Hinton spent eight months working in the fields in the day and attending land reform meetings both day and night, and during this time he took careful notes on the land reform process. He assisted in the development of mechanized agriculture and education, and mainly stayed in the CPC-ruled northern Chinese village of Changzhi, forging close bonds with the inhabitants. Hinton aided the locals with complicated CPC initiatives, especially literacy projects, the breaking up of the feudal estates, ensuring the equality of women, and the replacement of the imperial-era magistrates that governed the village with councils in a symbiotic relationship with the landed gentry class. Hinton took more than one thousand pages of notes during his time in China.