Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1041 New Harvest in the Mountains
In the end, Li Long didn't give the things to Jia Tianlong—they didn't want them anyway.

However, Li Long had also thought about it. He couldn't just take Lao Jia's things for free. He planned to pick out a piece of good quality jade from his harvest when he had some free time in a few days, take some photos of the jade that Lao Jia was worshipping, and take the jade and photos to Engineer Liu so that Engineer Liu could carve it out as a miniature version.

When the time comes, we'll give this jade to Jia Tianlong. Even if he knows it's carved and not natural, at least it will be something to remember him by.

It's not about how much the jade is worth; the main thing is that Lao Jia is obsessed with this piece of jade, and since I can't give it to him myself, I'll give him a smaller version instead.

Of course, this was just Li Long's thought; he didn't tell Lao Jia.

Jia Tianlong's original intention was simply to come and pay homage to the jade, hoping for good luck and peace of mind.

However, Jia Tianlong's wife was particularly enthusiastic towards Mingming and Haohao after worshipping the jade, and even asked Mingming and Haohao to guess whether she was carrying a younger brother or sister.

"Brother!"

"It's my younger brother!"

Although Ming and Hao didn't speak in unison, their answers were the same, which surprised Jia Tianlong and his wife.

Jia Tianlong had already given the gifts he brought to Li Long. Hearing this, he seemed to have received some kind of revelation. He immediately took out a thick wad of ten-yuan notes from his black bag, divided them into two bundles, and stuffed them into the hands of the two children, saying with a slightly excited tone:

"When your aunt gives birth to your little brother, your uncle will come over and give you big red envelopes!"

Li Long thought to himself that this shouldn't be the case. He hadn't taught his two children to say that, and it was highly likely that Sister Yang wouldn't either, especially since Jia Tianlong's arrival had been rather sudden.

But the children all said it together—and they said the same thing.

Can a child that big really see anything?
Only after Jia Tianlong and his family left did Li Long seriously ask Mingming and Haohao, and the two children replied that they hadn't seen anything, they just guessed that Uncle Jia and Aunt Jia really wanted a child, so that's why they said that.

"How do you know they want a baby?" Li Long thought to himself, "These two haven't made it obvious. What can a three-year-old tell?"

“I heard them worshipping that jade stone,” Mingming said.

"I heard it too!" Hao Hao raised his hand as well.

Well, it seems the two kids really did inherit their good hearing. Is that... a good thing?
It should be pretty good, right? It's just that I'll have to be careful if my wife and I do anything like that in the future.

Before leaving, Jia Tianlong sampled the jerky Li Long had made, but he wasn't particularly interested. He had already made a fortune from the medicinal herb business and had no interest in anything else—his most important task right now was to ensure his wife's pregnancy went smoothly and see if, as Mingming and Haohao had said, she would indeed give birth to a child.

Li Long packed a bag of dried meat for him to take back with him, so he could eat it himself or give it away; it was a rare treat after all.

Jia Tianlong didn't stand on ceremony and left with them. Before leaving, he chatted briefly with Li Long, saying that he would come back in a while when the fritillaria bulbs came down.

Currently, both Li Long's and Chen Hongjun's purchasing stations have some medicinal herbs, but they are not yet large-scale, and Jia Tianlong has no interest in purchasing them.

Li Long was speculating whether Sun Benchuan's matter had caused some problems with Jia Tianlong's sales channels, so he wasn't in a hurry.

However, Li Long didn't think it was a big problem. The reform and opening up had been underway for almost ten years, and China was in a period of great development. State-owned pharmaceutical companies were also experiencing rapid growth, and the demand for Chinese medicinal herbs was increasing significantly abroad, especially in China's neighboring countries like Japan and South Korea.

So there's no worry about selling them.

After Jia Tianlong left, Li Long finally had some free time. After breakfast, he drove his jeep into the mountains.

Li Long drove slowly as he turned from the Mahe River onto the Qingshui River, observing the surroundings as he drove.

