During a meeting with Zhou Enlai, Chen Yonggui was encouraged to create Dazhai's own production team.
After the victory of Deng Xiaoping over Hua Guofeng, Chen Yonggui, and others following the removal of the Gang of Four from power, his economic reforms has caused Dazhai to become a figure of ridicule, since it was so closely linked to Maoist communal agriculture and socialist propaganda.
In January 1975 Chen Yonggui was appointed a vice-premier of the State Council; in March he led a government delegation to Mexico; in September he delivered the keynote speech to the First National Conference for Learning From Dazhai in Agriculture, chaired by fellow vice-premier and next paramount leader Hua Guofeng.
Chen Yonggui, the patriarchal leader of the village, was put to the position of vice premier of the central government despite the fact that he was only semiliterate . ( Zhou Enlai was the premier of the time . ) Guo Fenglian, the Dazhai party secretary, was a favorite of Jiang Qing ( the wife of Mao Zedong ), and played a significant part in the Chinese political scene.