Editor's Note

Director Le Jin remembers homesickness.

"Life is like a swift river. Without islands and reefs, it is difficult to stir up beautiful waves. Similarly, the development of a village has to go through some twists and turns before it can rush to a better future.

-Lejin "

Ancient villages in Taihang Mountain: the unique road of medicinal materials all over the mountain

Before investigating Zheshui village, I only saw this village in the lens taken by my colleagues. The first reaction I saw at that time was that the panoramic view of Zheshui Village by aerial photography was so beautiful. In sunny summer, the green terraces go round and round from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, layer upon layer, filled with clouds. The whole village is surrounded by terraced fields that go straight into the sky, full of auspicious weather with a bumper harvest in sight.

On February 20th, 2002 112, a six-person film crew came to Zheshui Village along Taihang1National Road, and the snowflake drifted halfway, which made our aerial photography teacher very excited. We can't wait to see the snow scene in Zhejiang. Sure enough, the scene before us lived up to expectations.

Zheshui Village, located in the depths of Taihang Mountain in Jincheng, Shanxi, is surrounded by mountains. There are countless wild Chinese herbal medicine resources in the mountains, among which forsythia suspensa is the most abundant, which is a precious wealth given by nature to villagers. As early as the Ming and Qing dynasties, the village had the habit of collecting herbs in the slack season, but now, it is also a common phenomenon for the elderly over 70 to go up the mountain to collect herbs.

During the filming, we followed the villager Hou to experience the process of picking herbs up the mountain. Hou took the lead and soon dumped us for dozens of meters. He stopped in front of a bunch of flowers, tore off the branches, smoothed them out and put them in the bag. He is so skillful that he completely ignores his cut finger. He also smiled and said, "Everyone chooses like this. The more he picks, the more he earns. "

Nowadays, in addition to the wild Chinese herbal medicines in the mountains, there are more than 4,000 mu of land in the village, and the planting area of forsythia has reached more than 2,000 mu, and the planting area of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi and Codonopsis pilosula has also exceeded 1000 mu, which can create an output value of 30 million to 40 million yuan for Zheshui Village every year. In 20 19, in order to consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation and realize the stable income increase of villagers, the local Chinese herbal medicine industrial park was established to attract pharmaceutical enterprises to settle in Lingchuan and provide market support for villagers to sell medicinal materials. With the change of planting structure, Zhejiang Water Village has undergone earth-shaking changes.

This ancient village with a history of more than 600 years, a street with blue bricks and grey tiles and an old house in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, was included in the fourth batch of traditional villages in China by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and an ancient Ma Yang road passed through the village, which witnessed the prosperity of commerce and trade in the past. Grain, cloth, coal, iron and medicinal materials have always been a big trade. On the way back and forth, business travelers often rest in the village, gradually forming a lively market, and a large number of businessmen also set up shops here to do business, build houses and live, and Zhejiang water towns are increasingly prosperous.

In 2020, the opening of Taihang 1 National Scenic Road made Zhejiang Water Village a constant stream of tourists, and the villagers started homestays and farmhouses to operate special agricultural products. In just two years, the cumulative number of tourists in Zheshui Village has exceeded one million, and the per capita annual income has exceeded 20,000 yuan. Zhejiang is blessed with water, reappearing its former prosperity.

Edit | Li Yuting