The roadside grass has already grown, the road surface is completely dry, and there are no difficult places to walk on.

There was no one working in the fields yet, but people or horse-drawn carts were on the road from time to time, probably heading to the county town.

When Li Long was almost at Qingshuihe Village, he ran into Meng Hai, who was driving a tractor.

The jeep and tractor stopped almost simultaneously, staggered their positions, and parked on the side to clear the middle of the road and prevent people from being blocked when they passed by.

"Comrade Li Long, I was just on my way to the county to find you. What brings you... into the mountains?"

"Yes." Li Long got out of the jeep and shook hands with Meng Hai. "You came to see me about the road repairs?"

"Yes. It's completely dry outside now. I took some people into the mountains these past two days, and it's almost dry there too. Most of the roads we repaired withstood the test of winter, but a small portion were damaged by the snowmelt floods in the spring and need to be repaired and reinforced."

Old He and I thought we should take advantage of the fact that the ground temperature hasn't risen yet in early spring and do some repairs first, otherwise the team won't be able to spare so many people when it's time to plow and sow.

"You've seen it all?" Li Long was a little surprised. Meng Hai was more proactive in doing this than he was.

"I've seen it. Not only me, but Lao He and many others in our team have also gone to see it." Meng Hai said a little embarrassedly, "It's almost spring, and the team was thinking of making some money by repairing the road before planting, so that we could earn enough money for agricultural supplies, and then we wouldn't be so stressed when it came time to plant."

Li Long laughed. This was normal.

Currently, people are not used to borrowing money from rural credit cooperatives. However, as they accumulate more land, every spring, or even around the Spring Festival, some people will start to seek loans from rural credit cooperatives to buy agricultural supplies, and then repay the money after the autumn harvest.

Even after the market economy was established, the grain bureau and some cotton processing plants directly connected with rural credit cooperatives. Once the cotton was sold, the farmers would only receive an IOU, while the money would go into the rural credit cooperative's account.

The rural credit cooperative directly deducted all the money it had lent out at the beginning of the year, along with the interest, and left the rest in the farmers' bank cards.

The cycle repeats itself, and it always feels like a significant portion of the money earned from farming throughout the year ends up as interest.

However, with low agricultural product prices, they can't be sold at a good price, so this is something that has to be done.

Unless cotton prices suddenly and unexpectedly surge in a particular year, the money earned that year would be substantial enough not only to pay off loan interest but also to leave a considerable sum behind.

Then, the following year, there will be virtually no need to take out loans to buy agricultural supplies.

However, most people are greedy. They think that if cotton prices are high in the first year, they won't be much lower in the second year, even if they are not as high as the first year. They simply use the money they make to contract more land, and in the end... you can imagine the result.

So at this time, although the villages of Sixiaodui and Qingshuihezi had better lives than other rural farmers because they had followed Li Long to do some side jobs, it was still quite difficult for them to buy agricultural supplies in the spring.

Earning one more is always a good thing.

“In that case, you can get ready.” Li Long thought to himself that the road really needed to be repaired. “I’ll go into the mountains today to take a look and deliver some supplies. If there are no problems in the mountains as you say, then the road can be repaired tomorrow or the day after.”

"Old Meng, you'll still lead the team, keep track of the number of people, and the wages will remain the same, paid daily. Your management fee will be the same as last year."

"Hehe, how could we possibly accept that?" Meng Hai rubbed his hands together, blushing as he smiled. "We've taken quite a bit of money from you."

"What's there to be embarrassed about?" Li Long patted him on the shoulder. "As long as the road is repaired, then it's alright. As for the road being washed away by the flood, that's normal. This year's flood is unusual; if not once in a hundred years, it's at least once in ten years."

"Some of the roads and bridges built by the county government were washed away, so it's already quite good that most of the ones you built can still be preserved."

Li Long didn't blame them for the road construction; instead, he comforted them, which moved Meng Hai. He patted his chest and said:

"Comrade Li Long, don't worry! I will organize the core team in the next two days to repair the damaged road and continue to expand into the mountains! Now that we know where the road is prone to erosion, we will learn from our mistakes and strive to prevent similar situations from happening again!"

