the soil is sterile and the people are poor
Poor land and poor people, Chinese idiom, Pinyin is d ì J í m í NP í n, meaning poor land and poor people. It comes from Liu Dakui's the preface of sending you to change Sun Jun's appointment to Fengyang in Qing Dynasty.
Idiom explanation
The land is barren and the people are poor.
The origin of Idioms
Liu Dakui of the Qing Dynasty wrote the preface of sending Fu to order Sun Jun to change his post to Fengyang: "at first, the land was poor and the people were poor, and the more troublesome it was, the more negative it was, and the longer it was, the more difficult it was."
Idiom usage
Example these achievements were performed in the border areas of Israel, and unexpectedly We can make the people free from hunger and cold and move towards a well-off life. Jiefang Daily, April 28, 1946
the soil is sterile and the people are poor
the pine and the cypress are the last to wither - sōng bǎi hòu diāo