Chapter Eight On TCM Strategy in Li Shizhen’s Hometown

A sea of clouds in Pingfeng Village屏风寨云海

The past 28 years have seen a strategic tendency that takes full advantage of Li Shizhen as a cultural-pharmaceutical brand in the ancient medical scientist’s hometown, Qichun County of Hubei Province.During this period, Qichun people have experienced both the joy of entrepreneurship and the pressure of unsustainability.Like all people they face the idea of giving up in some worst circumstances. Fortunately they persisted in and succeeded in exploring their “knock-out products,” in developing more new products, and in increasing the added value of their products.However, the strategic exploration which has prospered Qichun’s economy can be quite thought provoking.

Happiness exists in the knowledge about mugwort知艾是福

The Treasure Retrieved

Qichun stands brilliantly in Hubei, a “province of a thousand lakes” and a “land of fish and rice.” It is a common, yet charming and unique place in its own ways.

When we traced back to the 1980s in the 20th century, we astonishingly found that Qichun,a place that once earned so many applauses, suddenly lagged behind the times. Many people in other parts of China grasped the opportunity to become richer, while Qichun seemed to have lagged behind. Many locals became alert and decided that something had to be done to improve their standard of living.

But what should be done,exactly? Nobody knew. People in Qichun just blindly followed others. When there was a trend of establishing five small industrial enterprises (producing iron and steel, coal, chemical fertilizer,cement and machinery) in the countryside, Qichun people also set up their own small-scale factories, such as glassworks,cement mills, and jute bag plants.

At that time, the age-old Qizhou Town was demolished,and the time-honored walls were ruined. Only one gate was left.Many villages and townships in Qichun were in heavy debt.

When the craze of establishing township enterprises cooled down, Qichun people had no choice but to hunt for a job outside their hometown. Over 200 thousand youngsters became migrant laborers.

One man’s meat is another man’s poison. Knowing this,Qichun had to walk its own way and develop its own characteristics in a fierce competitive society. After repeated consultations, the local government suddenly found that the most important treasure of Qichun was the TCM culture of Li Shizhen, a historical medical sage.

Market Lessons Learned

Lining at the foot of the Dabie Mountains and facing the Yangtze River, Qichun is an ideal place for various medicinal herbs to grow and be traded.

李时珍故里，中国湖北蕲春县，提出并实施以李时珍医药文化品牌兴县的战略，已有28个年头。这其间，蕲春人有过创业成功的喜悦，也有后继乏力的酸楚，甚至有困难面前是否坚持下去的疑惑。

最终，他们坚持探索不懈，找准主打品种，研发新产品，增加产品附加值。蕲春实施医药兴县的实践探索，带给人们深深的思考。

识 宝

这是一方平凡而神奇的土地。在千湖之省、鱼米之乡的荆楚大地上，蕲春仅是明珠里面的一颗。然而，她又非常神奇、独特、璀璨夺目。

历史的篇章翻到20世纪80年代。环顾四周，那个曾让无数人喝彩的蕲春，感到自己落在时代脚步的后面。蕲春要赶上去，蕲春要富起来，成为全县上下的共识。

可是，病急乱投医。蕲春见方抓方，看到别人做什么，自己就抓什么。别人搞“五小”工业，乡镇企业遍地开花，蕲春各乡镇也纷纷办起小玻璃厂、小水泥厂、小麻袋厂等。

千年古城蕲州被拆得变了样。城墙没了，城门仅剩一座……许多乡镇还欠下沉重的债务。

乡镇企业的炉火熄灭后，蕲春人只得外出找饭吃。一个县有20多万青壮劳力外出务工。

照抄照搬别人，结果是水土不服，迷失了自我。市场竞争激烈，得靠特色立县。主政者们集思广议，大家蓦然回首，才发现，蕲春最大的金字招牌就是李时珍，还得向祖宗讨教高招。

阵 痛

蕲春背依大别山，面向长江，是药物生长和交易的好地方。

立足于自然秉赋，主政者们便想到，一个传统农业大县应该发挥自身优势，在“药材”和“食材”上做文章，提出“两材”兴县的目标。在政府力量推动下，蕲春的药材种植如火如荼开展起来。

蕲春由传统的鱼米之乡，变成百花争妍的中草药王国，一时间，人们想到什么可能赚钱，就种植什么。创建金银花之乡、创建桅子之乡、创建菊花之乡等口号纷纷涌现，谁都不甘落后。

政府还未雨绸缪，从1990年开始，办起李时珍中药材交易会。果真是文化搭台，经贸唱戏，前六届药交会上，人头攒动，万人空巷。

Workers producing mugwort products艾产品生产现场

上世纪九十年代，蕲春种植的药材品种有几十个。药材商们反映，市场上什么都有，什么都难形成气候。金银花由最高时的每公斤20元，跌到低谷时2元，甚至不够采收的工钱。1.5万亩的金银花种植农户，欲哭无泪。

As a traditional agricultural county, Qichun should give full play to its advantages by concentrating on medicinal materials and food materials based on its natural resources.Thus the government put forward the goal of developing the county through “commercializing the two materials.” Very soon Qichun’s medicinal herb plantations were rapidly growing.

