Shi Chengfu’s courtyard became, on 3 November 2013, the exact spot where President Xi Jinping first used the phrase “targeted poverty alleviation” during a visit to Shibadong, a Miao village in Huayuan county, a phrase that went on to shape rural policy across the whole of China.
二零一三年十一月三日,花垣县十八洞村苗族村民施成富家门前的空地,成了习近平主席首次提出”精准扶贫”这一说法的所在地;此后,这一理念深刻影响了中国全国的农村政策走向。
At the time of that visit, Shibadong’s 533 residents had a per capita net income of just ¥1,668, and 56.8 percent of the village lived below the poverty line. According to an account published by the Communist Party of China’s own news portal, that figure had since risen to ¥20,167, and the village was formally recognised as having shaken off poverty in February 2017.
习近平考察之时,十八洞村五百三十三名村民的人均纯收入仅为一千六百六十八元,贫困发生率高达百分之五十六点八。据中国共产党新闻网的相关报道显示,此后这一数字已增长至二万零一百六十七元;二零一七年二月,十八洞村正式摘除贫困村的帽子。
Shibadong sits within Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, a mountainous region in northwestern Hunan bordering Hubei, Chongqing and Guizhou. According to the prefecture’s own 2024 economic communiqué, its permanent population stood at 2.392 million that year, with GDP reaching ¥85.6 billion, up just 0.5 percent on the previous year; per capita disposable income across the prefecture averaged ¥23,292.
十八洞村所在的湘西土家族苗族自治州,地处湖南西北部山区,与湖北、重庆、贵州三地接壤。据该州自身发布的二零二四年经济统计公报显示,当年全州常住人口为二百三十九点二万人,GDP达八十五点六亿元,同比仅增长百分之零点五;全州居民人均可支配收入为二万三千二百九十二元。
An Old Town beside a Wall Built for War
一座与战争之墙比邻而立的古城
Fenghuang Ancient Town, in the southwest of the prefecture, was built in 1704, during the reign of the Qing dynasty’s Kangxi Emperor, though a settlement had existed on the site since the Tang dynasty. Nearby, the Southern Great Wall, built during the Ming dynasty, was constructed specifically to defend against Miao uprisings; Fenghuang’s stilted wooden houses, meanwhile, line the Tuojiang River that runs directly through the town.
湘西州西南部的凤凰古城,始建于清代康熙四十三年(一七零四年),不过早在唐代,此地便已有聚落存在。附近明代修筑的”南方长城”,最初是为了镇压苗民起义而建;而凤凰古城的吊脚木楼,则沿着穿城而过的沱江一字排开。
Miao and Tujia residents make up around 80 percent of Fenghuang’s population today, and the town produced two figures who shaped modern China far beyond Hunan; Xiong Xiling, who served as Premier of the Republic of China in 1913, and Shen Congwen, a novelist whose western Hunan upbringing informed much of his fiction, including his best-known novella, Border Town.
如今,苗族与土家族居民约占凤凰古城人口的八成;这座小城还走出了两位深刻影响近代中国的人物——一九一三年出任中华民国国务总理的熊希龄,以及作家沈从文,他在湘西的成长经历,深刻影响了他的创作,其中就包括代表作《边城》。
A Railway that’s More than 90 Percent Bridges and Tunnels
一条桥隧比超过九成的铁路
The Zhangjiajie-Jishou-Huaihua high-speed railway opened on 6 December 2021, running 246 kilometres through some of the steepest terrain in the line’s construction history; more than 90 percent of its length runs across bridges or through tunnels, including a single-bore, double-track tunnel at Jishou measuring 12 kilometres. The line cut the journey between Huaihua and Zhangjiajie from three and a half hours to just over one, and put Changsha within two hours of Jishou, the prefecture’s capital, for the first time.
张吉怀高铁于二零二一年十二月六日通车,全长二百四十六公里,穿越沿线施工难度最大的部分山区;线路桥隧比超过百分之九十,其中吉首隧道为单洞双线隧道,全长十二公里。这条高铁,将怀化至张家界的车程,从三个半小时缩短至一小时出头,也让长沙首次实现两小时直达湘西州首府吉首市。
Furong Town station sits just 1.5 kilometres from the waterfall-side scenic area it is named for, and Fenghuang’s own station opened directly beside the ancient town. According to a report from China State Railway Group, the line had carried nearly 8.5 million passengers by its second anniversary, and a display cabinet for Shibadong’s own products was installed inside Jishou East station.
芙蓉镇站距离以瀑布闻名的芙蓉镇风景区仅一点五公里,凤凰站也直接开设在凤凰古城旁。据中国国家铁路集团相关报道显示,截至开通两周年,这条线路已累计发送旅客近八百五十万人次;吉首东站内还专门设立了十八洞村农产品展示柜。
Shi Chengfu’s courtyard in Shibadong, where the phrase “targeted poverty alleviation” was first spoken in 2013, remains open to visitors today, a short drive from the railway that now carries them within two hours of the provincial capital.
如今,施成富家门前那处二零一三年首次提出”精准扶贫”的院坝,依旧对外开放接待游客,距离那条如今能让人两小时内抵达省会的铁路线,仅有咫尺车程。
