Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1039 Li Xiangqian said that they need to work harder this year.

Li Long was deliberately testing Keyum, wanting to see if this Uyghur guy with a strong Henan accent could get the large amount of meat he needed in just three days.

To Li Long's surprise, Keyum brought over the first truckload of cleaned beef and mutton the next afternoon.

Although this truckload of meat only weighed four or five hundred kilograms, it fully demonstrates Keyum's importance attached to this matter and his ability to complete this business deal.

“I went to the Old Street Market at noon to ask, and the current wholesale price for beef and mutton is 1.9 yuan for mutton and 2.1 yuan for beef,” Keyum and Li Long reported. “Should we calculate based on these prices?”

“Okay,” Li Long said. “I already said we’d go by market price.”

In winter, people buy cheap beef and mutton, which is almost used up. Nowadays, not many families have refrigerators, so fresh meat cannot be stored for long, making it more expensive than in winter.

normal.

Keyum and Li Long weighed the meat, and Li Long paid in cash without delay.

With over a thousand yuan in hand, Keyum felt relieved. Actually, he was a little worried that Li Long would settle the accounts after all the beef and mutton had been delivered, which would cause him some trouble.

Unexpectedly, Li Long settled the account on the spot, which completely eliminated his troubles.

He happily shook hands with Li Long, drove off, and went back to work. He had told Li Long that the meat arriving tomorrow afternoon would exceed one ton.

Li Long only had Sister Yang there. Fortunately, the others didn't live far away. The meat arrived late this time, so when they were looking for help, they asked two more people to come and help through the two temporary workers.

Li Long planned to finish processing all the meat tonight—he'd work overtime.

With the issue of raw materials for the dried meat resolved, Li Long felt relieved. All that remained was to wait for Keyum to arrive each day for inspection and handover of the meat.

Over the years, Li Long has dealt with all kinds of meat, and he can tell that the meat from Keyumula is of very good quality, fresh, and not the kind of old beef or mutton.

Therefore, Li Long didn't discuss the price and simply said to pay directly.

If both parties are willing to do this business and have the idea of ​​long-term cooperation, then things will be easier to handle.

In three days, Keyum delivered all the meat Li Long needed. After paying the rancher for the raw materials, he earned over a thousand yuan.

This only covers the cost of selling the hides—in reality, after deducting the price of the beef and mutton from the rancher, the cost of hiring someone to slaughter and butcher the meat, and the transportation fees, he barely makes any money.

But all those hides belong to him, plus the bones from which the meat was removed, and the offal—that's how Keyum makes his money!

He did a rough calculation and figured that if he disposed of all of these things, he could earn at least 2,500 yuan!
This is the benefit of hooking up with a powerful backer—this time there is a risk, but not a big one.

You might not be able to earn this much money in six months if you open a bubble tea shop!
Keyum was exhausted. There was still a lot of stuff piled up in the yard that hadn't been dealt with yet, and he would be busy for at least another three to five days.

But it was totally worth it!
He felt he could stick with Li Long's business forever; as long as Li Long continued to sell dried meat, he would definitely follow him!
Of course, the next thing to consider is where to get beef and mutton—the livestock market is the basic source. If you can't find someone you know well, then go to them.

Of course, Keyum's intention was still to find people he knew in the vicinity. Firstly, to help the herders he knew in the area earn some money, and secondly, to make these people owe him a favor. Besides, people he knew were quite easy to talk to at this time, and slaughtering sheep and butchering meat were practically free, very cheap.

Li Long was unaware of Keyum's thoughts. After receiving the meat and paying for it, he handed over the rest of the work to Sister Yang to coordinate.

The people were hired by Li Long, but Li Long didn't interfere with how the work was assigned or how the jerky was made; he didn't need to worry about that either.

Because Sister Yang was going to make beef and mutton, Li Long took Mingming and Haohao and drove to the Fourth Team.

After the snow melts, the grass sprouts begin to emerge. Tiny, pointed reed shoots peek out from the cut reed stubble in the reed ditch, looking like thousands of arrows shooting into the sky, which is quite amusing.