Meng Hai's tractor also carried some local specialties for Li Long's family, mainly peeled small river fish, eggs, and live chickens in bags. Li Long asked Meng Hai if he had anything else to do in the county, and Meng Hai said he needed to go to the agricultural machinery factory to buy some parts, spare parts for the tractor, and diesel fuel. Li Long then told him to take the things he was carrying directly to the courtyard.

He didn't stand on ceremony, and Meng Hai felt it was only natural.

He brought such a big project to the team, including himself, so that the farmers in the team could have cash on hand when preparing agricultural supplies in the spring without having to borrow money. He is a great benefactor!

What's wrong with taking a few things? It's only natural!

And so, Meng Hai went north and Li Long went south, each on their own journey.

Once inside the mountains, the slight warmth that had just risen outside vanished. Although the sun was still shining brightly, it was very cool inside, and in some shady spots, you could even see patches of snow that hadn't completely melted.

The mountains have turned green, and occasionally you can see that the old garlic on the sunny slopes has grown two long leaves that are close to the ground. Some of them have even formed flower buds and are ready to bloom.

Early-blooming wildflowers, like dandelions, are blooming in sunny spots, vying to bask in the sunlight—the mountains are inherently cooler than the outside, and these plants are racing against time to develop quickly. Once their seeds are dispersed, their mission for the year will be accomplished, and the rest will just sit idle.

Let it grow however it wants. Even if livestock eat its leaves, it doesn't matter. As long as wild boars or something similar don't dig up its roots, it can continue to grow next year.

The jeep drove along the road, winding and turning. Li Long discovered that, just as Meng Hai had said, the road was completely dry, with no muddy spots. The stream in the valley still had plenty of water, probably because the snow in the inner mountains was gradually melting. Who knew when another heavy rain would come, and perhaps another flood.

When the jeep arrived at Halim's winter pasture, Li Long found that there were already flocks of sheep bathing there.

The sheep at Halim's house hadn't been washed, and he, his wife, and some others who came to help were shearing their wool.

When Li Long arrived, many people came over to greet him—several groups of sheep came here to have their sheep washed. After all, it would be a waste to use one pool of medicinal water to wash only one family's sheep, so Yushanjiang arranged for several families to wash their sheep together.

The sheep that came to be washed had already had their wool sheared. It's easiest to tell the condition of sheep after they've been sheared. Li Long could tell at a glance that these sheep were all quite plump and healthy, much better than the ones he had bought.

After greeting Li Long, the group helped unload the goods. They were all quite happy, mainly because they hadn't seen Li Long for a while and chatted happily about what had happened during that time.

For example, Talihar killed two wolves, one of which had a broken leg; it's unclear who it was fighting with when it got injured. A wild boar fell from the mountain near Bek's house, but didn't die. It alerted Bek's family and was killed by their sheepdogs. Yushan's sheep went missing, and when they found it, several wild boars were gnawing on it. Yushanjiang killed a wild boar, but the sheep's belly was ripped open and it couldn't be saved.

There were many things to discuss, and Li Long listened with great interest.

Although he knew that wild boars were omnivores and that they would eat the entrails of the animals he hunted, he never expected that wild boars would eat a sheep alive.

As for the wolf with the broken leg, it was either abandoned after losing a competition within the pack, or it was bitten by another wild animal. Almost no one sets animal traps in these mountains, so it's highly unlikely its leg was broken by one.

After Harim finished cutting one head, he herded the sheep into the pen, put down his shears, greeted Li Long, and then jokingly led him to look at the things in the spare room.

The herders who come to wash sheep have various harvests in winter, mostly wolf skins, and some deer antlers they find.

Deep in the Tianshan Mountains, there are many animals like red deer, and their total numbers are certainly large.

But when they're scattered in different places, it's a different story.

Each of these herders has a fairly large pasture area, which together constitutes a large region—although it is divided by some trees, streams, and rocky hills, the overall size is large enough that there are many good things to be found.

