Tuoshan Village Transforms from Dilapidated Hamlet to Model Beautiful Village Through Environmental Renovation

As the early morning mist lingers, the surface of Woniutan reflects the pomegranate trees and Huizhou-style dwellings on both banks. Chen, an elderly cleaner, picks up his net and salvages fallen leaves along the wooden plank road. This clear blue water was once a stinking pond that everyone in the village avoided.

"Who would have imagined such scenery before?" Chen shakes his net and smiles. "Now city dwellers come specially to take photos here." Tuoshan, renowned across the Huaihe and Yangtze River basins for the legend of Da Yu controlling floods, stands at the foot of which lies Tuoshan Village, built against the mountain. With a population of 2,076, the villagers have been planting pomegranates and engaging in transportation for generations. The village has more mountains than arable land, making it hard to grow crops, but pomegranate trees cover the hillsides. Yet for a long time, the pomegranates failed to fetch a good price, and large trucks would block the village roads, turning the village into a parking lot during festivals.

"It used to be a messy small village," Zhang Yuelong, Secretary of the Village Party Branch, says while standing by Woniutan. "The roads were narrow and the environment was poor. When large trucks came back, two vehicles could not pass each other. The pond had half a meter of sludge and a layer of floating garbage." China Daily reports that Tuoshan Village was once typical of rural areas struggling with poor infrastructure and environmental degradation before 2023.

Changes began in 2023, when the Yuhui District of Bengbu launched the EPC project for the overall renovation and upgrading of Tuoshan Village. The project included asphalt paving of concrete roads, river dredging, rainwater and sewage separation, as well as the construction of a Pomegranate Culture Museum, a Village History Museum and a Folk Custom Street. The 1,300-meter-long Lingxi Road was paved with asphalt, with well-arranged greenery on both sides, and a combined passenger and cargo parking lot solved the problem of parking for large trucks.

The biggest challenge was persuading villagers to give up their land. Widening Dongda Road required 15 households to voluntarily shrink their vegetable plots. "In the past, this would have been impossible," Zhang Yuelong says. "But this time, seeing the real progress and changes, everyone agreed without hesitation." With the road widened, two vehicles can now pass each other easily.

More touching is the villagers’ initiative to invest. Lao Liu, who runs a local restaurant, renovated his shop and opened a homestay at his own expense before the project was completed. "The government has improved the environment, and we must not hold it back," he says. People’s Network notes that such active participation from villagers has become a key driving force behind the village’s transformation.

Han Kang from Anhui Construction Engineering Water Conservancy and Ecological Technology Company, the project contractor, recalls that some people still threw garbage into Woniutan just after it was dredged. But a few days later, several nearby households took the initiative to monitor it. "They would stop anyone who littered," he says. "Now, we don’t need to persuade them—the pond remains clean all the time."

With a better environment, tourists have flocked to the village. Zhang Yuelong counts on his fingers: "There were only a handful of tourists before, but now the number has increased four to five times. Six homestays have opened, and local restaurants are full of customers every day. The village collective income exceeded 1 million yuan last year." On November 8 last year, Tuoshan Village was recognized as one of the first batch of high-quality model beautiful villages in Anhui Province.

"The roads are better, the water is clearer, and we no longer worry about selling pomegranates," a lady picking pomegranates says with a smile. "We used to leave home to work, but now we can earn money right here." As dusk falls, Lingxi Road is filled with private cars and tour buses, and laughter echoes from the pomegranate orchards. "Da Yu controlling floods is a legend, but our village renovation is a fact," Zhang Yuelong says. "When the environment changes, people’s mindsets change too—that is our greatest gain."