A fighter till the end
County Party chief pays with his life after tireless efforts to help residents overcome abject poverty
Minutes into his speech at a conference in Yanling county, Central China, the county’s Party chief Huang Shiyan started to look pale as if he was suffering from great discomfort or pain.
It was not long after 8:30 am on Nov 29, 2019, when Huang was in a hotel in the county seat of Xiayang addressing nearly a hundred key figures engaged in the county’s poverty alleviation efforts at a poverty alleviation research conference.
Gradually, the audience noticed his voice going low and a bit mumbled. Still, in his usual black jacket, Huang raised key points about the county’s poverty alleviation work.
“Poverty alleviation is a top priority and a project of people’s livelihood, which is of overwhelming importance” and “Seek truth from facts, and don’t give false information” were some of Huang’s words noted by the meeting’s chairperson.
The day of the meeting actually marked eight years, five months and four days of Huang’s duty as Party secretary. Five days prior, his wife had failed to persuade him, as he felt unwell, to stay at home in Zhuzhou city. Huang instead rushed back to the county but stayed up all night from acute stomach pain. The next day, he had a quick check-up at a hospital, and after getting some medicine, again hurried to participate in a public event. His colleagues then advised him to rest, but Huang insisted on speaking at the scheduled major meeting on the county’s poverty alleviation work.
Yanling county, in Hunan province, was mired in destitution over a decade ago. Located deep in the mountains with a population of around 200,000 people, it had an average annual income of only 2,970 yuan ($462). The most remote area in the county, Lishuzhou village, had no electricity at that time. Villagers said the performance of a small generator they installed was unstable, always breaking down due to the high density of usage. In Shuilong village, more than half of its residents lived in dwellings with roofs that would leak when it rained.
When Huang, then 48, first took office in Yanling county in 2011, many cadres at the county had little trust that he would stay longer than a couple of years in the post as he had acted as a city-level Party official before taking on this role.
But Huang did not care much for what they thought. Donning a straw hat, he visited about 120 villages and their people throughout the county during the scorching summer.
It would take Huang three hours to reach Lishuzhou — an exhausting journey spanning 60 kilometers of rugged mountain roads — but he got used to visiting it frequently.
Laboring alongside and talking to
the residents, he soon realized that due to its isolated location, lack of resources and outdated industrial development, the county was struggling to bring in an income.
After months of investigation, he proposed to develop green agriculture, ecological industry and tourism in the county. This included growing organic tea, pollution-free vegetables, bamboo shoots, and camellia to alleviate poverty, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Learning of the actual situation and conditions in the homes of villagers that year, Huang found that many of them were growing yellow peaches, which at the time did not bring them much economic benefit.
Huang, who majored in agriculture, was surprised to find that many crops would not grow in the county, but the tasty yellow peaches were particularly suited to Yanling’s soil, so he decided to “turn the sparsely grown fruit into a commodity to help lift people out of poverty”.
He then led a design and development plan to grow yellow peaches,
and established an office in the local government to manage the industry’s business development. He encouraged people to grow the fruit, promoted advanced cultivation techniques, organized activities to sell yellow peaches and promoted online sales.
Named the Yanling yellow peach, the local fruit was made a brand by Huang who, in 2016, applied for it to be listed as a protected product under China’s national geographical indications. Today, the peaches have been exported to many parts of the world including Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and China’s Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.
According to Tan Zhongcheng, secretary of Yanling’s yellow peach association, in November 2020, the county had an area of 5,933 hectares growing yellow peaches. The general yield reached 51,800 metric tons, and the county’s 34,200 peach farmers enjoyed an average income increase of 2,976 yuan that year.
“Everyone in Yanling knows secretary Huang paid a lot of attention to the yellow peach business. The 62,824
peach trees in our village have enabled nearly all households to build new houses and buy new cars,” said Zhu Jinghua, Party secretary of Xinshan village, Yanling county, where more than 40 poor households were lifted out of poverty through the peach business.
Back in 2014, 14,900 people in Yanling still lived in houses that had potential safety problems. It would cost 600 million yuan to solve them, but local government revenue was only 700 million yuan that year.
“How can people shake off poverty without living in a safe house? Even if we give up the last shot in the locker, we should enable people to live in safe houses,” said Huang firmly.
He then tried all possible means to raise funds and cut down expenditure in government officials’ daily work. His work saw 1,250 households relocated to new homes, and the dilapidated dwellings of more than 11,000 households renovated.
“I moved from deep in the mountain to a new resettlement area in 2017. Secretary Huang visited my house 19 times, and recommended jobs for my family members. He cared for us more than our relatives,” said Zhang Lianjun from Shangcun village, Yanling county.
Led by Huang, poverty alleviation efforts in Yanling achieved great progress. Altogether, 7,224 households and 24,056 people have shaken off poverty, and local poverty incidence has dropped from 19.5 percent to 0.45 percent by November 2020.
After eight years, 54 impoverished villages in the county were all lifted out of poverty in 2019, according to People’s Daily.
But at the same time, Huang’s health suffered due to constant overwork. No one would ever know that the points he made during the meeting on Nov 29, 2019, were actually the last ‘orders’ issued by Huang, the “frontline commander” of Yanling’s poverty alleviation battle.
That night, news came that Huang passed away due to cardiac disease, which shocked the Party committee of the entire county.
The secretary left in a quiet way. “What he feared most (when he was alive) is to trouble others,” his wife Peng Jianlan recalled.
“He was such a good Party secretary, but he left so unexpectedly that I even had no time to cry,” said Liao Jianwen, a villager in Yanling, wiping his tears as he spoke of Huang.
Liao and his family were among countless impoverished households Huang had helped. Liao said that, although Huang was very busy, he would visit him every month. “He helped my family build a new house, arranged work for me, and even tried to look for a suitable wife for me,” he recalled.
“Now my family’s annual income reaches over more than 20,000 yuan, and my life is getting better and better. But, I don’t know whom I can say ‘thanks’ to in person.”
After Huang’s death, an old yellow peach tree — which inspired him to develop the peach business in Yanling — died as well, said villager Chen Yuangao, the owner of the tree.
“Although the tree died, infrastructure improved when he worked here. The road he built still remains. And the orchard of yellow peaches has been enlarged. His efforts helped us to live a better life, and we will remember him,” said Chen.
In October 2020, Huang was officially recognized as a poverty alleviation model by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.