An ancient hamlet deep in the Taihang Mountains in Shanxi province that was once home to a military base has taken advantage of its isolation to beat poverty.

With 286 dwellings, Shangwu village in Zuoquan county enjoys tranquility, fresh air, a cool climate and a pristine environment. Communist Party of China forces took advantage of its remote location during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and used it as a base.

The road that has connected Shangwu to the outside world since 1985 was upgraded in April and the village has become a base for cycling tours. Some riders travel 480 kilometers from Beijing to enjoy the tranquil location.

Villager Liu Cuiping operates a two-bedroom homestay and has benefited from the tourism boom. The county government provided her with a 20,000 yuan ($3,026) subsidy to decorate her homestay rooms.

Liu said the business didn't resume until July due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, but the monthly income from the homestay has stayed above 1,000 yuan since then－a large amount for villagers who had lived on less than 7 yuan a day for generations.

Liu Junfei, the village's Party secretary, said corn and millet farming were the main sources of income. In mid-2014, more than 60 percent of the village's 711 residents were still living in poverty, and many families did not have flushing toilets.

Liu Junfei said it was hard for villagers to change their traditional crops, but some had to because of poverty.

It was a "rewarding option" and the villagers diversified to plant peaches, plums, apricots, grapes and walnuts as well as vegetables and other cash crops.

The farmers sell the agricultural produce directly to tourists or online, saving logistics costs.

The villagers now run 20 homestays and three family inns and restaurants. Men go to work in cities as migrant workers, Liu Junfei said, and the women stay home to take care of the children and work in the tourism and catering sectors, while also collecting herbs to increase family incomes.

"The village will hold the 'bowl of tourism' in the future," he said.

Neighboring Zecheng village has taken the same development path and now has 37 homestays.

Wen Zhixian, deputy head of the Zuoquan county government, said it is calling on residents to tap into the well-preserved natural environment and picturesque landscape of the Taihang Mountains to develop the tourism and catering industries.

The two villages are perched in a 58-km-long valley known as the Taihang Gallery. A road meandering through it connects the villages to the outside world, and locals compare it to an artery for tourism.

Wen said the county government has planted about 288,000 gold-leafed trees of various types on the mountain slopes on both sides of the road in bid to make it a popular route for self-driving tourists and sightseeing cyclists.

To attract tourists and make full use of the area's unique folk song culture, the county government also hosts a folk song party every year.

Liu Erping, director of the county publicity department, said Zuoquan seeks to breathe life into its tourism and make such development more sustainable by holding the folk song activities.

Apart from tourism and cash crops, photovoltaic power generation is another source of income to lift residents out of poverty.

In Lianbi village, which is located on a rugged mountain slope, farmers had lived a hand-to-mouth life for generations before the road was extended to it about 10 years ago.

Guo Yinglin, 64, the village Party secretary, said it now takes less than 20 minutes to reach the county seat by car. In the past, some villagers had never visited it because the journey involved a walk of at least two days.

On the mountains where the land is too infertile to farm, government guidance and subsidies have encouraged villagers to install solar panels. Guo said the "little golden suns", which are connected to the State grid, generate about 1 million yuan each year for the village.

"The 'sun-given' money is exclusively spent on caring for the sick, disabled, low-income and widowed elderly in the village," he said. "Each needy family receives 3,000 yuan a year from it."

Since 2016, the country has invested more than 300 million yuan building dozens of village solar power stations, with an installed gross capacity of 80.27 megawatts, which make full use of the barren mountains and benefit 129 formerly poverty-stricken villages.

Nine years ago, over 20 percent of Zuoquan's 165,700 residents lived in poverty. Thanks to the alleviation efforts, the county put an end to abject rural poverty by April last year.