Going up the mountain and finding a litter of bamboo rats has opened up a way to get rich.

"Oh, that's Li Congbin. His house is in Liuxitun, the French Village. I'll take you there." Recently, in Jiangpo Village, Nanping Yao Township, Shangsi County, I heard reporters ask about raising bamboo rats in the village to get rid of poverty. Li Congdi, the village party secretary, readily took reporters to interview them.

The car climbed along the winding concrete road and soon arrived at the "French Village""hidden" in the depths of the green mountains. After getting out of the car, the difference in air pressure inside and outside the car made everyone's ears feel a little uncomfortable. However, when he followed Li Zhishu all the way to Li Congbin's house, the buzzing feeling in his ears eased a lot.

When the reporter explained his intention and said that he wanted to interview this expert who got rich by breeding bamboo rats, the simple Li Congbin smiled embarrassedly. "My bamboo rats are upstairs." As he spoke, he led everyone into a newly built two-story building.

On the second floor, the light was dim, and one could vaguely see many pools of nearly one meter separated by boards. "Bamboo rats like dark environments and don't like bright lights, so I used something to cover the windows." In order to let everyone see clearly, Li Congbin said he opened the tarpaulin hanging on a window, the house immediately lit up a lot.

The reporter approached and saw that there were four or five bamboo rats of different sizes in each pool. The big ones were about 1 kg. The reporter soon discovered that the partition of the pool was actually floor tiles, not boards. Li Congbin explained that it is relatively convenient and simple to use floor tiles as partitions, and the surface of floor tiles is smooth, bamboo rats are not easy to run away, but also easy to clean.

In order not to affect the normal activities of bamboo rats, everyone covered the windows downstairs. Downstairs, the reporter noticed that the new house had no signs of living at all. "The new house was just built not long ago, and it was only cleaned up a little. There are more bamboo rats than before, so we moved them over first. We still live in the old house." Downstairs, Li Congbin pointed to four low old houses next to the new house.

Li Congbin, 31, has been living in Liuxitun. A few years ago, his family's main economic source was cutting pine oil. His income was not high and he could only make a living. He was a poor household in the village. Once, when he went up the mountain to cut pine oil, he found a nest of bamboo rats, and took them home to raise them, which he regarded as his hobby. Soon, Li Congbin discovered that bamboo rats were easy to raise. He didn't have to spend much effort and could sell them for money. He began to let bamboo rats reproduce and increase the number of breeding. In the past two years, he has devoted his main energy to bamboo rat breeding. "The bamboo rats I raise eat cassava stems, corn, and bamboo. They can grow about two catties a year. They usually have to grow to this size before they are sold." Li Congbin said,"Someone came to me before and wanted to cooperate with me in breeding, but I didn't agree." They were fed fodder, and they could raise bamboo rats weighing three jin in three months. I don't think it's good to raise bamboo rats like this. I insist on my own cultivation method."

As for how to sell the bamboo rats raised, Li Congbin said that this is not a problem, it is others who come to buy on their own initiative, he has never taken out to sell. "The bamboo rats I raise can generally sell for more than 50 yuan a catty, and now there are about 300 in stock. The annual income of raising bamboo rats is definitely better than cutting pine oil." He told reporters,"Now we have two people in the village with me."

Under Li Congbin's careful breeding, the number of bamboo rats is increasing every year, which also brings new changes to the originally poor families: new houses have been built, new household appliances have been added, and the hats of poor households have been removed. For the future plan, Li Congbin said to gradually expand the breeding site, from the current breeding area of less than 100 square meters to 500 square meters, but also to build a new house for bamboo rats to live.