Text | Lin Ai
Born in 1983, Shi Yixia, like many post-80s youths, walked out of school full of beautiful expectations for the future, and after tasting the bittersweet and bittersweet of life and experiencing the hardships and twists and turns of life, she not only completely changed her destiny, but also led a large number of ordinary people around her to get rid of poverty and get rich, and is moving towards a happy well-off road.
Although the Yellow Flag Sea Wetland in April is not as lush as Jiangnan, the oily pines on both sides of Darden Avenue, the budding pecans and straight willows symbolize the arrival of another spring. The surrounding fields are not as empty and lonely as the count of the nine cold days, the fields are dung, the canals are dug to water the land, and there is a vibrant scene everywhere. In this season of spring, I was commissioned by the Women's Federation of Ulanqab City to interview the protagonist of the text, Shi Yixia.
I met her in the office of Tongfa Farm, a spacious desk with a computer, walls surrounded by photographs of the leaders of the autonomous region and Ulanqab city at all levels of the visit, as well as plaques and pennants commended by departments at all levels. Judging from the furnishings in the house, Shi Yixia is no longer a woman who farms traditionally or does housework. What achievements did she make to be elected as a deputy to the autonomous regional people's congress and receive commendations from governments at all levels?
Tough startups
Shi Yixia is a native of Dongshengli Village, Qitu Town, Chayouqian, graduated from high school and learned a craft at a barber shop in Tuzhen, and she had to change the fate of the previous generation of people "facing the loess and facing the sky" by her own efforts. Every day on the way to and from work, a young man from the auto repair department next to the street caught her attention, this man with a small flat head worked silently with his head down all day, she had a good feeling for him, after the initial contact, she knew that his name was Duan Riyong, a native of Pangjia Village, Qitu Town, Chayouqian. Duan Riyong's hands were stained with greasy all day, which deeply attracted Shi Yixia. With this pair of hands that can never be idle, are you still worried that you can't live a long time? When the male eldest married the female eldest, Shi Yixia decided to marry him. After starting a family, her husband opened a motorcycle repair department, and she also did her own old haircut. Two years later, the young couple had some savings and borrowed some money to buy a dump truck.
The husband often passes by Zhoujiadi next to Darden Avenue, which is located on the north bank of the Yellow Flag Sea, and in recent years due to the scarcity of precipitation, most of the sea water has dried up and the beach area has become larger and larger. It is a good thing to build a farm here, which is sparsely populated and the air is fresh.
Duan Riyong told Shi Yixia his thoughts, and his wife fully agreed, running transportation to earn that little money is not enough to take care of the various "gods of wealth"? They sold the car and went to Zhoujiadi, next to Darden Avenue. At that time, there was a freezing station on the verge of bankruptcy, and after the little couple signed a lease contract with others, they looked at the bungalow without doors and windows and worried, and they saw that they were about to enter the nine cold days, could this house be inhabited? The rent of the house has been paid to others, and not doing it is equivalent to losing money. So they set out to work as both masons and carpenters. The little couple and the mud plugged the leaky hole, sawed open the plank, and cut the glass to secure the doors and windows. The heating stove is placed on the pot table, so as to be closer to where you sleep at night. At that time, the daughter was only four years old, and every night her mother warmed the quilt, so she was willing to drill in. The mother held her daughter's cold little feet in her arms until she was asleep.
After attracting the first batch of native chickens from Beijing, Shi Yixia and Duan Riyong carried water and drank chickens from wells in the village two miles away every day. The labor intensity is very high, tired to lie down by the chicken coop to nap, do not know how long it took, in the chicks chirping chicks wake up. These elves are particularly humane, they just get along with their owners when they come out of their eggshells, and they feed them food and drink every day, just like their own children, can they not be grateful to their masters? As soon as the flock saw them, they spread their wings and ran over, and there was a real desire for them to hug. When the first five hundred or so chicks thrived under their care to lay eggs, a plague swept in, and they fell one by one in front of their eyes, lifting up this and that and then out of breath. The little couple cried as if they had lost their loved ones, and their first pot of gold failed in this way. Once bitten by a snake, ten years afraid of the well rope, until now the plague buried the sick chicken, they are far away from the scene, do not dare to witness it with their own eyes.
In the spring of 2012, Shi Yixia saw on the Internet a hatchery in Shuyang, Jiangsu Province, selling goose seedlings, and she paid a deposit of 1,000 yuan according to the website provided by the family, but she did not expect that the bamboo basket was empty, and she could no longer contact the hatchery. Shi Yixia was not discouraged, and in 2013, she ordered 10,000 chicks online, and the hatchery did not lose her words, sending her 6,000 chickens, but she died within a few days. Shi Yixia and her husband want to cry without tears, should this be the fate?
