In the northern part of Jiangxi, there is a village hanging on a cliff called Huangling Ancient Village. The village is characterized by scattered ancient houses and terraced fields, but it was once hidden and unknown, facing the embarrassment of “people leaving, houses empty, fields abandoned, and the village dispersing.” However, in just over a decade, this village has undergone a magnificent transformation and has received tens of thousands of visitors during its peak days. It has even hosted two International Village Mayor Summits, engaging in dialogue with renowned villages from countries like France and the Netherlands.

The rise of Huangling is attributed to a knowledgeable “strategist” named Wu Xiangyang, the Chairman of Wuyuan Huangling Cultural Tourism Co., Ltd. He possesses rich experience in developing scenic areas and has an unparalleled vision, enabling him to discover the development value beneath the surface of Huangling’s decline, particularly the captivating scenes of local villagers drying crops.

In Huangling Ancient Village, where there is no flat land, the ingenious ancestors utilized their own windowsills and rooftops as drying platforms. They dried tea leaves and water bamboo shoots in spring, eggplants and pumpkins in summer, corn, rice, and red chili peppers in autumn, and shiitake mushrooms and smoked chicken and duck in winter. As the seasons change, Huangling resembles a vast “palette,” adding colors that correspond to the changing seasons.

Wu Xiangyang and his team conducted repeated discussions, rooted in Huangling’s unique topography and regional culture, and in June 2013, they refined the concept of “Shaiqiu” (Autumn Drying) as their intellectual property. At that time, there was no search result for “Shaiqiu” (Autumn Drying) on the internet. As expected, it quickly gained popularity once it was introduced.

To fully tap into the potential of the scenic area, Wu Xiangyang implemented a model of protective development by “replacing old villages with new ones and old houses with new ones.” The villagers moved to new houses at the foot of the mountain at zero cost, while the company obtained the operating and development rights of the old village through public bidding.

As a result, Huangling experienced a rebirth and stood out among numerous rural tourism projects. It received 780,000 visitors in 2016, 1.1 million in 2017, 1.3 million in 2018, 1.4 million in 2019, and achieved profits exceeding 10 million yuan in both 2020 and 2021.

The dilapidated Huizhou-style ancient houses were transformed into unique guesthouses, and the once abandoned terraced fields were covered with fields of blooming rapeseed flowers. New formats such as the Tianjie Street Market, forest exploration, slide drifting, outdoor hot springs, and rural night tours have been continuously introduced, resulting in an increase in the average daily stay time of visitors.

Looking back at the role of the government in the development process of Huangling, Zhan Xianhua, the former leader of the Huangling Development Service Leading Group, summarized the three secrets of the local government’s success in Huangling’s journey to today.

Secret One: Emphasize Win-Win Development

By relocating the villagers to the new village and improving the surrounding supporting facilities, the land becomes state-owned, houses are registered, and the ownership of assets and the rights to develop and operate rural tourism in Huangling Company are clarified. This has also provided a “reassurance pill” for private enterprises.

“A series of measures have defined clear property rights boundaries and provided us with confidence guarantee for investing over 500 million yuan,” said Wu Xiangyang. With the support of the government, the company invested in building resettlement houses and apartments alongside rural roads that are convenient for transportation and close to the village’s farmland. They also provided supporting infrastructure to help villagers move out of dilapidated houses and into new buildings downhill, revitalizing the rights to develop and operate tourism in Huangling Ancient Village.

Secret Two: Respect Grassroots Innovation

Among the “one prefecture and six counties” of ancient Huizhou, Wuyuan has relatively well-preserved Hui-style dwellings. However, scattered throughout the county, these ancient Hui-style dwellings face inherent deficiencies in lighting, sewage disposal, repairs, and scattered property rights, which have always been a problem for residents. Some ancient dwellings have deteriorated over time and are facing the fate of collapse.

How to pass on the living rural culture? This is another difficult problem facing the local government.

When Wu Xiangyang’s team proposed the new idea of “fostering old buildings,” the local government fully listened to the company’s suggestions and issued policies designating Huangling as a “trial zone for protecting and relocating ancient dwellings.” They supported the centralized acquisition, protection, development, and operation of ancient buildings in other locations within the county, pioneering the “protective model for relocating ancient Hui-style buildings to other places.” In 2014, Wuyuan County Rural Culture Development Co., Ltd. reached an agreement with Xucun Town Government. The company fully funded the relocation and repair of “Yixin Hall” to Huangling, while the ownership still belonged to Xucun Town Government, and the company had the right to operate and use it.

Secret Three: Solve Problems in Development

The development of Huangling Scenic Area has not been smooth sailing, with problems such as traffic congestion during the peak tourist season, fire safety issues in brick and wood structures of ancient houses, and a decline in tourist numbers due to the pandemic. Under the combination of various factors, new problems keep emerging:

In response to traffic congestion, the Wuyuan County Government invested 22 million yuan to complete the expansion of Huangling Road, opened temporary parking lots for transportation transfers, and mobilized over a thousand cadres from the entire county to serve as volunteers during peak tourism periods.

To address the difficulties of fire protection in ancient villages and other issues, the local government actively worked to obtain the province’s first fire protection certificate for ancient villages in Huangling. They re-planned and compiled regulations for Huangling Ancient Village and Shuijie (Water Street) and processed property certificates for state-owned construction land in Huangling.

The development of Huangling’s tourism industry has completely changed the fate of the villagers. Many villagers with multiple roles, known as “slashies,” have discovered business opportunities within the resources. For example, Jiang Chunhua, known as “Autumn Sun Grandma,” not only creates beautiful scenery for tourists by drying crops but also runs her own small business. She earns tens of thousands of yuan per year by growing chrysanthemums and making snacks. Cao Jiaxiang, a “rural photographer,” earns a stable income through photography and has also developed a new role as a “tourism experience consultant,” providing strategies for upgrading the scenic area in exchange for rewards.

Cao Jinhui, the leader of the Huangling Village Party Group, counted on his fingers and told reporters that in addition to the resource usage fees distributed to villagers by the scenic area every year, 19 households receive wages from the scenic area, 15 households receive performance-based wages from the scenic area, 34 households have income from tourism entrepreneurship, such as catering, accommodation, supermarkets, and tourism transportation, and 27 households have income from agricultural planting.

The world is coming to them without the villagers having to leave the village.

In recent years, Huangling has successively held two sessions of the International Tourism Famous Village Mayors Summit and initiated the establishment of the China International Tourism Famous Village Alliance, attracting nearly a hundred famous tourist villages from home and abroad to join.

Standing on the world stage, Wu Xiangyang’s team and the villagers of Huangling are confident in sharing the experiences they have gained over the years and providing references for rural areas around the world.