Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1059 A big order has arrived, should we take it?

Li Long bought more than 200 kilograms of fritillaria bulbs from Mo Linsheng, most of which were dried and about one-third were fresh.

Li Long paid Mo Linsheng nearly 8,000 yuan, and Mo Linsheng calculated that he had made a profit of 1,500 yuan.

It's much faster to earn money than scavenging fritillaria bulbs yourself!
The main reason was that two people came to sell him nearly 100 kilograms of 80% dried fritillaria bulbs yesterday afternoon, which was the bulk of the sale. After selling the fritillaria bulbs, the two men didn't return to the mountain; they headed straight north.

"Actually, I was on guard against them robbing me. After all, I gave them quite a lot of money. But these two people didn't have any intention of robbing me at all. They seemed to treat me as your agent, took the money and left. I don't know what happened to them in the mountains."

Mo Linsheng slowed down his eating pace and said to Li Long as he ate, "I think there might still be something going on in the mountains."

Li Long unloaded the items from the car into the cabin, then put the fritillaria bulbs that Mo Linsheng had traded back into the car before saying to him:

"So, are you interested in doing this? Anyway, I have the supplies here, and I can't go into the mountains every day. You can help me exchange things, or just like these past two days. You exchange them, and then I'll buy them from you."

Mo Linsheng was somewhat tempted; there was actually little risk involved, but it was quite profitable.

But in the end, he shook his head and said:

"No, no, no, I think I still need to be in the mountains. I feel more free and unrestrained in the mountains. Here, I can't fully utilize my abilities. I don't like being trapped in one place."

Well, everyone has their own ambitions, and Li Long can't force him.

Mo Linsheng didn't rush to leave; he needed to rest for a while, so he had lunch at Li Long's place.

After finishing the steamed buns, Mo Linsheng was able to help Li Long with some work. By this time, some people had already spotted the jeep at the cabin and, knowing that Li Long had arrived, immediately came over to exchange money and goods.

They were somewhat surprised to see Mo Linsheng helping Li Long from the side.

No one asked or explained, but some people were already convinced that Mo Linsheng was definitely Li Long's agent.

They were thinking that when Li Long was no longer around, they could sell the items to this person, right?

Of course, they didn't know that Li Long had left, and Mo Linsheng didn't plan to stay here either.

Perhaps because he hadn't come for two days, Li Long kept changing the fritillaria bulbs from morning to afternoon.

Adding to the nearly 200 kilograms of fritillaria that Mo Linsheng had previously brought, Li Long had obtained nearly 500 kilograms of fritillaria in just half a day!
Fortunately, most of the contents were practical, and since Mingming Haohao wasn't there, they managed to squeeze in all the fritillaria bulbs.

For the first time, Li Long felt that the Jeeps were not enough.

He was thinking that after the fritillaria season ended, he might go directly to Wucheng to see if he could pick up a Daihatsu minivan.

Actually, it was possible to get a truck through connections, but Li Long didn't think much of it.

After helping Li Long pack the fritillaria bulbs, Mo Linsheng took most of the bag of cooked food back into the woods.

Watching that dashing figure disappear into the distance, Li Long thought it was pretty good. This guy certainly didn't lack money, and it was nice to be able to find the "freedom" he wanted while not lacking money.

Of course, this freedom seems to have gone a bit astray. Li Long guessed that perhaps this person still found fishing more interesting.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have given up the job of collecting fritillaria bulbs for themselves in this wooden hut.

Driving the jeep back cautiously, Li Long dared not drive fast, otherwise he was worried that he would swerve into the ditch.

The journey was slowed down, and by the time we got back to the county, the sun was almost setting.

The amount of fritillaria harvested today still surprised Gu Boyuan and his team. The county had also harvested a lot of fritillaria recently, but the mountains had harvested even more than the county.

Is this the peak season for fritillaria bulbs?
During dinner that evening, Gu Boyuan became somewhat worried.

"I'm worried that with so many fritillaria bulbs harvested this year, next year might be a slow year, and it might be difficult to harvest them."

"There's nothing we can do about it." Li Long didn't think too much about it. "If we don't buy fritillaria, we'll buy other things. I see there are quite a few people selling deer antlers today."

"Yes, we harvested over a hundred kilograms today, mostly old stuff. It's possible that some people went into the mountains and found some gullies that no one had been to before, and discovered some old things," Gu Boyuan guessed.

Since most of them were sold by middlemen, they didn't know where the deer antlers came from. Gu Boyuan didn't find out, and he wasn't too concerned.

