Guo Liang took root in the mountain countryside, becoming a close friend helping farmers get rich

Sungezhuang Manchu Township in Jixian County is a mountainous ethnic minority township that focuses on the development of forestry and fruit farming. In 2006, 28-year-old Guo Liang gave up his position as director of the political education office at a middle school and volunteered to work at the Manchu Township Adult Culture and Technology School. For nearly a decade, through his loyalty to the cause and deep love for the people of the mountain countryside, he took root here, traveling among the villages, devoting himself wholeheartedly to developing the forestry and fruit industry through science and technology, and giving his youth to the people of the mountain area.

Golden autumn is the busiest time for farmers. In Sungezhuang Manchu Township there is one person busier than the fruit growers, and that is township adult school principal Guo Liang. When the reporter arrived at Sungezhuang Adult School, Guo Liang had just returned from inspecting the chestnut harvest in the orchards of Zhangyantai Village. Guo Liang said: "It has been especially busy recently. I am contacting merchants and clients, researching the market, doing some budgeting, and then doing a good job of publicizing and guiding the local people."

Guo Liang is of medium height, with close-cropped hair and plain clothing. Even after taking root in the mountain countryside for many years, a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose still reveals a touch of scholarly air. In 2006, when Guo Liang had just shifted from general education to adult education, he was also a layman. In order to provide better service to the people of the mountain countryside, he attended agriculture-related training courses through various channels, and at his workplace he also worked desperately hard to study professional knowledge in agriculture, forestry and fruit farming, and livestock breeding. Often he would study until two or three in the morning, then get up in the morning and go to the fields and orchards to practice hands-on. Guo Liang recalled that at that time the adult school lacked classrooms and teaching equipment. An office of just a few square meters had to serve for office work, as a dormitory, and sometimes also as a warehouse. Under such conditions, he often did not go home for ten days or half a month at a time. "The mountain area is relatively closed off, and the people's production methods and ways of thinking lag behind. Seeing this, I was anxious. How to make their wallets fuller and their lives better, I felt, was an important duty of mine as an adult school principal."

Hard work pays off. After several years of effort, Guo Liang, once a layman, was tempered into an "expert-type" young adult education worker. During this period, he successively organized and established the "Sungezhuang Manchu Township Fruit Industry Association" and the "Sungezhuang Manchu Township Tourism Association." In order to speed up the adjustment of the township's industrial structure and the regionalized cultivation of the forestry and fruit industry, he and other teachers spent two months going deep into all 13 administrative villages of the township to investigate and assess the area of mountain forests and orchards, cultivated varieties, fruit tree management levels, yield and benefits, and water and fertilizer conditions. Song Aijun, a teacher at Sungezhuang Adult School, said: "The principal led several of us teachers across all 25 mountain peaks in our township, and we also went through all the flat land. Then, based on each village's soil and water quality conditions, we further refined things." After research and analysis, Guo Liang proposed the idea of regionalized cultivation of four major fruit categories: "develop high-quality fast-growing walnuts on both banks of the Sha River, develop Red Globe grapes on plots with high-quality soil, develop chestnuts on gentle slopes, and develop Mopan persimmons in the valleys," and formulated specific implementation plans according to land distribution and water source conditions.

In September 2008, with the support of the township government, Guo Liang also took the lead in organizing 363 specialized walnut-growing households across the township to establish Jixian County's first "Tianjin Huanghuashan Walnut Planting Professional Cooperative," introduced six new walnut varieties such as "Qingxiang," "Liaohe series," and "Zhonglin series," promoted and applied ten professional techniques including "Walnut Green-Bark Bud Grafting," and registered the "Sungezhuang" brand trademark, obtaining green food certification. Over the past few years, the commercial walnuts sold through connections made by Guo Liang exceeded 500,000 kilograms, and the price increased by more than ten yuan per jin, bringing the growers a total of more than ten million yuan in extra income. Zhang Lizhong, a fruit grower from Xiajialin Village, said: "Before Principal Guo came to our area, our walnuts were all old varieties, and one mu yielded only about 200 jin. After the introduction of new products and new techniques, one mu yields about 400 jin. The new varieties themselves are more expensive, so income has more than doubled!"

