Editor's note: The Sichuan-Tibet Plateau, a beautiful region that reaches toward the heavens, is a place showered with blue skies, covered in white clouds, and dotted with snow-covered mountains, but recently, something truly remarkable has been materializing among the households that call this place home. A groundbreaking historic change has been reshaping the land and its people. From today on, we will publish a series of stories to tell you those changes. 

Immediately after Liu Ziqian put 5,000 yuan (768 USD) in front of Dongzhou as down payment, Dongzhou went to Dedan, the village director, to report the good news. Dedan, relieved, invited Liu to hold a grand yak marketing ceremony in the village and pay for yaks in cash on the spot in order to change the people's outdated concepts and motivate villagers to sell the animals.

On October 25th, 2016, thanks to Liu Ziqian's active arrangement, the ceremony became a reality in Chaka Village within Upper Rangtang, and Deputy County Head Dai made it a point to attend. Liu loaded 14 yaks on his truck, carried them back to his slaughterhouse, and immediately paid Dongzhou 84,000 yuan (12,911 USD) in cash. From that 84,000 yuan (12,911 USD), Dongzhou sent 10,000 yuan (1,537 USD) to the village as collective income, and 20,000 yuan (3,074 USD) was given to 23 poor households as shared income. When the piles of bills were placed in front of their faces, each herder's eyes sparkled with excitement.

Dai Shengli told Liu Ziqian that thanks to Liu's endeavors, he not only found a way toward his own prosperity, but he also solved immense difficulties for the county government! When vigorously developing the yak breeding industry, finding a good distribution channel is always the main problem. It is difficult to expand the market through traditional marketing strategies, but e-commerce has all of a sudden made the impossible possible.

More than ten livestock farms in the county are expected to reach full cooperation with e-commerce platforms in the near future, and e-commerce will serve as an important means for people in Rangtang County to overcome poverty and increase income. Liu has therefore promised Changmei that he will expand his slaughterhouse's freezer capacity to over 100 metric tons (110 US tons) within the year, construct a modern slaughtering production line through bilateral cooperation with the company, and do everything possible to make the annual sales volume exceed ten million yuan (1,539,883 USD) in 2017!

The Chinese version of this story is written by Li Dayong, Jia Yonghe, Yang Jing,& Lan Xin and translated into English by Huang Wenjuan. And the story is sourced from the United Front Work Deparment of the Communist Party of China (CPC)Sichuan Provincial Committee.

Editor: Ana Wu