Qichun turned from a traditional “land of fish and rice” to a kingdom of Chinese herbal medicine. People chose to grow whatever they thought profitable. “Let us create a hometown of honeysuckle!” “Or a county of crickets!” “A village of chrysanthemum!” The slogans sprang up. No one would lag behind.

The government had more planning. The Li Shizhen Trade Fair for Medicinal Materials was held since 1990. It was crowded at the previous six times; beneath the glorious banner of historical culture was the craving for the economic success.

In the 1990s, there were dozens of medicinal herb breeds grown all over Qichun. Medicine traders said that there were many products in the market but none of them could become a real business. The price of honeysuckle dropped from 20 yuan per kilogram at its highest to 2 yuan at its lowest, which was not even enough to cover the collecting wages. It was a huge blow to the farmers who planted a total of 15,000 mu (1,000 hectares) of honeysuckle.

药材市场很快冷却下来，年交易额由数亿元跌到数千万元。很多人产生动摇情绪。

Mugwort culture nurturing the younger generation艾文化哺育新一代

取 经

到底是医药兴县战略有问题，还是对市场认识不够，或者经营策略存在问题？之后的十多年，人们一面低调维持药材种植，一面像李时珍广取博采那样，走出去扩大视野。

蕲春本地经营户田群、肖本大、吴明星等来到河南南阳，意外地发现，南阳的艾草产品需求旺盛，规模达到200多亿元，而且品质上佳的艾草产品，都被称为蕲艾。蕲春田间地头常见的蕲艾，被河南商户们视为珍宝。

蕲春经营户深感震惊：本地药材种植经营漫天撒网，也许不如集中兵力打歼灭战，捏紧拳头，打造自身品牌优势。

蕲春和韩国堤川是一对国际友好城市，县委县政府领导前往堤川考察时，发现市政厅陈列着精美的中草药产品。对方还将黄芪礼盒作为馈赠礼物，这让蕲春主政者们感到有些意外。

蕲春人从中受到启发：韩国注重品牌先行，注重增加高附加值，与此相比，蕲春倡导中医药虽然20年，但规模小，品种散，各种产品附加值低。作为医圣故里，蕲春更有责任做好李时珍医药品牌，弘扬中国中医药文化。

People began to think differently as the medicine market quickly cooled down, and the annual transaction volume fell from hundreds of millions (yuan)to tens of millions.

Inspirations from Outside

The failure set villagers into thinking. Was it the lack of the awareness of the market?Was there a problem with the management? Or, was the overall strategy a misguided one? In the following decades, farmers kept a cultivation of medicinal herbs in a small size. After that they decided to go out to “expand their horizons,” just like what Li Shizhen had done.

Tian Qun, Xiao Benda, and Wu Mingxing, who were all local medicine traders, once visited Nanyang, Henan Province. They unexpectedly found that the demand for mugwort products in Nanyang was so strong that the scale reached more than 20 billion yuan, and high-quality mugwort products were called Qi’ai, or Qi mugwort. However,in Qichun, the mugwort was but a common plant that usually grows wild in the fields. Qichun traders felt inspired. Instead of growing all kinds of medicinal herbs in Qichun, they should focus on establishing their own brand superiority.

The next inspiration they drew came from Jecheon, Korea,a sister city of Qichun. When Qichun’s governors visited Jecheon, they found that some fine products of Chinese herbs were displayed in the City Hall.More surprisingly, they got Astragalus root, a TCM material,as the official gift from South Korea.

