Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1074 Catching Up with the Gold Prospectors in the Mountains (Leader of the Alliance of He Tianlang and Xiaotian)
Li Long figured that since Meng Hai and his team were repairing the road, he should do something to help. He couldn't let the road workers think he was there just to inspect and supervise, could he?
So in the morning, after Li Long dropped Mingming and Haohao off at the Fourth Team, he went to Shicheng and bought a pot of cooked and chopped offal from Ruxianguli, intending to take it to the mountains.

He figured if Meng Hai led a team to repair the road, then these scraps could be used as a lunch supplement for the road workers. If the road wasn't being repaired, then the scraps would stay at Meng Hai's house, essentially a gift for his family.

In the past two years, Meng Hai has become another kind of partner of Li Long. He has done a lot and made great contributions. He also gives Li Long gifts from time to time, so it is only right to give him something in return.

Li Long not only brought miscellaneous items, but also a considerable amount of money. Although Meng Hai said there would be some money left over from road repairs, he figured there probably wouldn't be much left.

You can't expect someone to lead the team and do the work while you also expect them to pay out of pocket.

As Li Long drove his jeep into the mountains, he could see people carrying bags walking out of the mountains, and some would wave to him when they saw him.

Were these fritillaria bulbs dug up from the mountains? And they even recognize his Jeep?

Li Long stopped, and the person greeted him and chatted for a few minutes. Just as Li Long had thought, these were fritillaria bulbs dug up from the mountains.

“After the road was built in the mountains, I thought that people would be digging for fritillaria in the outer mountains, so I went into the inner mountains.” He was an old herb digger in his fifties. “I followed the road to the end and then turned into the gully. Sure enough, there were fewer people there, and I dug up quite a lot.”

The man showed Li Long the bag of dried scallops he was carrying, which weighed a full thirty kilograms, and grinned proudly.

His teeth were already yellow, and Li Long couldn't help but remind him, "Brother, you need to get some toothbrush and toothpaste as soon as you come down from the mountain. If you don't brush your teeth soon, they'll probably fall out."

"Hey, there's no need for such formalities." The old man didn't mind. "I won't trade my fritillaria with you; I'll exchange it for money in the county. I did exchange grain at your wooden hut before, so I still have to thank you. Do you still go to that wooden hut in the mountains? There aren't many people there lately."

"I'm going to check out the road construction site. Have you seen any road construction these past few days?" Since this guy was heading along the road, Li Long casually asked.

"It's been repaired, repaired. It's been two or three days. There were about a dozen or twenty people working hard, driving tractors." The old man said, and then prepared to leave.

He has to walk from here to the county town, which may not take him a day.

Li Long thought for a moment and said:
"Brother, you can't just walk like this. Do you have any money on you?"

"No, not a single bit left."

"Then give me a kilogram of fritillaria bulbs, and I'll give you some money. Walk down to the village and find a tractor or horse-drawn cart or something to give you a ride. Otherwise, you'll be walking until tomorrow."

"Alright, alright." The man smiled immediately when he heard Li Long say that. He untied the bag of fritillaria bulbs and gave two handfuls of fritillaria bulbs to Li Long.

Li Long found a bag for him to put the fritillaria bulbs in, then took out eighty yuan from his pocket and counted it out for the man.

The fritillaria bulbs are good quality, very dry, and cleaned very well. They are quite large, and worth the price.

"Hehe, isn't this too much money?" The old man had lived in the mountains for many years and knew the price of fritillaria bulbs there.

“Not much, not much. You’ve already carried it out of the mountains, so it wouldn’t be right for me to give you the price you pay in the mountains.” Li Long took out another naan from the car, broke it in half, put some scraps in the middle, put it back together, and handed it to him: “Here, eat it on the way.”

The man was really hungry. He took the naan, thanked the vendor profusely, and then ate it heartily.

After saying goodbye to him, Li Long drove into the mountains. On the way, he would occasionally encounter people carrying fritillaria bulbs or people who had nothing at all.

He thought that once the road was built, it would be convenient for Halim and his group, as well as for those who wanted to go into the mountains.

Is this a good thing?