"Well, there are many kinds of medicinal herbs in our Nanshan area, not just fritillaria. We buy more fritillaria now because it's more valuable. Actually, other herbs like astragalus, codonopsis, and aralia are also good. Old Jia buys them all, but the profit isn't as high as fritillaria."

Li Long went into the mountains for two more days. On the third day, he collected fewer fritillaria bulbs. He collected more than 300 kilograms in one day, most of which were only 60-70% dry and needed to be dried a second time.

There was a one-day break in between, and Li Xiangqian called him.

This time, I need his help with something.

Li Long went to the supply and marketing cooperative, and Li Xiangqian explained the details to him in the office.

"The manager of the county's medicinal herb company is a former classmate of mine. They still have over 200 kilograms of fritillaria bulbs left to harvest this year, and they'd like to borrow some from you." Li Xiangqian and Li Long didn't need to be polite when they spoke to each other.

"What price can he offer?" Li Long asked.

Although it was Li Xiangqian who came to ask about this matter, he had no intention of doing business at a loss, and he believed that the pharmaceutical company would not allow him to do business at a loss in order to complete its mission.

“They can offer 110 yuan per kilogram for top-quality quality.” Li Xiangqian had obviously already found out the details and said to Li Long, “This should be higher than your cost price, right? He said that if this price is acceptable, he would ask for your help.”

In addition, they harvested a lot of licorice this year. If you want some, they can sell it to you at their purchase price; it's about a few tons.

"Several tons? That much? What's the price of licorice?" Li Long was somewhat surprised.

His purchasing station also buys licorice, but in relatively small quantities. Li Long knew that Ma County was a major licorice-producing area, so he didn't know why they bought so little.

"Two cents per kilogram for bulk goods," Li Xiangqian quoted the price given by the medicinal materials company.

“That way, it can make up for a little bit.” Jia Tianlong quoted Li Long 35 cents per kilogram for licorice, which is not a low price. That’s 15 cents per kilogram, but if you really calculate it by the ton, you’ll only make 150 yuan per ton. Based on the price of fritillaria, that’s a difference of 7 or 8 kilograms.

It would take tens of tons of licorice to make up for it.

Never mind, I'll just consider it a favor to Director Li.

“Okay, sure. Have him prepare three tons of licorice for me, and I'll prepare two hundred kilograms of fritillaria for him, at his price.”

However, Director, I have to tell you the truth. You've incurred this favor, and you need to understand its value. I won't lose money on these two hundred kilograms of fritillaria, but I'll lose four thousand yuan in profit.

"Three tons of licorice, and I can only earn less than five hundred yuan here, not enough to cover it. He'll have to repay you a huge favor later, otherwise, this deal won't go through."

"So much?" Li Xiangqian was somewhat surprised. "In that case..."

He did indeed have something he needed to ask his classmate to do, and it was fair to say he was doing him a favor.

"Alright, I'll remember this favor and pay you back later." Li Xiangqian felt he had to do it. "You're not forcing me, are you?"

"No pressure. Director, I owe you a huge favor, how could I possibly repay it? Every year you insist on handing over this big broom to me despite everyone's objections, and I haven't really expressed my gratitude yet," Li Long said honestly. "So please don't mention it, I can't accept it."

What I mean is, you just need to know the value of this favor.

"Okay, I understand. I'll call him right away."

"Okay, we'll hand over the work then."

Two hundred kilograms of fritillaria bulbs are nothing to Li Long now. He can get just as much fritillaria bulbs from the mountains every day if they were sold as dried goods, so he doesn't care.

After getting things done with the medicinal herb company, Li Long barely had any direct contact with them. The manager was new, a different person from the one he used to work with when he sold Cynomorium songaricum, so they hadn't interacted much.

The other party wanted to have a proper talk with Li Long, but Li Long had important matters to attend to and declined.

The Beijing office of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of the Autonomous Region called. Li Long was at the purchasing station handing over licorice and fritillaria when he put down his work to answer the phone.

"Xiao Li," Director Dai called personally, "we received the dried meat you sent a while ago, it's very good. We have some events going on here recently, and we all agree that your dried meat could be given to our guests as a local specialty."

So, we're planning to order a batch of your dried meat. The first batch is tentatively 500 kilograms. Do you think it's possible to produce it and ship it over soon?

"Of course, no problem, Director Dai. Thank you so much. I didn't expect you to like our dried meat." Li Long was also a little surprised. He sent the dried meat to the Beijing office of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission simply to thank them for helping him protect those courtyards.

