Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1072 Preparing to Hire Long-Term Workers

After Chen Hongjun left, Li Long planned to rest for a few days.

During the period of collecting fritillaria bulbs, he was running around everywhere, almost non-stop.

Now that the fritillaria season is over, although the purchasing station still receives a considerable amount of fritillaria every day, this is no longer something he needs to worry about. No longer needing to go into the mountains for daily point-to-point purchasing, life has suddenly become much easier.

He originally wanted to sleep in with his wife, but Gu Xiaoxia had to go to work, and the two boys in the next room got up early, dressed, and clamored to go to preschool.

Life goes on, so Li Long's desire to sleep in can only be fulfilled on weekends.

So he simply took Mingming and Haohao to the fourth squad and planned to stay there during the day.

After dropping Mingming and Haohao off at preschool, the two boys never intended for them to stay. After getting out of the car, they simply waved "Goodbye" to them and ran into the classroom.

Li Long got out of the car and saw his mother slowly walking towards him, so he went over to help her and asked as they walked:
"Mom, where's Dad?"

“He went to Xiaohaizi. He wanted to go to the fields with your older brother and the others, but your older brother wouldn’t let him, saying there wasn’t much work to do in the fields now, and weeding could be done with a cultivator.”

"Did my older brother and sister-in-law go to the fields?"

“No, your older brother went to plow the fields for someone, and your sister-in-law is planting vegetables in the garden,” Du Chunfang said as she walked. “Your sister-in-law is quite capable. She can do all the work in the fields and the vegetable garden, but she doesn’t really do much housework…”

Li Long smiled.

It's unclear whether this reflects the mother-in-law's dislike for her daughter-in-law or simply Du Chunfang's habit of chatting with Li Long about everyday matters.

"Mom, be content. Back in our hometown, there are plenty of people who know how to clean houses, but it's hard to find someone as capable as my sister-in-law."

Li Long comforted his mother, who smiled but didn't say anything. She knew that life here was indeed better than back home. Her eldest son's wife was excellent, but she wasn't family, so there was always a distance between them.

Du Chunfang arrived at the preschool and sat down by the flower bed. She habitually sat down, as she was naturally cold and didn't mind the sun. Li Long found a cushion in the car for her to sit on, but she refused.

"Why sit there? I'll just sit on this muddy platform. It'll get hot here soon." Du Chunfang didn't want to sit on the cushion, but Li Long felt that the cement platform was cool and hard, so he put the cushion on the platform, helped his mother sit down, greeted Qin Hongyan who was coming to work, and then drove to his older brother's house.

The older sister-in-law was weeding in the vegetable garden when Li Long drove the car into the yard, greeted her, and then went to the front yard.

I've planted vegetables in my own garden; some are seedlings that sprouted from seeds, and some are transplanted seedlings. The chives look like they're growing well, and the celery that I didn't harvest last year has also sprouted, tender and quite vibrant.

Every now and then, the team releases water from the small lake to irrigate the vegetable gardens of the residents in each settlement. That's one of the benefits of having the small lake.

In other villages, where there is no reservoir, they would have to either draw water from wells or find water from other channels.

Seeing that the seedlings were a bit weak, Li Long went to the south side and broke off some bitter bean plants that had grown to about ten centimeters tall from the edge of the field. He brought back a large bundle of them and stuck them one by one next to the seedlings to help shield them from the strong midday sun.

After planting, I went to the well to pump water, and then I picked up the bucket and started watering.

Normally, the seedlings are watered in the afternoon, but Li Long rarely remembers to do chores, so he hasn't paid much attention to it. Besides, the seedlings are all protected by bitter beans, so he's not worried.

After watering the seedlings here, Li Long carried the remaining bitter beans to the backyard to cover up the seedlings in his older brother's house as well.

"Hey, Xiaolong, you're still thinking about this?" Sister-in-law Liang Yuemei smiled as she watched Li Long plant bitter beans. "It's alright, the seedlings have grown up. We'll water them this afternoon, so they won't get sunburned."

"I was thinking of watering it now," Li Long said while planting bitter beans. "I'm going back to the county this afternoon."