Some mischievous children went straight into the reed ditch and pulled out the reed shoots to play with.

The water in the reed ditch has receded. Although the ground under the reeds is still wet, it is not sticky and can be stepped on.

Actually, there's not much fun in it. A child takes a big bundle, holds it in his hands, and throws it like an arrow.

This thing is top-heavy and can't be thrown very far, but the kids still enjoy playing with it.

Li Long drove Mingming and Haohao to his older brother's house first. Du Chunfang and Li Qingxia were both there, and they were overjoyed to see Mingming and Haohao arrive. Li Long asked the elderly couple to look after Mingming and Haohao while he drove to Tao Daqiang's house.

When the topic of beef and mutton was brought up, Tao Daqiang shook his head and said he couldn't do it.

“You need a big yard to do this. You need a place to slaughter the cattle and sheep after you buy them. Brother Long, your old horse stable will do, my yard won’t do. Besides, my kids are still young, and I can’t keep running around like I used to…”

Tao Daqiang has completely transformed into a family-oriented good man, always considering the family's situation in his words and actions.

Li Long had actually thought of it, but he just came over and mentioned it to Tao Daqiang.

When talking about other things, Tao Daqiang was quite happy. After all, his family was well-off now, his father was in good health, his wife was capable, and his child was growing up and had started preschool. The child was very well-behaved and was starting to look like a father.

"Our child will be six years old soon, and we plan to have another one then." Tao Daqiang said this frankly, without hiding it from Li Long. "Whether it's a boy or a girl, having two is better."

The policy is there, and you should have one if you can. In fact, according to Tao Daqiang and Yang Pingping, even if the policy didn't allow it, they wanted to have one secretly, even if they had to pay the fine.

In the northern Xinjiang region, specifically in Ma County, people generally respect laws and regulations. The implementation of these laws, starting from the township level, is quite civilized; there are no incidents like demolishing houses or seizing cattle.

Of course, it's also because there's a lot of land, and people can make money from it, giving them enough confidence to pay the fines.

Li Long chatted with him for a while, then drove to find Xie Yundong.

Xie Yundong was in the same boat, too busy to handle everything. He made it clear that he also didn't want to directly partner with Li Long.

“You assign tasks, we do them, like making brooms, we get paid per piece, then we know exactly what we're doing.” Xie Yundong said this in addition to mentioning the same issue as Tao Daqiang, “But if it's like a business partner, conflicts are bound to arise. We're all on the same team, our relationship is getting better and better, but we don't really know how things will develop in the future.”

But as things stand, things are definitely going to get better, and I don't want us to turn into enemies over some small issues later... that's not worth it."

Li Long didn't expect Xie Yundong to take this so seriously... In fact, he had already made it clear that with the increased demand for beef and mutton in his jerky business, the suppliers could earn several thousand yuan a month just from supplying beef and mutton.

But Xie Yundong didn't consider making money first; he was concerned about relationships.

“Actually, your old horse farm is so big, you can raise more sheep. Then you can cycle them out... I think the old horse farm can easily raise over a thousand sheep.” Xie Yundong said, “You still have some undeveloped saline-alkali land left, you can build another big pen there.”

Old Luo and his group are still quite active. Yang Laoliu and his two or three men can easily take care of the cattle and sheep they have now. If you buy some more and raise them, two or three thousand lambs a year should be enough, right? Even if you get more from outside, it won't cost much.”

What Xie Yundong said is a good approach.

The newly built pen at Lao Ma's place hasn't been fully utilized. Moreover, because there's plenty of hay after spring, most of the sugar residue that Song Ming brought over has been dried and stored, and there's still quite a bit left over.

Uncle Luo and the others have started suggesting to Li Long that they might sell the sugar residue as concentrated feed.

Even if it only sells for a few cents per kilogram, that's still a lot of money—mainly because I've saved quite a bit.

Li Long thought that he could indeed buy a few more batches of cattle and sheep from the livestock market. There was still a lot of wasteland in the wild, and it wouldn't be a problem to graze several thousand cattle and sheep—as long as they were scattered and let loose, in groups of several hundred, they could easily be accommodated.

