Warm winter sunshine bathes the rolling tea plantations in eastern Guangxi. The Guangxi Cangwu-Zhaoping Expressway (abbreviated as "Cang-Zhao Expressway"), which officially opened on the 26th, winds through the emerald green landscape, connecting Guangxi's millennia-old tea country at one end and leading to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area at the other. As the place of origin for Liubao tea, Cangwu County in Wuzhou City, despite holding the prestigious title of a "drinkable antique," had long been constrained by transportation bottlenecks. To integrate into the Greater Bay Area and achieve mutual benefit, the Cangwu County Party Committee and Government designated the Cang-Zhao Expressway project as their "top priority project," incorporating it into the "Cangwu County National Economic and Social Development 14th Five-Year Plan and 2035 Long-Range Objectives Outline."

The project's initial phase faced multiple challenges, including fundraising, route planning, and cross-provincial coordination. Compounding these difficulties were Cangwu County's own weak economic foundation and the immense challenge of adding a high-speed exit at the county's southern gateway in Cangwu Town and upgrading the Liubao tourism service area. To drive the project forward, Cangwu County established a transportation project construction headquarters led by the county's top Party and government officials as "commanders." They implemented a "checklist" approach to tasks and adopted a "four ones" working mechanism: "one project, one department-level leader, one coordination team, one dedicated task force." Xu Senchong, then Deputy Director of the Cangwu County Development and Reform Bureau, and his team stationed themselves in Nanning and Guangzhou for three consecutive months, liaising with superior departments and relevant units in Guangdong Province. "At the peak, we sometimes traveled between three locations in a single day, covering over 1,000 kilometers," he recalled. Liang Shenglin, Deputy Director of the Cangwu County Natural Resources Bureau, and his team introduced a model of "acceptance with missing documents, parallel approval," slashing the land pre-approval process from the original three months down to just 20 days. In March 2021, the social capital tender for the Cang-Zhao Expressway was successfully completed, setting a record in Guangxi for the approval speed of preliminary work on similar projects.

The Cangwu section of the Cang-Zhao Expressway required the expropriation of approximately 6,000 mu of land, affecting three towns, nearly 30 villages, and over 10,000 households. "Doing it means not just completing the task, but also ensuring the people's demands are genuinely addressed," stated Chen Changyong, a member of the Shiqiao Town Party Committee's Politics and Law Committee and Head of the People's Armed Forces Department, who was responsible for the land acquisition and demolition work along the route. He admitted that in the early stages of door-to-door work, they frequently faced rejection. Confronted with these difficulties, Party members and officials in Cangwu County formed teams of Party member task forces, descending into the villages, fields, and homes of farmers. Li Yuwen, a frontline Party member official involved in land acquisition and demolition in Shiqiao Town, explained that team members measured land on-site during the day. At night, they used villager assemblies and "stool meetings" to repeatedly explain policies, analyze pros and cons, and paint a picture of the development prospects after the expressway's opening. For households facing particular hardship, they proactively assisted in finding temporary housing and coordinated solutions for practical difficulties like children's schooling and elderly care placement.

In November 2025, the Cang-Zhao Expressway achieved its trial operation target ahead of schedule, coinciding with the 2025 China Dark Tea Conference - 2025 Wuzhou Liubao Tea Culture Festival held in Liubao Town, Cangwu County. As the only high-grade road connecting Liubao Town, the Cang-Zhao Expressway safely transported over 200 conference vehicles and ensured the smooth arrival and departure of more than 1,000 conference attendees. In the production workshop of Cangsong Tea Factory, fully automated production lines are operating at high speed. Factory Manager Jiang Zhaohui stated that with the expressway opening, raw material transportation costs could be reduced by 25%, and product distribution efficiency improved by nearly 40%. Jiang pointed out that, leveraging the logistics network connected by the Cang-Zhao Expressway, the tea factory can not only more easily access markets in the Greater Bay Area and other major domestic cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi'an, but its products are also already being sold overseas to regions including the EU and Southeast Asia.

Cangwu County is leveraging the Cang-Zhao Expressway and National Highway 355 to plan the development of the "Ancient Tea-Horse Route" tourism belt. This initiative aims to "string together like pearls" attractions such as the Liubao Tea Ecological Tourism Area, Hekou Wharf, Tangping Village, and Shanping Village, developing multiple tourism routes combining "tea-picking experiences, intangible cultural heritage study tours, and wellness vacations." Chen Yangmin, Executive Director and General Manager of the cultural tourism company under the Cangwu County Industrial Investment and Development Group Co., Ltd., reported that recently, several travel agencies from other provinces have been in contact with the company. They have already developed five "point-to-point" itineraries offering an "all-in-one" tea tourism experience encompassing dining, accommodation, tours, shopping, and research, designed to attract more tea merchants and tourists directly to the core Liubao tea production area.