Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1061 How is Moheyan Made? - Li Jianguo Reveals the Secret

After kindergarten, Li Long picked up Mingming and Haohao, let his mother get in the car, and took them to his older brother's house first.

By this time, middle and primary schools had already let out for the day, and Li Juan and Li Qiang had already returned home—the team stipulated that the preschool classes would end a little later. Qin Hongyan received a salary, and it wasn't low, but she had to teach for an extra period of time.

This way, families with young children can stay in preschool a little longer until their parents come back from working in the fields to pick them up.

Qin Hongyan chatted with Li Long for a few minutes after school, and only breathed a sigh of relief after watching Li Long pick up the baby and leave.

She was a little hesitant to face Li Long, not because of past events, but mainly because when Li Long brought Mingming and Haohao in, he donated some toys to the preschool.

Some of these toys are still in the classroom, but she took some home for her son to play with. She didn't dare face Li Long because she was worried that he would ask her questions.

Li Long didn't care about all that. He believed that if the water was too clear, there would be no fish. He only cared about whether his child was having fun in preschool.

Actually, Mingming and Haohao were supposed to go to the county's preschool class—now called kindergarten—in September. The education system has its own preschool classes, but Gu Xiaoxia recently said that all such preschool institutions in the county are being uniformly converted into kindergartens, located on Wenhua Road in the county.

Li Long did the math and realized the distance wasn't far, which was good. Gu Xiaoxia said the kindergarten taught literacy and addition and subtraction, and also provided some musical instruments and toys, which was suitable for children of this age. He thought that his two children would be a little over three years old in September, so he could send them there.

Liang Yuemei had already prepared fish soup, steamed buns, and stir-fried leeks and eggs. The steamed buns were steamed directly on the side of the pot, so the buns that came out around the edge of the pot had a golden-brown, slightly burnt edge, which was something the children liked to eat at that age.

Li Long put his mother and two children down, and Liang Yuemei told the two children to wash their hands. Li Juan and Li Qiang were very happy to see Mingming and Haohao, and they teased them with steamed buns, which earned them a scolding from Liang Yuemei.

Mingming Haohao wasn't angry at all. This was the time when he liked to play with older kids, and he didn't think his older siblings were teasing him; he thought they were just playing around.

"My brother is still in the field and hasn't come back yet?" Li Long asked, seeing the tractor but not his older brother.

"The Fang family in the team planted tobacco leaves, and they called your older brother over to help. The team used to grow tobacco; Xiaoxia's father and your older brother learned from the technicians."

After that, no one in the team planted it anymore. Now, it's said that the Kuitun Cigarette Factory buys tobacco leaves, and the Fang family planted two mu of land, thinking that the dried tobacco leaves could be sold to the cigarette factory, and the tobacco stalks could be made into Mohe tobacco, so they planted it.”

"My older brother did this?" Li Long asked, somewhat surprised. "How come I didn't know?"

“You weren’t here yet when your older brother planted this,” Liang Yuemei said with a smile. “Let’s eat first. He should be back soon. Dad cast his net in the small lake today and caught a few kilograms of crucian carp. The fish soup is delicious.”

Li Long waited for Li Jianguo while drinking his fish soup; he was quite curious.

A dozen minutes later, Li Jianguo returned on his bicycle.

It's normal that I don't smell of smoke on me. The tobacco leaves should have just started growing and haven't been roasted yet, so how could I smell smoke?

Li Jianguo greeted Li Long, washed his hands, and then sat with Li Long at a small table outside, eating steamed buns in one hand and fish soup in the other, slowly.

"Brother, have you ever grown tobacco?" Li Long asked curiously.

"I've farmed before," Li Jianguo said with a smile. "I used to be a group leader in the production team. Back then, I had some autonomy, so I'd plant whatever made money. I farmed for two years. By the way, you know the land in the vegetable processing group, right?"

"I know."

"At the north end of that land, there was a tobacco curing house, and that place was used to grow tobacco. Later, they stopped growing tobacco and started growing vegetables, so that house started to be used to cure chili peppers."

"Then I remember now, the house was still there for the first two years after I arrived, but it slowly collapsed later." Li Long really remembered.

"If no one takes care of it, it will collapse."

"Is growing tobacco profitable?" Li Long asked again.