Those people were different from this guy. When they saw Li Long from afar, some walked on their own, while others disappeared into the mountains. Li Long didn't stop either and drove all the way towards the road under construction.

The further we drove, the more we felt the importance of this road. Especially after passing Yushanjiang and his family's wintering grounds, the forests on both sides were noticeably denser than before, and grass had already grown along the road ahead.

The power of nature goes without saying. If this road is not traveled frequently, it will probably become a place overgrown with shrubs and weeds again before long.

There were traces of tracked tractors and small four-wheeled tractors, and the tracks were quite new, which proved that Meng Hai and his group had indeed entered the mountains.

By the time the jeep reached the end of the road, Meng Hai and his men had been working for quite a while.

To have more time to repair the road, they get up very early every day; otherwise, they wouldn't arrive until mid-morning and wouldn't be able to get much work done in a day.

Actually, some villagers had objections, but Meng Hai didn't tolerate them at all; if they had objections, they shouldn't go.

Anyway, it's currently the off-season for farming, so it's easy to find laborers to repair roads in the mountains.

Although Meng Hai's conditions were very harsh—that everyone bring their own water and food, while he was only responsible for bringing the pot, and that everyone would have to gather firewood together to boil water—these were all very difficult conditions.

But people who want to work and earn money are still queuing up.

Because the tractor's carrying capacity is limited, it can only carry about twenty people to work each time. Everyone will compete for a spot, and those who complain or are not proactive in their work will be removed the next day. The rest are all hardworking and reliable.

Eight yuan a day, that's more than a worker's wage!
When Li Long arrived, Meng Hai was driving a tracked tractor, pulling several freshly cut trees to the side, while the others were using shovels to level the rocks and sand that the bulldozer had pushed onto the roadbed.

Upon seeing the jeep, some people cheered, while others loudly told Meng Hai, who was driving a tractor, about it.

Li Long parked the jeep on the side of the road, got out, greeted the people who had gathered around, watched Meng Hai drag the tree into place, and then asked someone to untie the steel cable before going over.

Meng Hai yelled at the others, "Don't stop, get back to work!"

Li Long laughed; this guy was quite dedicated.

After the crowd dispersed, laughing and joking, Meng Hai said to Li Long, somewhat embarrassed:

"There's no way around it; if I don't put on a stern face, these guys won't listen to me."

"You come here pretty early every day!" Li Long said when he arrived. He noticed that Meng Hai and his team had repaired about a kilometer of road in the past few days, which was quite fast progress.

After all, there weren't many people who came, only about twenty, which was clearly less than the previous time.

“There’s no other way if we don’t come early. It’s 30 or 40 kilometers into the mountains, and it would take a small four-wheeled tractor more than an hour to drive there. I’d better leave the tracked tractor here. Otherwise, it would take three or four hours just for this big tractor to drive over, and we wouldn’t be able to get any work done.”

"Everyone seems to be in pretty good spirits," Li Long nodded and said. "I almost forgot about you. Oh, by the way, we saw some herb gatherers from the mountains on this route on the way here. Did you run into them too?"

"We ran into them, and some even asked us for food." Meng Hai took off his baseball cap, dusted it off, and said, "These people have it tough in the mountains. They stay there for one or two months at a time, and when they come out, they look like wild men."

“They make a lot of money too.” Li Long smiled. “After digging for a month or two, if they bring these fritillaria bulbs out of the mountains, they can sell them for a thousand or two thousand yuan. They would be happy to live like wild men.”

“That’s right.” Meng Hai nodded. “They’re willing to endure this hardship for such high pay. But if they run into a forest ranger, they’re all doomed.”

"Haha, fortune favors the bold."

Actually, the few people who came down from the mountain that we just met figured out that the forest rangers wouldn't be out patrolling so early, so they came down early to increase their chances of getting out safely.

"I brought some offal, cooked and chopped, I'll heat it up for everyone to eat at noon." Li Long took the bowl of offal out of the jeep. The mountain road was very bumpy, so Li Long covered it with a cloth to weigh it down.

"That's great, they'll definitely be happy," Meng Hai said with a smile. "They've been eating dry steamed buns for two days, and they've been clamoring for a better diet. They even gave me feedback. A better diet my foot! As long as they can make money, that's all that matters. They're dreaming!"