"This job doesn't depend on you," Liang Yuemei said. "Just do your job well in the county. By the way, how's Xiaoxia's work going?"

"It's fine." After Li Long finished planting the bitter beans, he went to pump water. This well was considered relatively deep at this time, and the water quality was good. While pumping, he covered the mouth of the pump, drank a few mouthfuls first, and then put the water into the bucket.

"Whose land is my elder brother plowing for?" Li Long asked as he watered the seedlings with a bucket in one hand and a ladle in the other.

"The Wang family is thinking of taking advantage of the current situation to develop more land. They have developed a lot of land, obtained contract certificates from the township, and even paid money."

Your older brother was saying yesterday that if things don't work out, we should open some too. Otherwise, he'll take all the good land.

“We’re not opening any more land now. You two have almost a hundred acres of land already, right? How can you possibly cultivate all of it?” Li Long disagreed with opening any new land.

The eldest brother and sister-in-law are the main farmers now. My father can help out occasionally, but not much.

I can't count on my mother either, so no matter how much land I cultivate, it has to be something I can actually cultivate.

“That’s the same idea. It’s enough to cultivate the land we have now. Any more land we cultivate can only grow wheat, which is easy to manage. But the land we’ve reclaimed now, especially the saline-alkali areas, doesn’t yield much wheat.” The older sister-in-law agreed with Li Long’s idea, saying, “The land that isn’t saline-alkali is either too far away or already been cleared by others.”

Because they were responsible for providing grain for three families, the Li family, as landlords, grew wheat. They also had some sideline farming, though not on a large scale. The rest of the land was used for their own consumption, such as sunflowers and some corn.

After all, Li Jianguo needs to drive a tractor to plow and sow, so there can't be too much work in the fields, otherwise he simply won't be able to handle it all.

Li Qingxia rode her bicycle back from outside the yard, and Li Long could still hear Tao Jianshe talking outside.

"Dad, is this the net we set yesterday?" Li Long asked while watering the plants.

"Yes, we set the nets yesterday afternoon, but we were late getting them up this morning." Li Qingxia smiled. "We originally planned to sell the fish in the county after taking them out, but Lao Tao and I set eight nets and only caught less than ten kilograms of fish in total. Oh well."

"Why are there so few?" Li Long was somewhat surprised. The fish in Xiaohaizi had indeed decreased, but surely not this few? At this point, why is it that when they cast their nets again, unlike before when they could catch two or three kilograms of fish out of ten?

"Hey! We've been ruined by water rats!" Li Qingxia said as she propped up her bicycle and took out a bag tied to the back. "A while ago, the two of us were patrolling the shore looking for water rat nests. We found two, destroyed them, killed a few water rats, and skinned them."

I thought that was it, but who would have thought that when the net was set, the water rat ate the fish in it and got tangled in the net. It chewed up both nets and they were so badly damaged that they were unusable.

Old Tao's net was also ruined; with the net torn, how could he catch any fish?

"So what are you going to do? Change your internet location tomorrow?"

"Why bother with finding a different spot? This afternoon, Lao Tao and I are planning to cast a net over there and see if we can catch that water rat." Li Qingxia felt that catching a water rat would be better than catching several kilograms of fish.

Water rat pelts aren't cheap these days.

After Li Long finished watering the pot, he watched Li Qingxia busy catching fish in the whole basin.

Although there weren't many fish, most of them were crucian carp, which Li Long liked, along with two small black carp and a silver carp.

"Now, the fish in the small lake, even the big ones, have all gone to the deeper water, making them harder to catch," Li Qingxia said as she lowered a fish into the net. "With so many people using nets to catch fish, they've become more cunning and it's harder for them to use the nets."

Li Long smiled, helped his father retrieve the net, and then picked it up.

When Li Jianguo returned at noon, his mother came back with Mingming and Haohao. Li Jianguo was still covered in dust and grime, with many oil stains on his clothes. He parked the tractor in the front yard, and as he returned, he used a towel to wipe the dust off his clothes while asking Li Long about the situation in the county.

