 Hu traveled widely throughout his time as general secretary, visiting 1500 individual districts and villages in order to inspect the work of local officials and to keep in touch with the common people.When he was sixty-five in 1971, Hu retraced the route of the Long March, and took the opportunity to visit and inspect remote military bases located in Tibet, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia.Hu was notable for his liberalism and the frank expression of his opinions, which sometimes agitated other senior Chinese leaders.