"By the way, I brought the money too. How many days do you plan to work this time?" Li Long took the bag containing the money out of the jeep and asked.

"About half a month," Meng Hai said. "Any longer won't do; the work in the fields still needs to be done. My plan is to build ten kilometers if possible, but seven or eight kilometers will do if that's not possible."

Li Long nodded.

If you do the math, with nearly thirty people, that's about 240 yuan a day, and 3,600 yuan in half a month.

Li Long counted out four thousand yuan and handed it to Meng Hai, saying:

"Take this money. Is it enough for your wages, management fees, and oil?"

"That's enough, that's enough. I used the money left over from the last road repair to buy oil." Meng Hai didn't stand on ceremony and took the money with a smile, saying, "To be honest, Comrade Li Long, if you hadn't come, I would have had to come looking for you. I'm out of money here. I can still pay today's workers, but tomorrow I'll have to rely on my reputation to owe everyone money."

"Haha, that was my mistake." Li Long laughed. "I'll try to avoid this from happening again." "It's alright, it's alright. You've been doing this for so long, everyone knows your reputation. After all, you can't just focus on the road, unlike us, who don't have much else to do besides farm work."

After chatting for a few more minutes, Meng Hai called over two people and asked them to gather firewood to prepare water for boiling offal.

The two men happily accepted the task and got to work. Meng Hai explained to Li Long that the people boiling water at noon would rotate every day, which would be fairer.

Li Long wasn't worried about the organization. After watching Meng Hai finish making arrangements, he drove the tractor with bulldozer blades to push the roadbed, so he didn't want to bother them. He locked the car door, carried his bag and gun, and headed into the mountains.

The vegetation in the mountains is lush and growing very well. The inner mountains of the Tianshan Mountains are also layered, with gentle grasslands, steep cliffs, shrubs, sunny slopes covered with rocks, and shady slopes full of pine trees.

Each layer of the mountain seems different, making it dazzling to look at.

The stream beside the pastoral trail has started to rise, and sometimes it splashes water when it passes over the rocks, making for a rather nice view.

Li Long was just strolling around when he sensed that there were people moving around nearby.

I didn't see anyone. If someone had heard the tractor, they probably would have run away.

The main issue is that there are footprints and shoe prints along the nearby riverbank, and someone is digging in the sand. I don't know if they're catching fish or what. There's also a pile of pebbles that have been dug out by the stream.

Judging from the marks, they must have been there two or three days ago.

Li Long immediately became interested. He had good eyesight and followed the trail into the mountains.

Li Long crawled into the ravine on the right for two or three hundred meters. Here, he could hardly hear the sound of tractors anymore. Soon, he found a fresh, abandoned dugout on a flat area in the woods.

Why is it described as "freshly discarded"? The dug-out hadn't been used for long; the pine branches that had covered it with soil hadn't completely withered, and the pine needles were still green.

It's considered abandoned because half of the roof of the dugout has been torn off, there's some household garbage nearby, and a stone stove three or four meters away from the dugout has been kicked over.

Li Long peered into the dugout and found nothing there; they had taken everything.

I don't know if it was left by a herb gatherer or done by someone else.

Li Long glanced at the nearby hillside. There were fritillaria bulbs, but not many. Most of them had already bloomed, and he didn't see any marks left from digging them up.

He looked around and quickly found traces of the person's departure.

Li Longchun was simply curious. He felt that this person probably wasn't there to gather herbs, but had other motives, so he wanted to take a look.

Anyway, there's nothing to worry about.

He walked southwest along the gully for a while, and there was a branch of the gully in the middle. The trail led this way. He walked along it for about a hundred meters, and finally crossed the mountain. There was a river that was wider than the small river that had flowed by the roadside before.

It's not the Ma River; we haven't reached that point yet. It's just a tributary.

Then he saw a man bending over at a bend in the river where the current was relatively calm, slowly turning a wooden plate in the water.

Hey, gold panning!
Having seen many short videos in later generations, Li Long immediately understood what this person was doing.

