Zhang Lianxiang of Hufang Township, Lichuan County drives agricultural machinery onto the road to prosperity

    In Hufang Township, Lichuan County, when the name Zhang Lianxiang comes up, many villagers give him a thumbs-up and praise him for being "quick-witted"; he is the township's best-known agricultural machinery operator and a man who has made his fortune. Now 44 years old, he has already spent 12 years braving wind and rain on the road of agricultural machinery entrepreneurship, and he has done it impressively, carving out a new world of prosperity. 

    Zhang Lianxiang is a shrewd and ambitious man. In the 1980s, determined to make something of himself, he not only farmed his own 4 mu of paddy field but also rented the contracted fields of several farming households to cultivate. But because grain prices were low, Zhang Lianxiang toiled on the land all year round yet earned only a pittance. Zhang Lianxiang began to set his sights on agricultural machinery. In 1993, Zhang Lianxiang borrowed money to buy a walking tractor, becoming the first person in the whole county to eat crab. After finishing plowing his own fields, he seized every opportunity to provide services to nearby villagers. Over the course of a year, this walking tractor, which cost him more than 6,000 yuan, actually earned Zhang Lianxiang over 10,000 yuan. 

    Having had a first taste of the sweetness of prosperity, Zhang Lianxiang became even more determined to get rich through agricultural machinery. After that, he learned as he worked, and whenever he had money he bought agricultural machinery. By 2006, Zhang Lianxiang owned multiple units (sets) of field operation machinery, including tractors, harvesters, rice transplanters, tillers and electric irrigation and drainage machines, making him a veritable large agricultural machinery operator in the area. Because he is sincere and warm-hearted, villagers all like to ask him to provide agricultural machinery services. His operating range also expanded from the surrounding townships to counties such as Nanfeng and Nancheng, and even to places such as Hubei and Anhui, with his family's annual income reaching more than 100,000 yuan. 

    Zhang Lianxiang, having become prosperous, did not forget his fellow villagers. He often provided advice to them on purchasing agricultural machinery, taught villagers operating techniques hand by hand, and also used his own machinery to work free of charge for poor households. In Yingxin Village, Hufang Township, there was a poor household that used to struggle during busy farming seasons because of a lack of manpower. Since receiving Zhang Lianxiang's help, that family's rice fields have been sown, planted and harvested on time every year. While harvesting grain for others, Zhang Lianxiang also harvested a career for himself. In 2006, he was named a pacesetter in agricultural machinery entrepreneurship in Fuzhou City and a major agricultural machinery entrepreneurship household in the province.