Editor's note: Recently, Xinhua News Agency published an article ""Red" and "Green" Reflect the Butterfly Changes of Mountain Villages in Yimeng Old Area", reporting that Xiqiangyu Village in Yishui County has formed a rural characteristic industry integrating "characteristic homestays, red tourism, and leisure tourism" by relying on red tourism resources and green ecological resources, and has embarked on a rural revitalization road where "red" and "green" complement each other. It is now forwarded for the benefit of readers.
Walking into Xiqiangyu Village, Yuandongtou Town, Yishui County, Shandong Province, which is located in the old revolutionary base area of Yimeng, you can see that surrounded by green mountains is a village with green lakes and stone walls and red tiles. Entering the village from a colourful walkway, the road is wide, the houses are like houses, the terraced fields are planted with ginger and taro, and the rows of renovated farmhouse courtyards are full of tourists.
Xiqiangyu Village is located in the hinterland of Yimeng Mountain, during the Anti-Japanese War, this mountain village made an important contribution to the logistics support and wounded rescue of the Shandong Column, and is a well-known "anti-Japanese fortress village", but for many years it has been poor and closed, "there is a woman who marries Xiqiangyu, and there is no land in the mountains" slips out of the hardships of life here.
Talent is the key to rural revitalization. In 2018, with the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, Linyi City launched the "Guiyan Project". In 2019, Wang Chengcheng returned to his hometown through this talent attraction plan and became the secretary of the party branch of Xiqiangyu Village through open selection.
The scenery of the West Wall Valley is beautiful, but the traffic is inconvenient, and building roads is the premise of solving the dilemma. Wang Chengcheng won special funds to build asphalt roads; peasant households in the mountains did not have access to water, so they built machine wells to connect them to tap water; and when the villagers lacked places for recreational activities, they installed street lamps and repaired small squares...... In just a few years, Wang Chengcheng led the cadres of the "two committees" of the village and the party members to overcome many difficulties and change the Xiqiangyu Village.
The West Wall Valley has become beautiful, and its popularity has begun to flourish. "When guests stay, they have to solve the problem of food and accommodation, and we have set up professional cooperatives to encourage villagers to open farmhouses and homestays. Wang Chengcheng said.
The picture shows a homestay built in Xiqiangyu Village using idle homesteads. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Sun Xiaohui
According to reports, Xiqiangyu Village takes professional cooperatives as a platform to strive for all kinds of funds to build hydrophilic platforms, wooden plank roads, craft walls, and landscape dams. At the same time, 15 sets of boutique homestays have been built to revitalize idle homesteads, which are operated by a socialized professional team, and the villagers can get 5% dividends every year in addition to the guaranteed rental income.
"I didn't expect that the idle old house could be exchanged for money, and the income was not low, I am very satisfied. Zhang Zaichao, a villager in Xiqiangyu Village, said.
Relying on the deep red heritage, in the past two years, Xiqiangyu Village has built a village history museum, a cultural square, and a red memory museum, and developed a red research and study tour....... Between the words, Wang Chengcheng was full of energy.
Relying on red tourism resources and green ecological resources, Xiqiangyu has formed a rural characteristic industry integrating "characteristic homestays, red tourism, and leisure tourism", and has embarked on a rural revitalization road where "red" and "green" complement each other. In 2023, Xiqiangyu will attract more than 50,000 people to travel and study, achieving a collective income of nearly 300,000 yuan and a per capita disposable income of 28,000 yuan.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)