Whether in this era, or a hundred or a thousand years ago, unauthorized gold panning is illegal on this land.

Li Long knew this very well.

However, he didn't really pay attention to it; instead, he watched the other person's actions with great interest.

Gold panning in short videos looks simple. It involves using either wooden trays or tiered wooden pallets, mainly relying on the water flow to wash away large pieces of debris, leaving behind heavier placer gold or smaller gold nuggets.

Anyone who has studied even a little physics and chemistry should know that gold has a relatively high density, making it easier for it to sink to the bottom compared to rocks and sand, and less likely to be washed away by water.

Li Long had heard of the gold mines here in both his previous lives; the saying "golden plate, jade bottom" about the Ma River was no exaggeration. In fact, he had seen it all during his years in the mountains, collecting a lot of jade and even finding natural gold nuggets.

But he never even considered gold panning; firstly, he wasn't very good at it, and secondly, he found it too troublesome.

Of course, the most important thing was that he couldn't find the gold mine, which is what the ancients called the "gold seedling".

I saw one right now, and this person is clearly an expert, so I'm keeping an eye on him.

The man bent over and sifted through the river for a while, removing most of the mud and sand from the wooden tray, leaving only a little bit at the bottom. He lifted the tray out of the water, slowly strained out the water, and what remained, glittering, was the placer gold he was looking for.

Li Long was positioned to the northeast, which would normally prevent him from seeing clearly. However, the river water reflected the light onto the wooden plate, and in that instant, he caught a glimpse of golden light at the bottom of the plate.

Wow, I actually found it!

This person is really something.

With a smile on his face, the man carefully smeared the speck of gold dust into an enamel mug, revealing a satisfied expression.

Although it's not much, it's just the result of a short time this morning.

Little by little, you can accumulate a few grams of gold dust every day, which is worth tens of dollars!

Li Long stood on the slope, about thirty or forty meters away, and watched without making a sound, wanting to see the whole process.

The man put the enamel mug back, then picked up the wooden tray, turned around and went to a spot by the river, scooped up a tray full of sand and gravel, turned around and walked into the river, stopping when the water was almost up to his knees, and bent down to continue.

It seems that there are specific techniques to selecting sand and gravel; you can't just randomly take sand from the river and start panning.

Li Long guessed that this person must have only recently learned about the gold dust and that's why they made that wooden tray. Otherwise, wouldn't it have been much more convenient to prepare those square, washboard-like tools with tiered ladders beforehand?

This time, the person spent about ten minutes sifting through the sand, and the final result was even worse than last time, probably because the sand and gravel they chose was the problem.

But the man wasn't discouraged. Gold panning is all about luck; you can't rush it. He was used to it. He smeared a little gold dust into the enamel mug, straightened up, wiped his sweat, and prepared to continue.

Then I saw Li Long carrying a gun on the slope.

They were so frightened they didn't dare move!
Li Long now remembered that what he had seen by the riverbank during the road construction was likely the trace left by this man panning for gold, and that unused dugout was probably also his.

This person was genuinely too scared to move. Running away was out of the question; the other person had a gun. At a distance of thirty or forty meters, shooting someone was child's play, wasn't it?

Besides, I'm by the water now. I can run in the river, but how deep is it? If I can't even cross it, it'll be a waste of time. I should just listen to what others say.

Li Longyuan was still thinking of taking another look, but since they had already discovered him and were not moving, he decided to go down and check it out.

He strode down to the riverbank and looked into the man's enamel mug. Hmm, not a bad haul for the morning. There were three to five grams of glittering gold dust in the mug.

That's quite a lot; we must have chosen the right location, which is why the yield is so high.

However, placer gold usually has a purity of only 70-80%, which is neither too much nor too little.

The man felt a pang of anxiety as he watched Li Long pick up the enamel mug.

When Li Long put down the jar, he felt relieved, but then became nervous again.

If someone doesn't even want this little bit of gold, does that mean they want more?

The other party was armed, and I was completely powerless to fight back. What if they wanted all the gold I had panned during this time?
Li Long put down the jar, looked at the man, and said with a half-smile:
"You know that illegal gold panning is illegal, right?"

The person was stunned.

(End of this chapter)