For example, the pair of deer antlers in front of him, each with six tines, was quite rare to Li Long.

Moreover, these antlers look very fresh; they must have fallen off last year. These things are quite expensive.

Of course, it's also nice to display at home; it looks very nice and imposing.

There was also a ibex skull—with two horns. This was the first time Li Longtou had ever seen such large ibex horns; the bones had about twenty-five or twenty-six segments, and they were long like two giant curved knives. They looked quite impressive.

The skull was also intact, leading Li Long to guess that it must have fallen off a cliff and died. If it had been hunted by wild animals, the skull shouldn't have been preserved so well.

In fact, Kazakh herders don't usually take these things, but since Li Long had previously shown a liking for them, they picked them up when they saw them.

The most common items were various kinds of furs—but nothing rare, mainly wolf skins, deer skins, wild goat skins, and so on.

Those rarer wild animals are not particularly easy to encounter.

The herders helped Li Long load the hides, antlers, and other items onto the truck, and then they drank milk tea—those who were working continued working; after all, the sheep couldn't just stop bathing after Li Long arrived.

Li Long, Yushanjiang, and Halimu discussed road repair while drinking milk tea.

“We have a lot of things to do here, so we can’t participate in the road construction,” Yushanjiang said frankly. “But when the road is being built, we can slaughter a few sheep.”

Li Long thought for a moment and said:

“When Director Li and his team from our supply and marketing cooperative come over, they can slaughter a sheep. Some people can come and help, but when others are doing the work, they don’t need to slaughter the sheep. Let them do the work.”

"Selling all this stuff you brought will be enough to pay for road repairs."

"How could that be possible?" Yu Shanjiang wasn't stupid. Although he didn't know how much it would cost to repair a road, with so many people working on it, the daily cost would be a very large figure.

He knew that the road repairs last autumn took more than a month, and they would be done again this spring, which would cost a lot of money—how much could these hides really sell for?
Li Long said with a smile:
"I really mean it when I say enough. The good stuff you brought last year really made a lot of money. Don't worry, it's really enough. You guys go about your business, don't worry about the road repairs."

Since Li Long had said so, Yu Shanjiang and the others didn't say anything more. Actually, they all had their own things on their minds. They were busy with their own tasks and couldn't help, but if the road was built, it would truly benefit their own tribe.

Let's gather more good stuff after we move to the mountains.

Li Long didn't stay in the mountains for long. Seeing that things were going well, he went straight to the supply and marketing cooperative after returning.

Li Xiangqian was about to leave work when Li Long came over. He had just finished tidying up his desk. When he saw Li Long come in, he called Li Long to go eat together.

"Everything's ready in the mountains; we can start working tomorrow," Li Long said. "When will our supply and marketing cooperative members arrive?"

“Tomorrow won’t work… We just finished arranging things for today and tomorrow in the meeting this morning.” Li Xiangqian locked the door and walked out with Li Long. When they reached the jeep, he said, “How about the day after tomorrow? I’ll make some arrangements this afternoon and also call the publicity department.”

Then he saw the ibex skull on the passenger seat and immediately said:

"Did you get this from the mountains? Give it to me!"

Li Long was a little reluctant, but after thinking about it, he took it out and handed it to Li Xiangqian:
"Director, I've never seen such long ibex horns before, they're truly rare!"

"Of course, otherwise how could I ask you for it? Consider it a favor I owe you... Alright, you can go now, I need to take it back quickly, this thing is troublesome to maintain, I need to get some materials..."

Alright, Li Long thought to himself, since the important business is done, it's time to prepare for my own things.

Of course, the most important thing to prepare is money. The day after tomorrow, when I take Meng Hai and the others to work, they will be paid in the afternoon. Of course, the people from the supply and marketing cooperative don't need to be paid, but their meals still need to be arranged.

Although Li Long had always hoped to be a hands-off manager, he still had to coordinate these matters.

There's no way around it, being too capable isn't always a good thing!

(End of this chapter)