Huaxi Village, a small mountain village near Wuxi, Jiangsu. In the sixties of the last century, it was still called the West China Brigade, but there were 700 households and about 2,000 people.
The village is full of dilapidated mud houses, the grass on the roofs has withered and yellow, and the walls are mottled and peeling. The small river at the entrance of the village is stained with domestic sewage, and the roadside is overgrown with weeds and smells of decay.
The men of the village worked sweatily, while the women and children were ragged and tired.
At that time, Huaxi Village could be said to be extremely barren. The per capita assets of the whole village are less than 100 yuan, and daily expenses are a problem. Even more desperate, the village still owes 1. The foreign debt of 50,000 yuan was an unimaginable astronomical amount for Huaxi Village at that time.
The villagers are struggling to make ends meet, but they don't know where their hope lies.
The children were running around barefoot, their vibrant eyes full of confusion. The men toiled in the fields, but they gained little. The women sighed in the difficulty of dressing, but they were helpless.
Such a scene was commonplace in Huaxi Village at that time, and the villagers were numb and had no hope for life.
This is the true portrayal of Huaxi Village in the 60s of the last century, a typical backward and poor village. Looking at the dilapidated houses and poor villagers in the village, no one could have imagined that this place would become the "No. 1 village in the world" that would cause a sensation in the country a few decades later.
In 1969, Wu Renbao, who served as the secretary of the party branch of the West China Brigade, was determined to lead the villagers on the road to prosperity. He clearly realized that in order to become rich, we must first solve the problem of food and clothing.
So he led the villagers to carry out farmland water conservancy construction, built many reservoirs and irrigation systems, and increased the area of cultivated land. Under his promotion, the village's grain production increased year by year, and the villagers finally had enough to eat after a bumper rice harvest.
Wu Renbao's vision is not limited to agriculture. He realized that agriculture alone was not enough to sustain development. Therefore, he actively promoted the development of the secondary industry and established the first small hardware factory in the village.
The hardware factory was a great success, and its output soon exceeded the annual output of the same area of farmland. In this way, Wu Renbao proved the importance of industry.
Under the leadership of Wu Renbao, Huaxi Village's industry has flourished. Many villagers have moved into the factory to work, improving their lives. By 1988, the total industrial output value of Huaxi Village had reached 100 million yuan, and the goal of getting rid of poverty and becoming rich had been basically achieved.
Both the lives of the villagers and the appearance of the village have undergone earth-shaking changes.
Wu Renbao's foresight and decisive decision-making enabled Huaxi Village to find a path for further development. He is like a wise helmsman, leading the villagers to the other side of the light.
Looking back many years later, people can truly understand Wu Renbao's greatness and wisdom. It is with a leader like him that Huaxi Village has been able to embark on a miraculous development path in just a few decades.
The east wind of reform and opening up is blowing across the country, and the state has vigorously promoted economic construction, which has injected tremendous development impetus into Huaxi Village. In 1992, Wu Renbao keenly seized this historic opportunity.
While many people were still hesitant to wait and see, he decisively decided to raise funds and buy a large number of raw materials for building materials such as steel.
At first, many people in the village thought that Wu Renbao was gambling and too risky. But as it turned out, he was completely right in his judgment. In the next few years, the nationwide economic construction climax became a reality, and the demand for all kinds of building materials, especially steel, soared.
Huaxi Village made a big profit again through this large-scale purchase of building materials, with a cumulative income of more than 100 million yuan.
Wu Renbao seized the opportunity to bring not only huge wealth to Huaxi Village, but also led the village into a period of rapid development. In 1994, he actively established Huaxi Group, and in 1996, Huaxi Village was successfully built into the first "listed village" in China.
In 2010, the output value of Huaxi Group has reached an astonishing 30 billion yuan, and the per capita assets of the villagers have also reached 120,000 yuan. Huaxi Village has become the "No. 1 Village in the World", and its glory is beyond the reach of other villages in the country.
A visionary leader, coupled with the east wind of national policies, Huaxi Village has created a miracle of development that is unimaginable for other villages. On the road of development, no opportunity should be missed, and Wu Renbao seized the historic opportunity to bring Huaxi Village to the pinnacle of wealth.
After entering the 21st century, Huaxi Village ushered in its most glorious period. The village is full of colorful villas, many families have private yachts and airplanes, and luxury sports cars have become a must-have means of transportation for everyone.
