Until Mr. Xi’s visit this month, Shenshan (the name means “spirit mountain”) Village nestled in obscurity in the hills above the monuments venerating Mao and the revolution. The village, reached by a one-lane concrete road winding two miles through bamboo and trees, was unknown even to many residents of the region.

Still, officials took care to ensure that Mr. Xi’s visit was free of any discord.

About a week before he arrived, security officers encamped here to check homes, weed out troublemakers, and, according to several villagers, tell people not to say anything “irresponsible” to an unnamed senior leader who would soon visit.

“We were told not to talk about bad things,” said Wu Guilan, a sprightly 67-year-old woman. “We wouldn’t dare say anything like that anyway. I was afraid it would look bad to say something about our own problems in front of so many people.”

One problem that she did not mention, for instance, was how the courts had failed to deliver promised compensation to her son after his wife was killed by a reckless driver in 2013.

“But we wouldn’t dare raise our personal problems,” said the son, Luo Linhui. “We can’t spoil a leader’s visit.”

Officials also blocked residents of the back part of the village, where dozens of members of the Hakka ethnic minority live, from glimpsing Mr. Xi, residents said. The Hakka have long had tensions with other people in this region, and there have been feuds over land and forests.

There was to be no risk of Mr. Xi seeing any such flare-ups.

“We weren’t allowed to go to see him,” said Lai Yuanlong, a 40-year-old Hakka farmer, leaning over a smoky wood fire in his drafty home. “Nobody here was on the list. But he’s also our leader.”