Yan Hongchang (L), a leading villager then to sign the secret agreement to divide communally owned farmland into family plots in 1978, and his son Yan Yushan pose for photos by the village gate of Xiaogang in Fengyang County, east China's Anhui Province, on March 23, 2018. Xiaogang is in Fengyang (phoenix) County. The county, like its mythological namesake, has gone through hundreds of reincarnations over the centuries, as communities like Xiaogang battle a fickle environment to eke out enough food to survive. In 1978, 18 farmers came together for a covert meeting in one of the village's mud hut home, and finally agreed to sign the secret agreement to divide communally owned farmland into family plots. The family land contract responsibility system that derived from Xiaogang was spread nationwide by 1984. The name of Xiaogang has since been fixed in the nation's memory as the start of China's reform. (Xinhua/Zhang Duan)
