During the National Day holiday, walking through the streets, lanes, villages, and fields of Inner Mongolia, one could take in blossoming flowers, bustling crowds of visitors, the joy of a bountiful rural harvest, and a shared sense of the better life brought by high-quality development.
Golden October has turned the land golden as corn harvest season arrives. In the fields, harvesters hum as golden corn cobs are loaded in an orderly way into four-wheeled carts. "The roads are good now, so carrying more corn is no problem. In the past, the roads were uneven, and we did not dare load too much because it would spill onto the road," said Yang Congming, a large-scale corn grower in Subogai Township, Tumd Right Banner, Baotou City, his face glowing with the joy of a bumper harvest.
As roads have continued to improve in quality and capacity, people's sense of happiness has kept rising. "This road was just paved with asphalt. It is smooth, clean, and really easy to drive on!" On October 1, Hao Jiale, who works in Kundulun District, Baotou City, was driving back to his home village of Beiguandi Village in Subogai Township, Tumd Right Banner, and could not help sharing his driving experience with his wife, Wang Xia.
The road upgrade in Tumd Right Banner is a microcosm of Inner Mongolia's continued efforts to improve the livelihood road network. Since the beginning of this year, the regional transport department has steadily advanced a new round of rural and pastoral road improvement actions, coordinating key projects such as rural road construction, maintenance, and dangerous bridge renovation. By the end of July, 357 rural and pastoral road projects had started across the region, covering 3,698 kilometers, of which 60 projects and 566 kilometers of road sections had been completed smoothly. To promote efficient project implementation and shore up weak links in rural transport, the regional transport department has made efforts on multiple fronts, organizing discussions and forums with league cities, sharing experience, and resolving difficulties in grassroots implementation; it has also strengthened funding guarantees, established a regular scheduling mechanism, dynamically tracked project progress, and promptly coordinated solutions to bottlenecks and difficulties, making every effort to improve the quality, speed, and efficiency of rural and pastoral road construction.
The smooth road network has also paved a fast lane for rural industrial development. Today, rural business forms in Inner Mongolia are constantly diversifying, and young people are finding more opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation. Wang Shuai, a post-90s woman deeply involved in cross-border agricultural trade, recently wrapped up market connection work in Malaysia and North America and returned to her hometown of Bayannur City. "I travel abroad to markets all year round and deal with merchants from many countries. Whether it is goji berries or chili peppers, as long as it is said to be produced in Bayannur, recognition is especially high," Wang Shuai said frankly. In recent years, she has traveled to multiple countries and regions, actively connecting with overseas merchants and opening sales channels, steadily introducing Bayannur's organic goji berries, goji juice concentrate, and high-quality dehydrated chili peppers and fresh chili products to overseas markets.
What moved Wang Shuai most was the solid transformation of her hometown's industries in recent years. In the fields, contiguous goji berry planting bases and standardized chili pepper plantations are orderly laid out, and farmers are managing and caring for crops in a more scientific and refined way. The local area increasingly values agricultural product quality, brand building, and standardized production. Whether it is goji berries or chili peppers, from planting and selection to deep processing and packaged export, the entire industrial chain is becoming more mature, and the road for hometown agricultural products to go overseas is becoming broader and more stable.
As industries thrive and lives grow more prosperous, people's expectations for a better life have also extended to more detailed livelihood services. In the morning at the elderly care service center in Horqin District, Tongliao City, the sunlight was mild and warmth filled the air. Rehabilitation training, board and card games, and yangko singing and dancing took place in turn, with elderly people visible everywhere in relaxed and peaceful scenes. "I have lived here for more than half a year. There are people to care for me, things to enjoy, and treatment when I am ill. My body is stronger, and my heart feels brighter too!" Recently, 74-year-old Wang Jilin, after completing daily rehabilitation training with the support of a caregiver, smiled broadly. A simple heartfelt remark revealed the new changes in elderly people's later years.
Horqin District has about 190,600 residents aged 60 and above, accounting for 26.4% of the district's total population. In recent years, the Horqin District Civil Affairs Bureau has broken new ground, pursued innovation, and taken precise measures, using scenario-based services, digital empowerment, and integrated guarantees to promote a transformation in elderly care services from "being able to live there" to "living well there." The Horqin District Civil Affairs Bureau has innovatively built a dual-core hub of "one urban core and one rural core." For the urban core, supporting housing for elderly care in Herunyuan Residential Community was renovated and upgraded into a county-district-level elderly care service center; for the rural core, the Aolibugao Central Nursing Home was upgraded into a county-district-level elderly care service center. The construction of these two major sites has effectively addressed problems such as the fragmentation of urban and rural elderly care service systems, truly ensuring that "when children are not at home, the site can step in."
With digital reform as the driving force, a large database for elderly care services and two major platforms for scheduling and intelligent safety supervision have been established, supported by three centers for age-friendly product experience, elderly care mobile van services, and nursing talent training, forming a smart elderly care system of "two platforms and three centers." This has enabled intelligent service dispatch, trajectory tracing, and cloud-based safety duty, continuously strengthening the foundation of urban and rural elderly care service guarantees. From "elderly care" to "enjoying later life," Horqin District is constantly enriching the supply of age-friendly services so that more elderly people can enjoy a happy old age.
Life takes on a new look, and happiness begins a new journey. The warm changes brought by high-quality development are concrete and tangible. Through hard work, the future becomes even more promising.