In the rural area of Changge in 1998, Huang Shuying hung up the sign of “Jinge Tricycle Factory” in a compound of two rows of red-brick houses. A borrowed van shuttled back and forth on National Highway 107 every day to transport spare parts. Huang and his workers squatted by the dirt road to assemble manual tricycles by hand—they chose the thickest spokes, used the sturdiest steel rims, and Huang personally inspected each tricycle three times before it left the factory. Back then, the factory didn’t even have a decent gate, yet people always lined up with dry rations to wait for their orders. Huang often sat assembling tricycles for a whole day; when he stood up, his waist ached so badly that he had to lean against the wall to catch his breath for a long time.

The market change in 2000 came unexpectedly. Policies on manual tricycles were tightened, and competitors turned to large diesel tricycles one after another. However, Huang Shuying set his sights on the “small tricycle” market, which no one was optimistic about. He invested all his savings in buying equipment and hiring technicians, but the newly made diesel tricycles sold only a few units a month due to the unknown brand. A turning point came with a fellow townsman from Shaanxi—this retired worker from Xianyang accidentally discovered that Jinge tricycles were compact and lightweight, able to move nimbly on mountain dirt roads. He immediately ordered 6 units, and to his surprise, they sold out quickly. Later, he became a regular distributor who ordered 30 tricycles at a time.

The advantages of “narrow body to pass through field ridges, strong power to climb dirt slopes” made Jinge small tricycles quickly popular in rural areas of Northwest and Southwest China. After relocating the factory in 2001, Huang Shuying led a team to develop the first micro electric tricycle in the province, but diesel small tricycles remained the “ballast stone” of the factory. To this day, those diesel tricycles marked with “Jinge” still shuttle through orchards deep in the Qinling Mountains and tea plantations on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, witnessing the leap of a family workshop into a national-level special equipment enterprise.

Story 2: Three Tricycles That Upheld the Dream of Education

In a mountain village in northern Shaanxi in the late 1990s, 10-year-old Liben could always hear a familiar “putt-putt” sound at dusk—it was his father’s first “Jinwa” diesel tricycle coming home. This tricycle was the family’s “lifeline”: it transported fertilizer in spring and hauled grain in autumn. During slack farming seasons, his father drove it from village to village to buy grain, then resold it to processing plants. He earned only a few cents per catty, but the money was enough to cover the tuition fees of Liben and his two siblings, as well as buy “Xiongyiwu” instant noodles. When weighing grain for others, his father always added a little extra; thus, villagers from miles around were willing to do business with him. The grain in the tricycle’s bucket grew fuller and fuller, and the road home became brighter and brighter.

A car accident in 2003 pushed the family back into poverty overnight. The compensation for the accident exhausted all their savings and left them in debt. Relatives advised Liben’s father to take the children out of school, but he gritted his teeth and said, “Farming can be learned at any time, but if you miss the age for studying, it’s too late.” With the help of relatives, the second “Shifeng” diesel tricycle drove into the village—its sky-blue body stood out prominently on the dirt road. In those years, this tricycle became a non-stop “top”: it rushed to harvest crops before the first frost, and transported tons of grain to Gushan Town for sale late at night. When Liben and his father loaded grain in the granary, their sweat dripped onto the concrete floor and shattered into droplets. But when his father smiled and said, “We can earn over 1,000 yuan today,” Liben knew that the hope of going to school was still alive.

Later, the family’s situation improved, and the “Shifeng” tricycle was replaced with a more durable “Wuzheng” one. Besides hauling grain, this tricycle took on a new task—helping villagers deliver chemical fertilizers and seeds directly to the fields. Today, Liben and his siblings have all grown into accomplished adults, and his father’s “Wuzheng” tricycle still parks in the corner of the courtyard. The scratches on its bucket are filled with soil, and the roar of its engine holds the years of three generations. As Liben wrote: “It is more ordinary than anything else, yet no hardship, no matter how heavy, can crush it.”