Yan Zhao Rongguang | the spirit of "Taihang New Yugong" to inspire future generations - to trace the footprints of Li Baoguo, the "model of the people"

Video producer: Hebei Daily reporter Kou Guoying Xing Yun Huo Yanen Liu Ran

As an agricultural technology expert, he has been fighting in the front line of poverty alleviation and scientific and technological innovation for a long time for 35 years.

As a university professor, he wrote papers and scientific research results on the mountain, lifting thousands of farmers out of poverty.

He is Li Baoguo, who was praised by General Secretary Xi Jinping as "a model of communists in the new era, an excellent representative of intellectuals, a new foolish duke on the Taihang Mountains", and a recipient of the national honorary title of "People's Model".

Following the footsteps of Li Baoguo in the past, the reporter once again recalled the deeds of Li Baoguo, felt the connotation of the times of Li Baoguo's spirit, and gathered the strength to forge ahead in the inheritance.

A few days ago, at the walnut variety breeding base built by Li Baoguo in Lincheng Green Ridge and China Walnut Town before his death, Chen Liying (third from the right), a member of Li Baoguo's science and technology service team and a student of Li Baoguo, was teaching walnut management techniques to fruit farmers. Hebei Daily reporter Zhao Yonghui photographed

"We are all descendants of The Spirit of Li Baoguo"

On May 21, the West Campus of Hebei Agricultural University was quiet as usual. The 10-meter-long and 2.4-meter-high Li Baoguo Memorial Stone sits in the school's cultural park, and the statue of Li Baoguo stares ahead, with his lips and teeth slightly open, and his right hand is raised, as if he is talking to someone.

The Forestry College where Li Baoguo lived was not far from here. In the afternoon of the same day, Zhang Xuemei, who had finished the class for the students, walked out of the office building, and did not feel that he was doing this, and the statue of the teacher was focused and gentle, and his voice was like a sound.

"Teacher Li has been running to the front line of serving the 'three rural areas' for a long time, but the students' lessons have not fallen behind." Zhang Xuemei's four-year undergraduate, three-year master's and three-year doctoral studies were all completed under the guidance of Li Baoguo, and he was a powerful scientific research assistant before Li Baoguo's death.

One detail still makes Zhang Xuemei remember it vividly. One morning, Li Baoguo was still explaining to the villagers on the mountain hundreds of kilometers away, planting fruit trees, and many students were worried that Teacher Li's class would be in vain in the afternoon, and they did not expect that Teacher Li returned to the classroom on time with a body of dirt.

"It is not easy for a person to study a kind of fruit tree thoroughly, but he has studied several kinds of fruit trees, and has also developed one by one, and has formed an industry one by one." Lu Zhenqi, secretary of the Party Committee of the Forestry College, said that Li Baoguo studied sericulture in college, but he later became an expert in the cultivation of fruit trees such as chestnuts, apples, walnuts, and red raspberries, and has completed 28 research results, promoted 36 practical technologies, and cultivated 16 advanced models of mountain development and governance. He used the hand of science and technology to turn stones into gold, led 100,000 people to get rid of poverty and become rich, and turned 1.4 million acres of barren mountains into flowers and fruits.

"What supports him to go so far?" Wu Yuqing, director of the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of Hebei Agricultural University, has toured the country and Hebei colleges and universities to give lectures on Li Baoguo's advanced deeds nearly 20 times, and people often raise this issue.

“...... Entrust everything to you, heed your call, work wholeheartedly for the party and the people... On July 10, 1981, he was founded at the Wang Gezhuang Research Institute. In the Special Room of Li Baoguo in the Taihang Mountain Road Exhibition Hall on campus, a yellowed paper and neat handwriting of the application for joining the party came into view. Wu Yuqing said that Li Baoguo's spirit stems from firm faith, and as soon as he joined the work after graduation, he submitted an application to join the party at a scientific research site.

"The 'Taihang Mountain Road' of Hebei Agricultural University is a rich soil for the development of Li Baoguo's spirit." Wu Yuqing said that more than 40 years ago, a group of experts and professors led young teachers and young students to the Taihang Mountains, insisted on the combination of teaching, scientific research and production practice, and embarked on a "Taihang Mountain Road" of rejuvenating agriculture through science and education. At that time, Li Baoguo followed the old professor into the countryside and approached the peasants, and began a lifelong struggle for him.

On April 10, Hebei Agricultural University solemnly commemorated the fifth anniversary of the death of Comrade Li Baoguo. After attending the commemoration, Zhang Xuemei rushed to the provincial family farm in Baoding's West Second Ring Road to guide the spring management of red raspberries and cherries.

"We are all inheritors of Li Baoguo's spirit, going to the grassroots level to the frontline, to the places where the masses need it most, and to send knowledge and technology to the masses." Zhang Xuemei said that in the past five years, Hebei Agricultural University has organized more than 600 social practice teams and more than 2,200 homecoming practice teams, with nearly 100,000 participants, covering all counties and municipalities in the province.

"Comprehensively promote rural revitalization with the spirit of Li Baoguo"

In Gangdi Village in summer, the fruit trees on the mountain sway with the wind and the green waves roll. In the "One Two Pas" family farm on the hillside outside the village, villager Yang Zenglin is busy. "'One two pas' is a digital harmonic of 128 apple production processes tailored by Li Baoguo for Gangdi Village, and I have also registered a trademark." Yang Zenglin said that the family farm has 50 acres, and the annual income of 300,000 yuan is not a problem.