"Making money was easy back then. I do the math. Around the 1970s, you could earn over thirty yuan by growing one mu (approximately 0.16 acres) of tobacco and selling the tobacco leaves and stems to make 'mohe' cigarettes. That was quite a lot," Li Jianguo said with a hint of pride.

"That's quite a lot!" That was in the 1970s! "Why didn't they plant more afterwards?"

"Hey," Li Jianguo said with a hint of disappointment, "In my group, only Lao Gu and I have learned the technology. The others are lazy and don't work hard. They don't take good care of the tobacco leaves when they're drying. If they're not dried properly, the tobacco factory won't buy them, and we lose money, so we stop growing them."

Li Long nodded, knowing that this was indeed a technical job.

"Not only that, but also drying the tobacco leaves after splitting them, and keeping the tobacco stems to make 'Mohe' tobacco later, that's also a skilled job and requires a lot of effort. The team members don't learn properly, it's always just the two of us doing it, and they share the money, how can that be okay?"

Li Jianguo explained it simply, but Li Long understood what was going on.

My elder brother and father-in-law are both intellectuals; they learn quickly and have a good grasp of rules and standards, so they can learn effectively.

Others might rely more on the two of them, which naturally creates an imbalance between them, and eventually the matter is dropped.

I told Jia Tianlong this morning that the villagers here are not like those in his hometown, and now I've been proven wrong.

However, he didn't dwell on that; he was just curious about how Moheyan was made.

"That thing is made by cutting down the pipe and then doing two things. One is to put the coarser pieces in a wooden bucket and chop them into small pieces with an iron shovel, and then sift them. After sifting the small pieces, you continue to chop the coarser pieces."

Is this method of preparation really that crude?
Li Long didn't think it looked like it. After all, the particles of Moheyan he saw all looked like small cubes, not like they were randomly chopped up.

"There's another way, but it's more challenging. You make a frame out of several sticks, hold the cigarette sticks tightly in the middle of the frame, stretch them out, and after filling it up, use a plane to plan out the part of the cigarette sticks that's sticking out."

This is a technical job; each time, only a thin layer is shaved off. The shaved-off layer is then cut and processed to become raw tobacco for Moheyan.

That's more like it. Although Li Long didn't quite understand, he basically grasped the principle.

"Raw tobacco? Can't I smoke it?" Li Long didn't smoke Mohe cigarettes and assumed that what they were selling was raw tobacco.

"You can't smoke raw fish! You have to stir-fry it!" Li Jianguo realized that even his capable younger brother lacked common sense. He put down the bowl of fish soup and patiently explained:
"The smoke from raw wheat is too strong to smoke, and it doesn't smell good either. It has to be roasted, and it has to be done over a gentle fire, using the wheat straw left over after threshing, burning it over a small fire."

Stir-fry in a large iron wok; you can't use corn stalks or sunflower stalks, the heat is too intense. After stir-frying, it's not enough to just have a fragrant aroma; it also needs to be colored.

"How do you apply the color?" Li Long never expected to learn the complete Mohe tobacco making process from his older brother.

"Break a strong cup of tea, then spray it onto the roasted tobacco using a spray bottle or even your mouth, turning it over as you spray. Once you're done, the tobacco will look golden yellow. After it dries, it's ready to be sold."

"How much?" Li Long asked the final question.

“Sell it at a stall! How else can we sell it?” Li Jianguo thought his brother had dropped the spoon. “Eighty cents or a dollar a kilogram, of course no one can afford to buy so much.”

Those Uyghur men, with their headscarves wrapped around their necks, couldn't afford that many, so they could only buy a little bit, about a dime a day.

"That penny won't sell well, will it?"

“What’s so hard about selling them? He just opens his pocket, grabs a handful of coins for a dime, and gives him a stack of torn newspapers. You need newspapers to smoke Mohe cigarettes.”

Li Jianguo felt a little nostalgic. Now he smokes boxed cigarettes, which aren't as strong as Mohe cigarettes, but they smell better too.

But he misses the days when he was a team leader, working together with his team members to earn money. He used to be a heavy smoker back then.

"Is it possible to make money growing tobacco leaves now?" Li Long asked again.

"Sure. But the seeds the Fang family got are wrong. The orchid tobacco they're growing isn't really suitable for our area. I suspect they sent the seeds from overseas."