Sungezhuang Manchu Township is located in a mountainous area and has a weak economic foundation. In order to maximize income increases for fruit growers, in 2012 Guo Liang led the two committees of Beitainingzhuang Village and village representatives to Huairou, Beijing, to inspect the under-forest economy project of chestnut mushroom cultivation, and introduced chestnut mushroom varieties from Qianxi, Hebei Province. Dong Jun, a villager from Beitainingzhuang Village, said: "After the chestnut mushroom project was introduced, it was originally a sideline, but now it has become a main business. Its income is far higher than that of walnuts, bringing the local people generous returns. We all thank Principal Guo for introducing a good project for us. The more such good leaders, the better."

Guo Liang not only dares to blaze new trails and work hard, but also is rigorous and strives for excellence. Once, a local resident came to him saying that Zhonghua Shoutao peaches were not selling, and asked him to help find sales channels. Without a second word, Guo Liang took two teachers from the school and headed to Beijing. Teacher Du Changli recalled: "Principal Guo took us to the Beijing Xinfadi market to find sales channels for the local people. The wholesale market starts wholesale business at three in the morning. We stayed there for three days and three nights, sleeping on the shelves. That was how we found sales channels and contacted several clients. After we came back, Principal Guo's stomach trouble flared up, and even while on an IV drip he was still calling the local people to arrange picking business!"

Guo Liang treats the adult technical school as his home and every resident of the township as family, but in his heart there is room for everyone except himself and his own small family. Guo Liang's wife, Meng Zhenhong, is also a teacher, and every day her work is very busy. Guo Liang is busy year-round at the adult school, so the child and all the housework are left entirely to his wife to handle alone. Meng Zhenhong said: "He leaves home a little after five in the morning and gets home at eleven at night. There are no holidays. During winter vacation and summer vacation he has not rested a single day. The child really cannot see his father every day. At the time I did not understand it at all, but he said, if I have a bit of strength, a bit of spirit, a bit of drive, I want to develop Sungezhuang's fruit industry. I want to lead the local people to prosperity."

Guo Liang always patiently persuades his wife. He also loves his family very much, and it is not that he is unwilling to enjoy life; it is just that he cannot take the pursuit of personal happiness as the only goal in life. "If you have ability, you should do more good deeds for everyone, do more meaningful things. Now I often educate my child too. Life conditions are good now, but the purpose of living cannot just be to eat well and dress well. What contribution do you make? What is your value? Where is it reflected? A person has to be able to show value in living."

Once, while helping beekeepers organize beehives, Guo Liang was stung on the face by bees, and he kept it from his wife and did not go home. Three days later, when he returned home, his wife Meng Zhenhong looked at her husband in front of her and could not help but shed tears. "At night I opened the door for him. Oh, his face was swollen quite high and bruised. Then I asked if it hurt, and he said it was nothing serious. Only afterward did I learn from others that he had already been on an IV drip for three days. He only came home after the swelling had gone down. I felt he was especially hard-working and it was especially difficult."

Guo Liang moved his wife. With his wife's understanding and support, Guo Liang could once again do what he wanted without holding back. Now, the three million jin of walnuts produced each year in Sungezhuang Manchu Township are not only sold to Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and other places, but also sold as far as Taiwan, China. At the beginning of this year, Guo Liang also organized local residents to establish a bee breeding professional cooperative, and soon a bee breeding park will be built. At the same time, he has also made connections in many ways to introduce and build a walnut deep-processing project. Guo Liang said: "I want to take root in the mountain area without wavering. I want to deep-process the good products of our Sungezhuang Manchu Township, extend the agricultural product industry chain, and further raise the income of the local people. A food company has already been registered, preparing to produce walnut oil and bring this walnut oil to market."