As for winter feed—for several thousand cattle and sheep—it was almost all used up by the time winter arrived.

This leads back to the same old cycle—in the end, do I still have to slaughter the cattle and sheep myself? I only hired Keyum to be lazy.

“Okay then,” Li Long thought for a moment and said, “I’ll go to the livestock market and buy a batch of cattle and sheep, the better ones, and put them in the pen, where Uncle Luo and the others will keep them. Then, every month when I need beef and mutton, you guys will help me slaughter them—after all, Halim and the others will move their herds around in April and May.”

So you'll have to help me then. As for whether you want meat or money, that's fine with me, right? It can't just be a simple favor, because this might happen every month or two.

Li Long had anticipated that Huang Lei and Zhao Hui could currently afford to buy dried meat every month, indicating that the market there had clearly been developed and was likely already expanding.

Therefore, the amount of dried meat will definitely increase over time.

Keyumu can currently serve as the main source of raw materials, but we'll need to consider adding other ingredients later.

Firstly, it prevents us from putting all our raw materials in one basket, and secondly, it saves us trouble.

Xie Yundong said with a smile:

"That's no problem at all; all of us can handle it."

When Li Long left Xie Yundong's place and went to Liang Dacheng's, his story changed. Since he had already discussed things with Xie Yundong, the next thing to talk about was buying cattle and sheep and helping with the slaughtering.

Liang Dacheng was naturally no problem with it; even if there was no profit, he was happy to just help with the slaughter.

After all, Shuangcheng is doing incredibly well at the purchasing station now. Every month when he comes back, there's a change. He's become much more cheerful, less restless when doing chores around the house, and much more observant and attentive to his needs.

Because of this change, Liang Dacheng was grateful to Li Long.

They even considered sending the third son to the purchasing station—it's just that Li Long isn't buying them now.

After finally finishing his visit to Jia Weidong's house, Li Long had sorted things out. Tomorrow, he would take these people, including Uncle Luo and the others, to the livestock market across the Ma River to buy cattle and sheep.

But this time we won't be using tractors—we need Uncle Luo and the others to drive a large herd of cattle and sheep back, otherwise we'd have to find many vehicles to transport them, which would be too much trouble.

Li Long had previously worried that Uncle Luo and Yang Laoliu would be too tired from walking such a long distance. But when he told Uncle Luo and Yang Laoliu about it, they laughed at him instead, and in their eyes, Li Long was looking down on them.

“It’s less than 30 kilometers, what’s so far?” said Yang Laoliu. “There were fewer cars going from Wucheng to Shicheng before. When we traveled there, we could cover 50 kilometers a day… Although it was tiring, our legs were fine.”

Although I'm old now, I'm in good health. Even herding cattle and sheep, this twenty-odd kilometers would only take half a day.

Since the elderly folks were fine with it, Li Long was naturally fine with it too. He planned to follow them in his jeep, bringing water and food, and they could switch drivers along the way.

The trip was put on hold the next day before it even started—Li Xiangqian called and asked Li Long to come over to discuss something.

Li Long went over, and Li Xiangqian was in his office, asking about the road repairs.

"Spring has arrived, the snow in the mountains should have melted by now, right? What are your thoughts? When are you going to repair the road?"

Li Long thought that it was only a little past March, not even April. Even if the snow in the mountains had melted, the mud would still make it difficult to repair the roads.

But Li Xiangqian didn't think so. Once the snow melted in the plains, his work would proceed normally. However, since the busy farming season hadn't started yet, he could still gather a large group of people to work for a few more days.

If we send more people out to work in the mountains, we won't have the same fighting spirit.

Li Xiangqian has tasted the benefits of this in the past two years. The underhanded tactics are effective—the annual awards for outstanding units and individuals promoting ethnic unity can add a lot of points to one's score with higher authorities.

After all, ethnic unity has been highly valued by the higher authorities and the autonomous region since 1983, so Li Xiangqian has been quite successful in the past two years.