Afflicted couples
It is often said that failure is the mother of success. Shi Yixia and Duan Riyong experienced various difficulties and twists and turns, and the native chickens they raised finally succeeded. In a market economy society, there is still a long way to go to sell products and enter thousands of households. Shi Yixia, who was just starting out, was unable to advertise on radio and television stations, and when Shi Yixia saw that there were farmers selling corn, watermelons and other agricultural and sideline products on the roadside of Darden Avenue, he held the mentality of trying it out to sell raw and cooked eggs. On the one hand, it is better to increase the income, and on the other hand, it is also good to sell self-produced goods. Whenever the car stopped, Shi Yixia quickly ran over, letting the family taste this mellow and fragrant native egg, grinding his mouth and nagging that this was the egg of green grass and grasshoppers on the shore of the Yellow Flag Sea.
One day at noon, Shi Yixia and two old men selling corn and watermelon were snoozing under the trees on the side of the road, only to hear a loud rumble, and a brick-pulling agricultural vehicle rushed over. Shi Yixia was agile, and as soon as he rolled over and rolled into the crop field, he only suffered a little skin and flesh wounds, but the two old ones were killed and injured.
Duan Riyong heard that two farmers and sideline products had been killed on the highway, so he hurried over. When he saw that Shi Yixia was safe and sound, he went forward and held his wife's hand tightly and said, Let's never go on the road to sell eggs again, and I and my children can't live without you! There is no bowl and bowl at home that does not bump, don't look at them usually mixed mouths, at this moment I really understand what is called a couple in distress.
Why didn't Shi Yixia know her husband's heart? Only the Chinese husband, with his industrious hands, learned the prevention and care of poultry, and is now able to resist the general risk of poultry plague. As their careers grew, they attracted the attention of the local government and the news media. Whenever a leader and reporter came to interview, Duan Riyong always pushed Shi Yixia ahead, saying that he was bald and stupid, so he let his daughter-in-law say that he was busy with other things.
Shi Yixia was very touched, she knew that tongfa farm had poured all her husband's efforts. Duan Riyong did not covet pleasure and enjoy his success like a man with achievements, or he was busy in the breeding plant all day like when he started a business, from poultry epidemic prevention to nursing. When the aura of honor descended, he retreated into the background. In fact, he is the real hero. Shi Yixia recalled the bits and pieces of Duan Riyong's life, especially the hands that cracked in winter and had a strong residual medicinal smell in summer, and could not help but burst into tears, and the feelings established between husband and wife in labor were unbreakable.
The first taste of victory
Shi Yixia and Duan Riyong's pioneering deeds of working hard to get rich have been unanimously recognized by the people. The People's Government of Chayouqian Banner has made the Tongfa Breeding Cooperative a key support project, the Flag Poverty Alleviation Office has coordinated the distribution of chicks, and the villages in the surrounding towns and villages such as Rose Camp, Pingdi Spring, and Lisi Temple have 50 to 100 eggs per household, and Shi Yixia is responsible for retrieving eggs. Since farmers are natural stocking, there are no additives in the feed, so the egg whites are thick and transparent, and the egg yolks are mellow. Their products have opened up sales channels in Jining, Datong, Zhangjiakou, Hoshi, Baotou and other places. In order to prevent some people from being shoddy, Shi Yixia numbered the eggshells of each egg handover, and if there was a problem, it was better to sit in the right number to find the root cause of quality.
Nowadays, the Tongfa Farming Cooperative is no longer the courtyard where the freezing station was originally leased, and their yard covers an area of more than 20 acres, and there are more than 100 acres of grassland in the North Beach of the Yellow Flag Sea. They have bred more than ten varieties of poultry such as pheasants, guinea fowls, black chickens, wood chickens, native chickens, turkeys, geese, peacocks, ostriches, green-headed wild ducks, famous dogs and so on. Here are all the songs and swallows dancing, it is simply a natural bird kingdom, even Xishuangbanna in Yunnan has never seen such a complete variety of rare birds.
The Tongfa Breeding Cooperative has also built more than 1,500 square meters of brooding rooms. Now the incubation of epidemic prevention technology and various measures are very in place, and it has been able to resist general risks, of course, this is inseparable from the strong support of governments at all levels.
So many exotic birds to sell out? Shi Yixia said that in recent years, people's living standards have improved, peacocks are used for ornamentation, dogs are used as pets, local chickens and pheasants in Jining, Hohhot and other places have cars to pull every day, the more breeds are raised, the greater the market. Shi Yixia's hard work has been recognized and duely rewarded by governments at all levels: from 2012 to 2013, she was named an advanced individual in rural pastoral areas of the autonomous region; in 2013, she was also elected as a deputy to the 12th People's Congress of the autonomous region; she also won the title of march 8th Red Banner Bearer of the autonomous region in 2014; in 2015, she was awarded the female expert of rural pastoral science and technology by the People's Government of Wulanchabu Municipality; in 2018, she was elected as the 13th people's congress deputy of the autonomous region, and then won the title of "precision poverty alleviation" Advanced individual honorary title.
When the interview was about to end, Shi Yixia said affectionately that the achievements I had made were inseparable from the strong support of governments at all levels. You have to publicize the care and warmth of the party a lot, and I am nothing without the organization. "A single flower is not spring, a hundred flowers bloom in the spring and fill the garden." As the "leading" enterprise of the farmers in the Qianqian Banner of the Right Right, the Tongfa Breeding Cooperative is leading the surrounding farmers to the road of poverty alleviation and prosperity.