The ancient villages in Shexian County use terrace culture to achieve integrated development of agriculture, culture and tourism

CCTV News from Handan on September 24 (reporter Wang Kunpeng, trainee reporter Gao Bintao, and intern reporter Li Siyu) In the Taihang Mountains in autumn, the sky is high and the clouds are light, and the forests are full of colors. In Wangjinzhuang Village, Jingdian Town, Shexian County, Handan City, Hebei Province, stone weir terraces spread all over the mountains and ridges and ravines. The golden ears of grain sway in the wind, complementing the gray and white stone weirs and simple stone houses, forming a magnificent Taihang autumn harvest scene. This globally important agricultural cultural heritage, the dry-fed stone weir terrace system in Shexian County, is ushering in another harvest season in its most abundant form.

Wangjinzhuang Village was built in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties and has a history of more than 700 years. For generations, ancestors have lived in the mountains, cut stones to cultivate fields, and built 12,000 acres of stone weir terraces between cliffs and steep slopes. It consists of more than 50,000 stone terraces of different sizes, with an undulation of nearly 500 meters. It is the largest and most complete mountain stone weir dry farming terrace system in northern China. The stone houses, stone alleys, stone mills, and stone mills in the village are well preserved. Traditional farming customs such as donkey farming, manual harvesting, and autumn grain storage continue to this day. The Handan Seed Culture Museum and Farmer Seed Bank are located here, and the millennium terrace farming civilization is livingly inherited.

"I used to think that farming in the cracks of stones was hard, but now I find that you can also 'plant' in the cracks of stones to make a good life." In the Gongfu Workshop of Wangjinzhuang Village, villager Cao Yangyang is leading several villagers to make cultural and creative products. She told reporters that relying on the terrace culture and the style of the ancient village, the village has developed special agricultural product gift boxes such as pepper, millet, and grains, as well as cultural and creative products such as handmade fabrics and stone paintings. "The sisters can earn money at home. They can earn an extra two hundred yuan a month. Although the money is not much, everyone is very motivated."

After leaving Wangjinzhuang Village and heading east along the road in the Taihang Mountains, you will arrive at Dawa Village in Genngle Town. As dusk falls, the 500-year-old single-arch all-stone structure stone bridge at the entrance of the village glows with a warm luster under the illumination of landscape lights. Dawa Village, surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing a river on one side, was called "Phoenix Nest" in ancient times because the Qingyang Mountain on the north side is connected to the east and west peaks and looks like a spreading phoenix. It will be named a "National Rural Tourism Key Village" in 2022, and Dawa Village will be selected into the "World's Best Tourism Village" improvement plan in 2025.

Deep in the village alley, villager Zhang Yuebao is busy packing pepper cakes and peppercorns for tourists. "I used to carry a load and walk more than ten miles of mountain roads to sell it, but now I sell it all sitting at home." He said with a smile, "On holidays, I can sell hundreds of yuan a day, and pepper, walnuts, and millet are all hot commodities."

Zhang Naishun, deputy secretary of the Party branch of Dawa Village, said that in recent years, the village has renovated 100 stone houses and built a group of high-end boutique B&Bs based on the concept of "protecting tradition and moderate development", and encouraged villagers to build 38 B&Bs with 198 guest rooms and 350 beds, forming a development pattern of B&Bs with complementary differences between high, middle and low-end. New business formats such as Jianshan bars, craft beer restaurants, and terraced farming gardens have been launched one after another, and cultural activities such as county magistrate parades and dream-recalling 1980s marching performances have been exciting. "Last Spring Festival, the village received a total of 150,000 tourists, and the collective annual income of the village exceeded 1 million yuan. The average annual income of villagers who get rich from B&Bs is several hundred thousand yuan." Zhang Naishun said.

From the morning light of the terraces in Wangjinzhuang Village to the night view of the stone bridge in Dawa Village, from the exquisite cultural and creative products in Cao Yangyang's hands to the fragrant pepper cakes in front of Zhang Yuebao's stall, the ancient villages in Shexian County are reborn on the road of integrated development of agriculture, culture and tourism. Shiyan terraces are no longer just living specimens of farming civilization, but have become a solid foundation for rural revitalization; Shitou ancient village is no longer just a carrier of nostalgia and memory, but has become a "golden rice bowl" for people to increase their income and become rich. In this land deep in Taihang, a picture of prosperous industries, beautiful countryside, and wealthy farmers is slowly unfolding.