"Haha, the dried meat you sent is of good quality and tastes great. The packaging is also very nice, so we thought it was a nice gift," Director Dai said.

"I'll have my staff contact you about the specifics. This is business, so you can discuss the price, timing, and shipping method. Our friendship is one thing, but this is another."

"I understand now. By the way, the leader's secretary said the dried meat was good last time, so I was thinking of sending some more over this time. I'd appreciate it if you could arrange for someone to deliver some to them, Director." Li Long said hurriedly.

"Hey, you should have said so earlier! I knew it... Okay, okay, I understand." Director Dai's tone became noticeably more friendly after hearing Li Long's words. He continued:
"Don't worry about this, I'll handle it personally. And the price will be the market price you gave us; we can't let our own people suffer losses."

Next, a staff member contacted Li Long. After learning that the price of the dried meat Li Long was sending was twelve yuan per kilogram, the staff member readily agreed and even promised to cover the postage.

The money was transferred directly to Li Long's account, but because it was needed urgently, they hoped Li Long could send it out within a week.

Li Long had no problem. After hanging up the phone, he immediately apologized to the people at the pharmaceutical company and told them that there was an urgent matter at the Beijing office.

The people at the pharmaceutical company knew the importance of the matter and quickly told Li Long to handle it himself, while they would hand over the fritillaria bulbs to Gu Boyuan.

Li Long hurriedly returned to the courtyard and told Sister Yang about the mission.

"It's almost time to make jerky," said Sister Yang. "We still have ten days until the date agreed upon by Boss Huang and Boss Zhao, so we can make it ahead of schedule."

However, we're still short-staffed; we need to recruit more people.

"That's no problem. As long as the quality of the dried meat can be guaranteed, the Beijing office will definitely have a long-term business with us. Although the quantity is not large, it's stable."

"We also need to maintain good relations with Huang Lei and Zhao Hui," Li Long said. "You can handle the hiring. Pay them whatever you can, and if necessary, we can have them work overtime, but the quality has to be guaranteed. Your role should primarily be guidance."

We must be very careful about what we eat; there absolutely cannot be any hair in it. We must thoroughly check hygiene to ensure that nothing that shouldn't be in our products appears.

This dried meat business doesn't actually make much money, but Li Long still takes it seriously.

He believes that as long as they maintain quality, they will gradually grow and become stronger. However, if the quality suffers and their reputation collapses, it will be difficult to recover.

"I know, they all have to wear white hats now, and I wear one myself." Sister Yang knew that Li Long was strict in this regard, to the point of being a bit ruthless, and said, "I'm also a partner, I can't ruin my own reputation."

Li Long drove his jeep to find Keyum and asked him to send over a batch of meat as soon as possible.

When Keyum isn't in the beef and mutton business, he spends most of his time sourcing meat. Li Long didn't see him at the milk tea shop, so he told his brother-in-law about it.

Keyum's brother-in-law readily agreed, saying that his brother-in-law would come over at noon and would tell him then.

Keyum indeed took this seriously. He arrived at Li Long's courtyard that afternoon and said that cattle and sheep were already being slaughtered and a batch of beef and mutton would be delivered later that day.

Li Long was quite satisfied with Keyum's efficiency.

In the following days, Sister Yang was making dried meat and didn't have time to take Mingming and Haohao with her. Gu Xiaoxia was not too happy to let Mingming and Haohao go into the mountains because although the two children looked stronger after running around in the mountains, they were tanned. They weren't exactly as dark as charcoal, but they were noticeably darker than other children their age.

Li Long placed the two children in the Fourth Team. Actually, they could have been placed at the purchasing station, but the purchasing station was busy. Instead, Li Qingxia and Du Chunfang could take them with them when they had free time.

The team also has a preschool class with children aged three to six. They know Li Long, the teacher in the preschool class, so they decided to let them experience group life.

Du Chunfang was worried, so she sat outside the preschool and watched the children play.

Although the two children were only three years old, they were about the same size as four- or five-year-olds. They didn't bully others, were quite polite, and knew a lot. They quickly became the center of attention among the children.

This unexpectedly boosted the charm of the two children, which surprised Li Long.

He originally planned to send his child to the education bureau's daycare in September, but now he's getting the hang of it in advance.

It seems that the two children have adapted to this place quickly, which is good.

With the child's affairs settled, Sister Yang could finally focus on making jerky. Soon, after the first batch of jerky was produced, Li Long, after checking that it passed inspection, quickly sent it to the Beijing office of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission.

Huang Lei arrived before the second batch was even finished.