The villagers wore brand-name clothes and gold watches, as if they had become local tyrants and wealthy people.
However, behind this ostentatious brilliance, there is an unknown neglect and pain. The villagers' income mainly comes from the group's dividends, but there is obvious injustice in the distribution of dividends.
The older generation in the village is allotted more, while the younger newcomers are at a disadvantage. High consumption is also monopolized by the group, and the villagers can only consume within the group, not outflow.
Beneath the resplendent surface, many ordinary villagers are not satisfied. They are uncomfortable with the monopoly of the group and complain about the difference in treatment among the villagers.
Going out to shine in luxury is about decency, but when they return home, they still feel denied dignity.
This kind of "common prosperity", which forcibly feeds people's stomachs, does not make all the villagers happy. On the contrary, there is a turbulent dark tide in the village, and all kinds of whispers and complaints are everywhere, and the slightest carelessness can lead to confrontation and chaos in the village.
This also buried the hidden danger of Huaxi Village's future decline and became a shadow in its glorious history.
In 2003, Wu Renbao retired, and his fourth son, Wu Xieen, took over as the new party secretary. However, Wu Xieen soon realized that the glory of entrepreneurship and the hardships of keeping a business are very different.
In the face of the ever-changing times, Huaxi Group, which adheres to traditional industries, has begun to decline. In 2011, with the country's promotion of green development, Huaxi Group's main heavy industry suffered a comprehensive loss, and it was in urgent need of transformation and upgrading.
However, Wu Xieen has made slow progress in promoting the transformation, and the emerging industries have never been able to become a climate.
In 2012, the situation changed and Huaxi Group made matters worse. In this year, the state introduced policies to strictly restrict high consumption, resulting in the Longxi International Hotel, which was built with an investment of 3 billion yuan by Huaxi Group, suffered Waterloo.
This important project, which was expected to drive the development of tourism, has now become a huge burden for West China.
Faced with internal and external troubles, Wu Xieen tried to save his life, but it was too late. By 2016, Huaxi Group had accumulated nearly 40 billion yuan of debt and declared bankruptcy.
Huaxi Village has been reduced from "the first village in the world" to an "empty village", and the glory of entrepreneurship has dissipated in the missed transformation opportunities again and again, becoming a typical case of easy to start a business and difficult to keep a business.
The development trajectory of Huaxi Village makes people think deeply.
At the beginning of its establishment, it seized the opportunity of the times, conformed to the national policy, and moved from poverty to glory, which is a model for villages in the country. However, at the peak moment, it failed to transform in time, missed a new round of development opportunities, and finally sank in the torrent of the times.
Reflecting on the reasons for the decline of Huaxi Village, it is not difficult to see that the core lies in the lack of innovation consciousness. In the face of the era of variables, we still stick to traditional thinking, and if we do not seek progress, we will regress.
It is an inevitable result that new industries fail to become climate, and old industries lose their advantages.
The lessons of Huaxi Village are worth learning from all businesses and organizations. Only by keeping pace with the times and constantly innovating can we gain a foothold in the tide of competition. We must maintain a high spirit of innovation, keenly seize new opportunities, and drive development with innovation to avoid being eliminated by the times.
Change is the eternal theme, and innovation is the foundation of life. This is a heavy warning left to us by Huaxi Village. I hope that future generations can learn from the wisdom of history and not repeat the mistakes of the past, so as to create a new situation in economic and social development.
Time has passed, Huaxi Village has changed beyond recognition, and the glory of the year is no longer there. However, in my memory, those images seem to be vivid.
I remember that in the golden age of the 90s of the 20th century, the village was full of villa-style mansions, which were colorful and a little noisy. The villagers come and go in a variety of famous cars, the most common of which are Mercedes Benzes, and almost every family has one or two.
I remember passing by the village opera house, where a symphony was playing, and several expensive cars were parked next to it. On the square opposite the opera house, villagers dressed in brand-name costumes chatted and laughed in groups.
These glamorous scenes made me look forward to the future. I thought that Huaxi Village would go farther and farther and more brilliant. I don't know that fate is impermanent, and everything is like smoke and clouds in an instant.
Walking in the village now, only dilapidated old houses and overgrown fields remain, some houses have closed doors and windows, and some only ruins remain.
This is the true portrayal of Huaxi Village today. Looking at its desolate scene, I was left with nothing but melancholy and regret in my heart.