"This area is suitable for growing citrus tobacco. There are people growing citrus tobacco in the Tougong area to the south, but he doesn't know where to get the seeds. Besides, curing tobacco is a skill, harvesting tobacco leaves… sigh, that's a technical job. Judging from their appearance, I doubt they can manage it."

Li Long wanted to ask his older brother why he stopped planting, but after thinking about it, he understood. It wasn't that he didn't want to plant anymore, but that he didn't have the time or energy.

After all, my older brother has to farm his own family's land, his father-in-law's land, and some wasteland, and he also has to drive a tractor to plow the fields. How can he possibly manage all of this?
Growing cigarettes is a delicate job that requires a lot of effort, and currently, it seems that my brother's family is only suitable for growing crops that are easy to manage on a large scale in large fields.

So the question wasn't even brought up. After finishing the fish soup, it got dark, and mosquitoes started appearing in the yard. Liang Yuemei stuffed a handful of damp mugwort under the stove, and the smoke drove the mosquitoes away.

Li Long then took Mingming and Haohao back.

When Minghao left, he was still telling Li Juan and Li Qiang that he would come back tomorrow.

Watching the child formally say goodbye, Li Long found it quite interesting.

By the time we got back to the courtyard in the county town, it was already dark.

Sister Yang had finished her work. When Li Long returned, Gu Xiaoxia took Mingming and Haohao to wash up and go to bed. Sister Yang then told Li Long about the current situation.

"We've got enough beef jerky for Boss Huang, but it'll take a few more days to dry. His uncle said he wanted to get a drying machine, but I'm thinking that machine won't be here for a while. How about we build another room in the yard and convert it into a drying room?"

Otherwise, we're doing it at a sufficient speed, but it's slow and it's dragging down the schedule.

"Oh, and also, the meat delivery speed of Keyum is still a bit slow. It looks like we'll probably need to deliver some meat every day from now on."

After nearly half a year of training, Sister Yang has now developed the demeanor of a manager. She speaks about things in a very organized and methodical way.

“Okay, I’ll find someone to renovate the house over there tomorrow, and maybe turn it into two drying rooms,” Li Long said. “Do you think we should hire someone to look after the drying rooms? After all, once the machines are brought over, we’ll need someone to watch over them.”

"Not for now. My main responsibility is to prepare the seasoning for cooking the meat. There are other people watching over the heat and everything else. I'll take care of the drying room and the machines." Sister Yang shook her head. "Hiring someone specifically would be an extra expense, not worth it."

Sister Yang has treated this as her own business, and she is very meticulous in calculating expenses and costs.

In just the past six months, she has earned more than 5,000 yuan in commission from this jerky business. How could she not be interested in such a profitable business?
"Before I go to the mountains tomorrow, I'll go to Keyum and ask him to install a telephone so that it will be easier to contact me later," Li Long said. "If he can't supply meat there, then we'll use the beef and mutton from Lao Ma's own place."

Li Long initially thought that the cattle and sheep at Lao Ma's place were almost ready to be slaughtered. But now that there are continuous orders for dried meat, he has to change his plans and use the cattle and sheep at Lao Ma's place as reserve meat.

If something goes wrong on Keyum's side, at least we'll have a way to deal with it.

It won't be temporarily shut down. The livestock market on the Mahe side is currently spontaneous, and it will close during floods or other emergencies.

Many things are still undefined, so Li Long felt it was necessary to have a backup plan.

When Li Long returned to the house, Mingming and Hao Hao were already asleep. Li Long told Gu Xiaoxia about their experiences in preschool, and Gu Xiaoxia listened with great interest, completely unaware that Li Long's hand had already wrapped around her waist.

“Since you can adapt well there, you should be fine when you go to the county kindergarten,” she said. “I’ll just tell the people there to keep an eye on you.”

My mom's pretty funny; she kept watching.

"Yeah, I've been watching him. He said he didn't have time to watch me when I was little, so he can't miss the chance to watch Mingming and Haohao now."

"Hey, I really do favor you." Gu Xiaoxia had already noticed this. "It's just that my older brother and sister-in-law don't care so much. If we were in the homes of some narrow-minded people, there might be some conflicts."