He came to collect dried wild mushrooms. Li Long happened to be out of the mountains and met him at the purchasing station.

"This year, the country issued its first set of 100-yuan banknotes." Huang Lei took out a 100-yuan banknote from his bag and said to Li Long, "It will be much more convenient for us to do business from now on."

Li Long took the hundred-yuan bill, examined it carefully, and said with a smile, "Yes, it used to be really inconvenient to carry so many ten-yuan notes. Now it's much better; tens of thousands of yuan can be carried in a small bag."

“Mr. Li, I was thinking, could we increase the amount of dried meat we make later?” Huang Lei got down to business. “To be honest, your dried meat is really popular where we're from.”

Some upscale restaurants have been asking me for supplies. But each order is several hundred kilograms, which I can't handle. I'm thinking of doubling the order volume. Price is definitely not a problem, and the payment method is negotiable.

"What, not satisfied with the dried wild mushroom business?" Li Long said with a smile. "You don't actually make much money from this dried meat, do you? I bet it's not as much as you make from the dried wild mushrooms."

"That's true, but dried meat is different. I supply the raw materials for dried wild mushrooms, but to be honest, it doesn't expand my network much. If I can make it, others can too."

But this jerky, because your meat is of good quality and tastes good, has a lot of people who like it. Mine is unique. We have plenty of beef where we live, and some people have tried to start this business and made jerky, but to be honest, they didn't succeed. People only recognize yours, so in this respect, what I've gained is more than just money.”

Huang Lei was down on his luck when he met Li Long, so he didn't mind telling Li Long the truth.

"So how much do you plan to spend each month?"

"At least two tons," Huang Lei said. "How about it? Can you produce it? I know this production volume won't be easy to expand, but I'm sure you can supply it."

Li Long figured the beef and mutton raw materials weren't a big problem. He could just hire more people to make it. The only issue was that the meat dried rather slowly, so simply air-drying probably wouldn't work. He'd have to get a drying machine from the Kuitun Agricultural Machinery Factory.

Moreover, after the dryer comes out, we have to test it first to see how to adjust it to the right time to dry it to the required degree. It can't be too dry, nor can it be half dry and half wet.

Of course, you can air dry it naturally while adjusting it; this can be done simultaneously.

At most, it would just waste some dried meat, and it can't really be called waste, since the dryness level is different. We can just keep it and eat it ourselves.

“Sure, but it will have to start next month. If you need a large quantity, it can’t be done entirely by hand; I’ll have to order machines.” Li Long also spoke the truth. “If it’s made entirely by hand and dried, it’s too much dependent on the weather, and I’m afraid it will be difficult to reach the quantity you need.”

"That's no problem, as long as the quality remains the same," Huang Lei said. "Now, let's talk about what the wild mushrooms are for?"

Li Long naturally had no objections. The price of dried wild mushrooms had increased somewhat this year, not by much, but because of the large quantity, it added up to a considerable amount.

Li Long calculated that the money he made from this batch of dried wild mushrooms was equivalent to the profits from two or three months of dried meat.

In the short term, dried wild mushrooms will still be the main product. However, this product is also highly dependent on seasonality, unlike dried meat.

Huang Lei also brought his car. Since he had exchanged for 100-yuan bills, he didn't bring a large bag. After checking the dried wild mushrooms with Li Long, he paid smoothly.

But he didn't leave. He checked into a guesthouse first, intending to wait until Sister Yang finished making the batch of dried meat before taking it away together.

Huang Lei hadn't left yet when Jia Tianlong arrived. He had been urged to come by Li Long. Li Long's warehouse had already accumulated more than four tons of fritillaria, plus the licorice he had exchanged with the medicinal herb company, and the large quantity of deer antlers he had recently received. If he hadn't come soon, the warehouse would have been overflowing.

　Thank you all for the donations. I'm traveling and can't thank everyone individually, so I'm sending my thanks here. I went back to the Fourth Team, and it was a bit of a surprise. I was planning to dig up that money pit after I retire to see if I'd missed any copper coins, but someone beat me to it. Yesterday I ate a three-kilogram carp caught from the large lake; it tasted great, cooked with wormwood, really good. They've added a safety railing to the small lake because so many students have drowned in both northern and southern Xinjiang this year, sigh.

　　Some book lovers said they wanted to come visit Xiaohaizi, which is great, but I probably won't be able to wait. I'll be going back to Yining in the next day or two, as my child is starting school.

　　The weather has been changing frequently lately, so please take care of yourselves.

　　In any case, thank you all for your continued support.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)