew faster and better than on grass.

This year, the Kuduer Forestry Bureau called on all units to develop transformation industries. Zhang Zhenyong bravely shouldered the burden. Under his leadership, they cultivated black fungus and nameko mushrooms, with a cultivation scale reaching 220,000 bags, kept 50 pigs, and planted 120 sq m of greenhouse vegetables. In March, the forestry bureau's labor union began issuing interest-free loans to workers to develop household economies. Zhang Zhenyong gathered 16 workers from his unit who were willing to develop their own economies and said to them: "Your families are struggling and you have no money, but you can borrow from the forestry bureau's labor union. I'll lead you in raising cattle! Rest assured, if you lose money, I'll put in the funds." Zhang Zhenyong's words gave the workers a reassuring pill. Raising cattle with only the 211,000 yuan loan was not enough, so he also called on the unit's leadership team members and workers to buy shares, setting one share at 10,000 yuan. The unit's workers responded actively, and in this way Zhang Zhenyong quickly raised 240,000 yuan in startup capital in a short time.

In order to spend less and still buy good-quality cattle, he personally led workers and people who knew the trade to Zhalomude to buy cattle, going door to door to select them and haggling with the breeders, and finally closed the deal on 66 head of cattle and returned fully loaded. The unit's cattle barn had not yet been completed, so Zhang Zhenyong discussed it with everyone and sent the cattle to his own cattle farm first for feeding. There, he and Old Chen had more than 100 head of cattle; as long as the unit's cattle were tagged with yellow labels, they could be told apart.

There was a worker in difficulty at the Ailin Management and Protection Station named Su Jianping. His family suffered one misfortune after another: his wife was hit by a truck, the driver fled the scene, and she was left disabled. Then she was found to have a tumor in her head and needed surgery... Treating his wife had drained the family's savings, and they still had to send their child to school, so they lived on his salary alone. Zhang Zhenyong decided to arrange for Su Jianping and another worker in difficulty, Sun Yongfeng, to work at the cattle farm together, with room and board provided, and let them hold shares without putting in money, so they could share in the dividends with everyone at the end of the year.

The 66 head of cattle had already been fed at the cattle farm for some time, and their growth was currently excellent. The cattle farm is a vast stretch of land with abundant water and grass, and in the storage room there is even a trickling spring. It is warm in winter and cool in summer, and this natural environment is most suitable for cattle to grow, putting on as much as three or four jin of meat a day at most. Raising cattle is hard work, and "rising early and working late into the night" is no exaggeration. Every morning at three or four o'clock the workers go out to graze the cattle, and at seven thirty in the evening they drive them back to eat feed, then drive them back into the pen. It was almost always the case that only after the cattle finished eating could they eat. When cattle are sick they become listless and refuse to eat grass, so they must constantly watch every move the cattle make. Zhang Zhenyong saw everything and kept it all in mind. "Whatever you do, you have to worry about that," is a saying he often kept on his lips. The same responsibility, the same care, all for the same goal: raising cattle to get rich!

Whenever he had spare time, Zhang Zhenyong would drive over to the cattle farm to take a look. At dusk, the herd slowly returned in the afterglow of the setting sun, their mooing mingling with the croaking of frogs in the fields. Watching the herd lined up neatly in two rows eating feed off to the side, Zhang Zhenyong felt sweetness in his heart. "If we want to do this, we have to let everyone make money. Next, I want to expand the cattle-raising scale in the spring of next year, and I hope more workers will benefit from it!" Speaking of his future plans, Zhang Zhenyong was full of confidence. Under his leadership, the workers' dream of prosperity is turning into reality step by step.