After Li Long finished speaking, he also inquired about the family situation and took the opportunity to express his own thoughts:

"I was thinking of hiring some odd jobs from the county to pull weeds in our fields. I calculated that five or six odd jobs could cover two or three plots a day!" "Don't make a fool of yourself!" Li Jianguo rejected his suggestion without hesitation. "Our land is mainly used for growing wheat. One mu (unit of land area) yields only one or two hundred kilograms of wheat. After deducting the grain tax to be paid, how much will be left?"

The money you give to those doing odd jobs might be more than the money you get from selling the leftover wheat. It's not worth it!

The State Grain Administration did not pay the farmers for the grain they delivered to the state; instead, they issued a grain delivery receipt to indicate that the grain had been delivered.

This grain tax was equivalent to an agricultural tax. The farmers' income came from selling the remaining grain.

In the 1980s, farmers across the country had to pay various levies in addition to the grain tax, such as the "three levies and five unified taxes." Farmers in northern Xinjiang were allocated relatively more land, so after paying these taxes, they had more left over. Therefore, for a considerable period of time, farmers' lives were relatively better.

But before large-scale mechanization was achieved, it was just okay, not really okay.

Li Long's initial plan was to cultivate more wasteland, and when cotton became valuable, he would simply lease the land out and become a landlord who collected rent—how comfortable that would be!

However, farming can be profitable at present, but not much. Mechanization has not yet begun, and farmers still have a heavy workload. Therefore, if too much land is cultivated now, unless there are long-term laborers, the farm work will be extremely arduous.

Our own family simply can't handle it all.

“Then we can either find a farmhand or we can stop cultivating the land for now,” Li Long said after thinking for a moment. “Anyway, most of the good land has probably been cultivated by now. Let’s wait until new technologies come out and the saline-alkali land can be cultivated better than it is now, then we can start cultivating it again.”

As his purchasing station became more and more profitable, Li Long's thinking also changed.

Farming will definitely make money in the future, especially during a relatively special time, when it coincides with that ten-year period, growing cotton really is very profitable.

Of course, later on, after various restrictions are implemented, once you've made enough money, you can just live off the land rent.

"If we don't want to drive it, then we don't have to." Li Jianguo knew that if they did any more, they wouldn't be able to handle it all. They had a tractor, and he spent most of his time on it, leaving the farm work mainly to his wife. This couldn't go on.

"Where can we find a farmhand?" Li Qingxia wasn't very good at working himself, but he felt that he had money and hiring a farmhand wouldn't be a problem. He couldn't just let his son and daughter-in-law farm the land without contributing anything.

Since his household registration was here, he had to pay grain tax. In his opinion, he should just pay it himself, but his eldest son and his wife were not happy about it.

“Where else can we look? Back in our hometown.” Li Long chuckled. “There are plenty of people in our village who want to come out and work to earn money. They can handle the work in the fields. We can find one or two obedient people. Anyway, we have plenty of rooms and a yard. They can stay there, work with us, and we’ll pay them at the end of the year.”

Li Long spoke fluently about the paths taken in later generations.

"That's one way too." Li Qingxia pondered. In his hometown village, each person was allocated less than an acre of land. Farming was barely enough to make a living. After paying taxes and levies, there was nothing left, so he had no choice but to go out and work.

It's not like you can just take any job. Some people go out and travel for a year and bring nothing back, while others bring back some money, but not much.

A few are considered capable; they can work outside for half a year and bring back enough money for their family to have a good New Year, with enough left over for the following year's expenses. But they still have to go out to work again the following year.

The cycle continued unresolved, and even in the 2020s, people in their sixties, roughly the same age as Li Long, were still working odd jobs.

At that time, it was quite easy to find two capable and honest people from the village to work as farm laborers and help with farm work at home.

Of course, this kind of long-term laborer is not the same as that kind of long-term laborer. At this time, the people who worked with the master in the northern border were either relatives of the master, or relatives of neighbors or other people in the team, so they were considered family.

So we ate and lived together, and we were paid at the end of the year, similar to contract workers.

"Why bother with that? We have plenty of work to do." Liang Yuemei disagreed. She was very proud and didn't want others to laugh at her.

“We can manage, but we can’t do it that way.” Li Long knew what his sister-in-law was thinking, so he explained, “We have the means now, why should we work so hard? My older brother drives a tractor, and I run a purchasing station outside. Why? So that our family can live a better life.”

