Zhang Yufeng: Sweat spilled mud and gold

On September 12, walking into the Huang pen factory village of Yongcheng City's Xiangyang Town, I saw that the small buildings with unique shapes were neatly arranged, the cement road in the village was wide and flat, leading to every household, the newly installed street lights on both sides of the road were lined up, the green trees were lush, and a beautiful new picture of rural revitalization.

The reason why Huangpenchang Village is called Huangpenchang Village is because of the special soil quality of the village, high viscosity and high toughness, which is an excellent material for making yellow pots, and the villagers are firing yellow pots for their livelihood. However, with the change of people's way of life, the clay-fired yellow pots were gradually abandoned, the crafts that the villagers relied on to survive could no longer support their families, and the village gradually became poor.

In just a few years, how did Huang Bonchang Village win this beautiful "turnaround battle"? All this must start from Zhang Yufeng, a "post-80s" villager in the village.

Zhang Yufeng, a 35-year-old graduate of Xi'an Jiaotong University, went to Nantong in 2013 to work hard and has founded foreign trade, logistics, catering, e-commerce and other companies. Zhang Yufeng, who has been working outside for many years, has always been worried about his hometown Huangpenchang Village. In 2017, during the village election, Zhang Yufeng, a young and promising person with a good mass foundation, was unanimously elected by the masses as the chairman of the village committee. On the day of his election, Zhang Yufeng made a vow in front of all the villagers: I will not change the appearance of the village for three years, and I will let everyone spit in my face!

"How to help villagers get rich quickly?" Because Zhang Yufeng has many years of experience in going out to work, his first thought is to go out to work. He began to mobilize young and strong laborers to go out to work one by one, and soon more than 100 villagers expressed their willingness to follow Zhang Yufeng out. Therefore, Zhang Yufeng and his brother led them to go down to Nantong and Guangzhou in two ways, running sales and setting up factories. Half a year later, the "migrant workers" who went out with Zhang Yufeng reported good news to their families, and some not only earned money, but also owned their own processing plants. In two years, the villagers of Huangpenchang Village who went out to work occupied half of the home textile market in Nantong City. There are 18 new small Western-style buildings in the village, and the villagers have also become the "big customers" of the town Postal Savings Bank.

The "pockets" bulge, the villages become beautiful, and the "heads" get rich. At the beginning of 2021, Zhang Yufeng was elected as the secretary of the party branch of Huangpenchang Village, and he made a vow to the masses: in half a year, he will make the village bright and beautiful, and let the masses dance and sing!

Under the initiative of Zhang Yufeng, in less than two days, the masses spontaneously donated more than 200,000 yuan to establish the "Huangpenchang Village Public Welfare Foundation". All the funds of the foundation are used for infrastructure construction in the village and comforting the people in need, so as to improve the appearance of the village and enhance the living standards of the masses. At present, the whole village has installed a total of 168 street lamps, beautified more than 40,000 square meters of walls, painted more than 3,000 square meters of wall paintings with the themes of party building, twenty-four filial piety, rural civilization and the history and culture of the village, built a new fitness and cultural activity square of more than 300 square meters, and treated more than 1,000 square meters of pits and ponds and rivers.

In order to strengthen the building of village style civilization, Zhang Yufeng led the members of the "two committees" of the village to increase the intensity of propaganda, stop the trend of red and white happy events and big things, and set up a honor list of filial piety and respect for the elderly, harmonious neighborhoods, beautiful courtyards, and stars of civilization, persisted in selecting and commending them every quarter, and set up a drum team for publicizing the civilization of township style to enrich the spiritual and cultural life of the masses. Today, 80% of the peasant households in the village have hung "civilized household" signs in front of their doors. In 2020, Huangpenchang Village was awarded the title of "Safe and Civilized Village" by Yongcheng City.

Rural revitalization, industry first. In order to continue the traditional craftsmanship and revitalize the Yellow Basin industry, in the next step, Zhang Yufeng plans to adopt new methods and new forms to re-"fire" the kiln factory in the Huang Bonchang Village, produce kiln products that meet the market demand, and create an interactive experiential handmade kiln workshop, so that more people can understand the history and culture of the Huang Bonchang Village, so that the ancient kiln making skills can be passed on. At the same time, Zhang Yufeng also intends to integrate village land, carry out centralized large-scale planting in the form of villager contracting, shareholding or trusteeship, make the village-level collective economy bigger and stronger, promote the intensive processing of agricultural products, and sell agricultural products through e-commerce. In the past, "geese flew south", and now "phoenixes return to their nests". "In the past, we went out to make a living, but now I want to advocate that everyone return to their hometown to start a business and lead more villagers to get rich." The tomorrow of Huang Bonchang Village will be very beautiful, and I am confident to lead the villagers to win this 'turnaround battle'. Zhang Yufeng said confidently.