BEIJING, March. 4 -- China has never seen such farmers.

    The ancient emperors couldn't have imagined them talking about politics with such confidence.

    Chairman Mao Zedong couldn't have imagined them running multimillion-yuan companies with such skills.

    Deng Xiaoping couldn't have imagined them balancing private plots and collective finance with such a new-age vision.

    They are among the planners and implementers of China's new countryside and are now in Beijing to attend the annual meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC) to map out the country's development for the next five years.

    After comparing notes on their intended motions of legislative debate, Guo Chengzhi and Shang Jinsuo, both deputies from the countryside of Hebei Province, expressed their views on rural development in an interview with China Daily.

    Guo has dark complexion and a pair of big hands, typical of dwellers of the harsh conditions in China's northern mountains. He has been head of his home village, Qiannanyu, for more than 40 years, and has transformed it from a community almost destroyed by floods and severe soil erosion into one surrounded by lush orchards, even attracting tourists from big cities.

    Shang, from a rural community not far from Guo's, earned his fame by being capable of, at first, managing State-owned grain storage at a profit while the entire industry's losses were chronic, and then expanding his management service to 13 facilities of national grain reserves in northern provinces. He is still planning to have more.

    The two men, who are always assigned to hotel rooms next to each other when they come for NPC meetings in Beijing, seemed to represent both sides of the rural economy.

    Guo told China Daily about his village first:

    Qiannanyu, is a village of only 1,342 people, small by Chinese standards. It is deep in the Taihang Mountains, although nowadays, with modern roads, is just four hours from Beijing by car.

    His career as a village head began when he was forced to drop out of technical school to support his family. After merciless floods almost destroyed everything in 1963, he began to lead the villagers to protect the top soil of their homeland by planting trees and grass.