"With these conditions already met, why bother working so hard?"

If you have money and still work hard to make more, then what's the point of having money?
Liang Yuemei was caught in a dilemma. She was worried that hiring a long-term worker would cause gossip among the neighbors, but she also thought that what Li Long said made sense.

Although they were wealthy, not as wealthy as Li Long, they still had tens of thousands of dollars in cash.

The old man was also wealthy, and Liang Yuemei hadn't thought about it. As long as the old couple didn't cause trouble, she would be happy.

"Then let's find someone." Li Jianguo thought this wasn't a solution either. Right now, there wasn't too much farm work to do, and they could manage. But when the wheat was ready for harvest, the corn and sunflowers would need watering, and the watermelons would need ridging and spraying pesticides, which would be much more troublesome.

My wife can't possibly manage this all by herself, and my father isn't cut out for manual labor either. Hiring a farmhand would only cost a few hundred yuan; he could just plow a few more acres of land and that would be enough.

That was settled, and Li Long was quite happy.

Since they were going to hire long-term workers, there was a lot to prepare. They needed a place to stay, and Li Long suggested that they stay in the east room of his own yard. There was a stove in the yard, so one worker would be fine, or even a whole family would be no problem, since there were vegetables in the garden anyway.

As for how much to pay, that's easy to say. First, we can find out by asking around in the team; second, we need to look at the market rate back home; and of course, we also need to consider the worker's ability.

In addition, Li Long subtly suggested that it would be best to find someone with a family. Several years later, an incident occurred in the village where a young man from Gansu Province abducted a little girl from the village.

Please don't let it appear in your own home.

For lunch, they stewed fish and steamed rice. After eating and resting for a while, Li Long went to Xiaohaizi with his father. The weather wasn't too hot yet, and Li Long hadn't cast his net there in a long time; he wanted to see what the situation was like there.

Riding a bicycle from the residential area towards Xiaohaizi, you can see that many plots of land on both sides of the road have indeed been reclaimed, and the original Jiji Beach and Kudouzi Beach have been turned into farmland.

According to Li Jianguo's thinking, there is basically no more wasteland that can be reclaimed. The remaining saline-alkali land has a very thick salt crust with a layer of white crystals on top, which can be used directly as a chemical raw material.

In such places, apart from some reeds, white thorns, and alkali wormwood, almost no other plants can survive.

Nobody in the village wants to cultivate this land now because it's pointless and a pure money-loser.

But who could have imagined that in just over ten years, such saline-alkali land would be reclaimed into fertile fields planted with cotton, and large tracts of saline-alkali land would be contracted out, with prices starting in the tens of thousands per plot, and of course, the lease terms would be long.

When they arrived at Xiaohaizi, Li Long saw that the reeds had grown very tall. The water level in the lake was quite high, and the water was very green. Some places were very clear, while in other places, the bottom could not be seen because of the algae growing there.

Near the sluice gate, you can see some fish darting away quickly; they should be a group of crucian carp.

“This place almost broke during the flood,” Li Qingxia said, pointing to the dam to the north. “Your older brother said that this dam was originally made by layering reeds and soil, so it was not stable.”

When the flood came, they released water from both sides, diverting the water to both sides, which saved the lake. Otherwise, all the fish in it would probably have been washed away.

Li Long stood on the dam, lost in thought. In his memory, this lake had been washed away in the last two years, or even two years before that, in his previous life. After that, because it couldn't hold water, there was no need to wash it away anymore when the floods came every year.

But now that the lake has been preserved, we need to pay attention to it every year.

Instead of worrying like this every year, it's better to solve the problem once and for all by finding a more thorough solution.

Otherwise, even if I were helpful to the team, it wouldn't be possible for the team to do voluntary flood relief work every year at this time. To be honest, flood relief is necessary, but if the small lake doesn't significantly impact the lives of the team's residents after it's washed away, then people will definitely have complaints about coming here for flood relief and prevention over time.

He plans to find a water conservancy expert when he has some free time to study how to completely resolve this issue.

(End of this chapter)