Having received benefits, Li Xiangqian naturally wanted to solidify this position. He even contacted Ma Xiaoyan, the county propaganda chief, who indicated that they would accompany them as long as they took action.

So everything is ready, and we're just waiting for Li Long to coordinate.

Li Long thought to himself, "I've never seen you in such a hurry before."

Li Xiangqian couldn't say it outright, but he had been in charge of the supply and marketing cooperative for several years, and he still had the ambition to improve himself.

Even if the position remains the same, a promotion in rank would be acceptable.

Li Long then carefully analyzed the current situation for Li Xiangqian:

"Thirty kilometers of mountain roads have already been repaired. The next step in road repair will require both machinery and manpower. The snow in the mountains should have just melted, so there's still a lot of mud and the ground isn't dry. Therefore, it will definitely be difficult for everyone to go and work there, getting covered in mud, which will look terrible."

So, in a few days, I'll go check it out in the mountains. If the ground is dry and it's easier to work, then how about we head out?"

Li Xiangqian naturally had no objections. Part of his work was to do something practical, and part was to get a small piece of his name in the newspaper. As a leader, it wouldn't look good if he ended up covered in mud.

Having accepted Li Long's explanation, Li Xiangqian asked him about his recent situation. Li Long mentioned making dried meat, and Li Xiangqian thought that if they made more in the future, their supply and marketing cooperative could purchase a batch as a special product to be sent to the state cooperative.

Li Longzhi said that there weren't that many goods right now, and he would wait until the raw material supply was secured before expanding his business further.

Actually, the health permit and everything else have already been obtained. He's also thinking of finding a larger, more specialized place to do this. After all, doing it in his own yard all the time is a bit too smelly and noisy.

Especially considering that if we want to continue to grow and strengthen our business in the future, we will definitely have to separate.

“If you’re talking about a yard, the supply and marketing cooperative does have a warehouse over there. If we renovate it, it should meet your needs. Can we lend it to you for a while?” After learning about Li Long’s dilemma, Li Xiangqian thought for a moment and said, “Anyway, that warehouse is just for temporary storage of supplies, and it’s not of much use right now.”

Li Long didn't want to use it.

"What? You've gotten picky?" Li Xiangqian joked. "Am I the one chasing after you?"

"No, I was thinking of buying a yard. Borrowing is still a bit... uncomfortable."

Li Xiangqian was a little confused. This was borrowing, not renting. Li Long was an employee of the supply and marketing cooperative; he could borrow it with just one note.

Li Long, on the other hand, insists on buying one.
He didn't know that Li Long, who had lived two lives, was quite persistent about buying a house with a courtyard, even though he had no intention of getting involved in the real estate industry.

After all, after the cooperative was established in the previous life, many people owned two or three houses in the county, Shicheng, the prefecture and Wucheng, so they had a place to stay wherever they went.

It costs money, but it's really convenient.

“That warehouse belongs to the government, so I can’t sell it to you on my own.” Li Xiangqian shook his head. “Then you should ask around for suitable courtyards nearby. Anyway, there are quite a few old courtyards in your northern part of the city, and there are still people who don’t want to live there.”

This is the truth. Decades ago, Beicheng was a suburban area, located next to the ancient city wall and north of the Shaanxi Guild Hall.

Some landlords built courtyards here, and more were built after the liberation. The courtyards varied in size and were not chaotic, but there were quite a few. It was relatively easy to buy a suitable courtyard here.

It wasn't time for demolition yet, so no one was trying to raise prices. These old courtyards weren't worth much, and if Li Long wanted to buy them, the daily profit from the purchasing station could buy several sets.

After leaving the supply and marketing cooperative, Li Long saw that it was almost noon, so the matter of buying sheep was obviously out of the question. He called the family of the eldest brother in the team and asked his father to ride his bicycle over to tell Uncle Luo and Xie Yundong that the matter of buying cattle and sheep would be postponed until tomorrow.

The important business is more important; one more day won't make a difference.

(End of this chapter)