"That's because I'm capable," Li Long said, kissing Gu Xiaoxia. "Otherwise, do you think my brother and sister-in-law would be willing?"

"You think you're so capable? I don't think so," Gu Xiaoxia retorted habitually.

"Hey? You underestimate me? Well then, I'll show you what I'm capable of..."

As they spoke, Li Long pulled Gu Xiaoxia into his arms and pressed her down.

"Be gentle..." Gu Xiaoxia muttered softly before her mouth was covered.

That night, Li Long was both terrified and excited. Mingming and Haohao, perhaps having eaten too much at their older brother's house, were restless in bed all night.

The next day, when Li Long got up, he wondered if he should separate the two children into different rooms.

If it's just one child, sleeping in separate rooms is definitely not an option. But if it's two children together, because they had a good sleep schedule when they were younger and rarely woke up at night, sleeping in separate rooms is feasible.

Otherwise, constantly stimulating each other like this isn't good either, as it's not conducive to a healthy sex life.

Li Long thought he should renovate the room first, and then talk about it.

After all, although the bed there was large, there was a hidden box underneath containing many things that outsiders did not know about, including those gold plaques, as well as some very high-quality raw jade and carvings.

If those two mischievous little ones were to find these treasures, they might cause quite a bit of trouble.

So let's clean the house first.

Of course, these things can be done slowly. After breakfast today, he will first go to find Keyum, and then go into the mountains. He hasn't been into the mountains for two days; those who trade fritillaria for goods and money there must be getting anxious.

Li Long first took Mingming and Haohao to the team, where his mother was already waiting at the preschool. After chatting for a few minutes, Li Long dropped Mingming and Haohao off, went to buy some things, and then went to Shicheng.

Since Keyum wasn't there, Li Long instructed his brother-in-law again, telling Keyum to deliver the meat today and wait for him to return in Ma County.

After making a round of shopping in Shicheng and buying some cooked food, including braised meat, Li Long headed into the mountains.

As Li Long passed by Qingshui River, he saw Meng Hai tinkering with a tractor by the roadside.

"I'm driving my tractor to push along this section of the road," Meng Hai said, waving to Li Long as he saw him.

"It's alright, go ahead and drive it," Li Long said with a smile. "Just take care of the maintenance when you're free. This tractor was bought to be used, so feel free to use it."

The Dongfanghong 75 tracked tractor is very durable. I think Wang Caimi's tractor must have been used for twenty or thirty years and it's still in use.

“Well, now that this period is over, I plan to take some of the team to repair another section of the road. There are still two or three weeks or twenty days of free time before the wheat harvest, and I want to make use of that,” Meng Hai said. “I still have some money left, enough to last for a while.”

“Okay, let me know when you’re ready to do it,” Li Long said. “I’ll come and take a look.”

After saying goodbye to Meng Hai, Li Long continued driving forward, only to notice that a plot of land by the roadside was planted not with conventional crops like wheat, corn, or sunflowers, but with tobacco leaves.

I hadn't noticed before, but now that I've paid attention, I've realized that there are quite a few people in the county who want to get rich and are trying to find ways to do so. It's not just about getting rich through agricultural machinery like tractors; there are also various sideline farming activities.

It makes sense when you think about it. Such a large county has a long history, so there must be a lot of techniques passed down from it.

Entering the mountains and turning to the wooden house, Li Long found that no one was there.

Well, it's alright. At least Morinson didn't stay here like last time.

Thinking about it, it wouldn't be bad if this guy could stay and help me harvest fritillaria bulbs, but he wants to seek freedom.

People who have read books are different; they have clear goals—of course, it's also possible that they turned to the dark side after being robbed.

Li Long only made a few complaints before starting to move things into the cabin.

It was good that no one was trying to break the lock. He moved his things inside and then just waited.

I thought that as soon as I appeared, someone would notice the jeep and come to exchange things, but it wasn't until noon that someone came from afar carrying a bag.

This person ran very fast when he came over, and then he told Li Long a message.

"Yesterday, a man on horseback, not the one who comes here often, probably a forest ranger, carrying a gun, confiscated the fritillaria bulbs from several people who came to exchange them!"

No wonder!
Li Long thought to himself, "This matter must be investigated!"
Logically speaking, the forestry team should know about him, so they shouldn't be so disrespectful to him.
what's going on?
(End of this chapter)