"There are women who do not marry Gangdilang and sleep on the soil kang with their bare backbones." In the former Gangdi Village of Houjiazhuang Township, Neiqiu County, the mountains were bald, the people were poor, and the concept was old. In August 1996, a flood washed away the only 200 acres of fields in Gangdi Village into a rocky beach, and the orchards on the mountain became a mess. When the Gangdi people were desperate, a scientific and technological disaster relief team came to the village, and there was Li Baoguo inside.

"On the day the relief mission came, there was not a cloud in the sky, there was not a trace of wind in the mountains, the sun was basking in the damp mountains, and the small ravines became big steamers." Yang Shuangniu, secretary of the party committee of Gangdi Village, recalled that many people could not stand the heat, but Li Baoguo ran around to learn about the situation from the fruit farmers.

After reading the disaster, everyone held a symposium. At the meeting, Yang Shuangniu received a note that read: "Need fruit tree management technology, I can help." Li Baoguo. ”

This note with a telephone on the back closely links Li Baoguo to Gangdi Village. Since then, a cottage of less than 8 square meters in the village committee has become another "home" for Li Baoguo, and this residence is 20 years.

Li Baoguo taught the villagers to prune fruit trees, looking at the large number of cut branches, and everyone wondered how distressed they were. Li Baoguo asked to thin the flowers and fruits, looking at the small apples falling on the ground, many villagers stopped drying: "This fruit has not grown up and thrown away, how to produce abundantly?" "Li Baoguo resisted the pressure and began to promote apple bagging technology again." Can you still grow without seeing the light? The villagers looked puzzled again. Helplessly, Li Baoguo took out the only more than 50,000 yuan of scientific research funds to buy paper bags, and taught the villagers to take bags by hand.

In the autumn harvest, the villagers served: the apples without bags could not be sold at a price, and the apples that had been trimmed, thinned and thinned, and the bagged apples were big and red, and they were not worried about sales.

"Turn me into a farmer, turn a farmer into me." Li Baoguo's wish has become a reality step by step, and today, 191 villagers in Gangdi Village have professional and technical titles, including 5 senior technicians and 72 intermediate technicians. The apple brand "Fugang" has become a well-known trademark in China, and the villagers have built 7 family farms, which are constantly visited during the picking season. In 2020, the per capita income of the gangdi reached 46,000 yuan.

Rich hills, green wild mountains. From the observation deck of Lincheng Green Ridge China Walnut Town, you can see the green undulating greenery. "Without Professor Li Baoguo, there would be no Green Ridge today." Gao Shengfu, chairman of Green Ridge, said.

In 1999, Gao Shengfu and others contracted 3,500 acres of barren mountains here, and in the face of rocky and overgrown barren mountains, he was worried, and he found Li Baoguo in desperation. Soon, Li Baoguo moved into the ravine and started a wilderness war with the villagers. After in-depth sampling and organizing experts to measure the soil cross-section, Li Baoguo proposed a new method of "digging trenches and repairing reservoirs" and decided to plant walnuts here.

In order to improve the conditions for planting walnut trees, Li Baoguo led the villagers to dig planting ditches, build reservoirs, and build dams. In the past 17 years, Li Baoguo has traveled all over the ditches and bumps of Lincheng, from land governance, planting methods, breeding of new varieties to deep processing of products, and explored a set of technologies. At present, the cultivation of walnuts in Lincheng has reached 280,000 mu, involving tens of thousands of farmers in 138 villages, and the radiation has formed a walnut industry belt in Xingtai and even the whole province.

In the core area of the Green Ridge Walnut Base, there is a plot of land of hundreds of acres, which is the walnut variety breeding base built by Li Baoguo before his death. Chen Liying, a student of Li Baoguo and technical director of Green Ridge, said that teachers often told students before they died that a seed can change a world, "We must continue to tackle key problems, cultivate more and better varieties, and benefit more people." ”

More people took over Li Baoguo's "baton." Gangdi Village set up a technical service team to walk the Eight-Hundred-Mile Taihang Mountains like Li Baoguo did before his death, providing face-to-face services around the needs of fruit farmers and point-to-point help. Similarly, Green Ridge Company also organized technical forces to set up Li Baoguo Science and Technology Agricultural Service Team, in the past 5 years, in addition to providing technical services to local fruit farmers, but also for Jiangsu, Beijing, Xinjiang and other more than 10 provinces, municipalities, district farmers to talk about technology, solve problems, free of charge to carry out large-scale walnut management technology training.

"Comprehensively promote rural revitalization with the spirit of Li Baoguo." On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions on Li Baoguo's advanced deeds, on June 4, the seminar on "Promoting the Spirit of Li Baoguo" sponsored by Neiqiu was held in Gangdi Village. The participants said one after another that the spirit of Li Baoguo is an important magic weapon for realizing rural revitalization, and if we continue to follow the road pioneered by Li Baoguo, we will certainly be able to create a better life. (Hebei Daily reporters Xing Yun and Kou Guoying)