One day in May Juche 87 (1998), Chairman Kim Jong Il asked his driver to pull up the car on a low hill in Taebaek-ri, Changdo County, Kangwon Province, on his inspection trips to military units of the People’s Army.
Saying to his entourage that he stopped the car to take a rest after a long journey, he feasted his eyes on small paddies in tiers on the ridge along the road.
After a while, noting that most of the fields consist of small patches, he told the officials that he had had a plan to rezone the land in the province and now it was the time to carry it out.
The officials were so surprised, as the country was undergoing difficulties at that time.
But, with a firm confidence that nothing would be impossible if he believed in the people and mobilized their inexhaustible strength, he presented the grandiose plan for land realignment in Kangwon Province.
According to blue print, the gigantic project for rezoning the land kicked off in Taebaek-ri, Changdo County. During the short period of over ten years since then, hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in Kangwon, North and South Phyongan, South Hwanghae provinces, Pyongyang Municipality and Nampho City were transformed into standardized fields as befits the land of socialist country.