Mugwort moxibustion for health preservation艾灸养生

聚 力

眼界打开了，病症找准了。他们认识到，原来，蕲春人身在宝山，并未充分认识到李时珍医药文化的品牌价值，并未充分利用本地的资源优势。

经过与南阳、韩国堤川的对比，蕲春人找到自己的问题症结，他们坚持发展大健康产业、实行健康产业和旅游产业联动的战略思路更加明确，而且要咬定青山不放松，抓住主要产品，形成自己核心竞争力。

2011年以来，蕲春设置专项基金，扶植蕲艾等优质中药材种植，农民连片种植10亩以上优质中草药，都给予资金扶持；开始时每年投入300万元，现在每年投入5000万元以上；扶持李时珍医药集团、蕲艾协会等行业龙头，开发新产品，占据市场新高度。

与此同时，社会资本争相进入。蕲艾牙膏、蕲艾洗发水、蕲艾沐浴露、艾乳、艾皂被开发出来。电商平台的兴起，着实给蕲艾产品的红火助添一把柴。

引 爆

每公斤蕲艾干叶由前些年的四五元，上涨到现在的12元；蕲艾企业增加到1100多家，推出新产品20多个系列830多种，基本上每周推出一种。蕲春的中药材经营，出现空前的繁荣局面。

蕲春人更加看重李时珍文化品牌、李时珍医药品牌，形成基地种植、产品研发、美工设计、市场推广等全产业链。中国中医药协会2016年将“中国艾都”的称号授予蕲春。

Qichun people were inspired by how South Koreans gave priority to the brand and paid more attention to increasing high added value. In contrast,though Qichun had advocated Chinese medicine for 20 years,its TCM industry was still small in size, scattered in variety, and low in the added value of various products. As the hometown of the ancient medical sage,Qichun had the responsibility to promote Li Shizhen’s cultural pharmaceutical brand and spread the TCM culture.

Core Competitiveness Formed

While enlarging their horizons,Qichun people realized that they were sitting on a goldmine but failed to recognize the real value of Li Shizhen’s brand, much less to make full use of the local resources.

In comparisons with Nanyang and Jecheon, Qichun people found out their own weakness and decided to insist on their strategy, only with a wise revision. They would adhere to the linkage between the health industry and tourism industry,while developing the big health industry. Moreover, they realized that they should concentrate on the main products so as to form their core competitiveness.

Since 2011, Qichun has set up a special fund to support the cultivation of high-quality Chinese herbal medicines such as Qi mugwort. Farmers who planted more than 10 mu of highquality Chinese herbal medicine are given financial support. At the beginning, 3 million yuan was invested each year; and in recent years, more than 50 million yuan has been invested per year. The Li Shizhen Pharmaceutical Group,Chinese Mugwort Association,and other industry leaders are also supported by the government in their endeavors to develop new products and expand the market.

Qi mugwort products with national medicine permission number国药准字号蕲艾产品

2017年，蕲艾产业综合产值达30亿元。中国品牌建设促进会公布蕲艾品牌价值43.84亿元，跃居全国“地标品牌产品”第二位。

更高的价值，被赋予蕲艾产业的各个环节上，但成绩还是初步的。它还只是李时珍医药宝库这座冰山刚刚打开的一角。未来，他们将在健康旅游和养生等方面，做更大的文章。

许多有实力的企业被李时珍医药文化品牌吸引，招商局集团、湖北联投等大型企业投入巨资，蕲春向着打造千亿元级的健康养生产业的目标迈进。（文/黄永明）

本刊供稿：王志勇 占小虎 王 晴吴 憾 陈 飘 熊慧玉李林清 高娇娇

Meanwhile, social capitals have been poured into the industry. New products such as Qi mugwort toothpaste, shampoo,shower gel, milk, and soap have been developed. The rise of e-commerce platforms has also helped to boost the development of Qi mugwort products.

Farmers collecting medicinal fruits 采摘药果

An Unprecedented Prosperity

The price of Qi mugwort leaves rose from 4 or 5 yuan per kilogram to 12 yuan. Over 1,100 Qi mugwort enterprises have introduced more than 20 series of 830 products, and continued launching basically one new product every week. The TCM industry in Qichun experienced an unprecedented prosperity.

Qichun people now pay special attention to the Li Shizhen cultural-pharmaceutical brand. A whole industry chain of planting bases, product research and development, art design, and marketing has formed. The county has been awarded the title of the“Capital of Chinese Mugwort” by the China Association of TCM.

Qi Mugwort Health Care Supermarket蕲艾健康精品超市

In 2017, the comprehensive output value of the Qi mugwort industry reached 3 billion yuan.China Brand Building Promotion Association evaluated its brand value worth of 4.384 billion yuan, ranking second in China’s“Landmark Brand Products.”

Higher value was given to all aspects of the industry. However,the achievement was still preliminary, and just reflected but a small corner of Li Shizhen’s medical treasure house. In the future, Qichun people would take more actions in promoting the health tourism and health care industry

Now, many big companies and enterprises are attracted by the Li Shizhen cultural pharmaceutical brand. Large enterprises including the China Merchants Group and Hubei United Investment Group have invested here, helping Qichun move towards the goal of building a 100-billion-yuan health care industry in the near future.

(By Huang Yongming)

Xiongwu Gate in Qizhou蕲州雄武门