Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1098 Making money across borders is really easy.
After having dinner at his older brother's house, Li Long went home. Li Juan had already made it clear that she would ride her bicycle to school by herself the next afternoon, so Li Long didn't need to worry about it.

According to Li Juan in the car, she spent more than fourteen yuan at school this week, buying some odds and ends in addition to food.

Most people in the dormitory spend ten yuan a week on food, which is a common standard, so her fifteen yuan is considered a lot.

Although the school food was not of good quality, it was very cheap; one yuan was enough for a day's meals.

Girls tend to eat less than boys, so they eat relatively less.

Li Juan is an exception. She usually eats well, but the school meals are not oily, so she has to eat more.

"I'll cook some meat and vegetables for you tomorrow and take them with me." Liang Yuemei was a little worried after hearing what her daughter had said. "Stir-fried pickled vegetables with meat can keep for a couple more days. I'll also boil some eggs..."

"Eggs don't keep well," Li Jianguo waved his hand. "Why don't you pickle some salted eggs for me these next couple of days?"

"Okay, okay," Liang Yuemei said. "I'll go prepare now."

With everyone around his sister, Li Qiang didn't feel disappointed. He kept asking Li Juan about things like boarding school, including morning exercises and evening self-study.

Li Juan was able to handle school affairs on her own, and her schooling was back on track, so Li Long paid less attention to her, spending more time at the purchasing station and in the mountains.

During this time, he went to the forestry team twice and brought back the items from the warehouses of the forestry teams in Ma County and Hu County.

Since the fritillaria season has ended, the two forestry teams don't have much left. In fact, the team leaders are well aware that the fritillaria season is the most profitable time of the year, and what they can get at other times is up to fate.

We brought back some dried mushrooms, then some medicinal herbs like Codonopsis pilosula, and a bunch of other random things like leather and jade.

Generally, forest rangers won't randomly arrest people picking mushrooms unless they act suspiciously or provoke the rangers.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that some forest rangers themselves have the idea of ​​making extra money, so they arrest people, detain them, and then take the items to the forestry team to wait for their share of the profits.

A small portion of the money from selling the items in the forestry team's warehouse to Li Long was to be returned to the forest rangers.

After bringing these things back to the courtyard, Li Long called Jia Tianlong.

"What did you say? Antelope horns?" Jia Tianlong was at home. His wife was still some time away from giving birth, but things were a bit unstable during this period, so he didn't dare leave.

“Yes, I’ll ask about the price of antelope horn,” Li Long asked. “By the way, after your wife gives birth and the full moon celebration is over, you have to come over. I’ve just received a large amount of licorice and astragalus, and it’s not easy to transport them all in one trip.”

Even a small fly is still meat, so Jia Tianlong quickly agreed. He thought for a moment and then said:

"If it's a saiga antelope, the current purchase price for a pair of horns is fifty yuan, but I heard it will rise before the end of the year. How many do you have?"

“There aren’t many right now, but there might be quite a few. Someone has contacted me to sell them, so I’m asking you about the price first.”

Li Long knew the uses of antelope horns, otherwise he wouldn't have kept several. Fortunately, both Mingming and Haohao were in good health and rarely got sick. They would usually just tough out an occasional cold and take very little medicine.

"That's the price. If you have less, that's fine. But if you have more, you should definitely save it first. After my child is born and my wife finishes her postpartum confinement, I'll go over and we'll talk about it then. Maybe it will go up to seventy or eighty or even more by then."

Li Long believed this price, since antelope horns were currently sold by the pair, then by the kilogram, and then by the gram.

Li Long then inquired about Jia Tianlong's family situation. Jia Tianlong's family was doing well. Although some of his nephews didn't want him to have a son, Jia Tianlong was used to being assertive and wasn't afraid of them. He even dealt with a few of the unreasonable ones. Everything was fine at home.

Li Long thought to himself, "It's better to be in northern Xinjiang, or at least in the Ma County area, where there aren't so many messy things."

At least I haven't experienced it myself.

After hanging up the phone, Li Long wondered how many antelope horns Liu Gaolou could bring him.

It takes at least two or three days to get from Khorgos through Guozigou to Ma County. The round trip, including preparation, will take almost a week. With current communication limitations, plus waiting time, it will take at least ten days.

During this time, Li Long didn't dare to go anywhere else. After Halimu and the others finished cutting grass, drying it, bundling it up, and taking it to their respective winter shelters, they drove the tractor down the mountain, left the tractor with Li Long, and then went back into the mountains.

On September 9th, Liu Gaolou arrived again with a truck.

This time, he brought three trucks, which surprised Li Long.

Liu Gaolou was full of confidence this time, and said with a smile:

"One truckload of licorice, one truckload of astragalus, similar to last time, and the remaining truckload is all antelope horn!"

"What?" Li Long stared at the truck with his mouth agape.

Although I had heard online that neighboring countries had a lot of this stuff, I never imagined it would be this much!
A truckload, how many would that be!
"I've counted them, there are two thousand pairs in total!" Liu Gaolou said with a smug smile.
“My uncle said that people over there only want the hide; as for the horn, occasionally someone will want it to make daggers. Some people here buy it, but not much, mainly because the tariffs are quite high. But… you know how it is.”

Li Long eagerly climbed onto the vehicle, looking at the antelope horns haphazardly packed into burlap sacks. Most of the horns were quite sharp, protruding directly from the sacks.

Li Long opened a burlap sack and saw that it contained items tied together in pairs, with corners about twenty to thirty centimeters long.

He picked up a pair of corners to look at them. The heavier pair weighed one kilogram, while the lighter ones weighed only seven or eight hundred grams. There weren't any particularly short ones; the shorter ones probably weren't included.

Then they opened another sack, and inside was the same thing.

Seeing Li Long come down, Liu Gaolou said with a smile:

"How about that, is that enough?"

"So many!" Li Long exclaimed sincerely. "They must be incredibly valuable!"

"How much is it worth?" Liu Gaolou didn't know the answer. He only knew that his uncle had said that once the item arrived, he would sell it to Li Long, and the price would depend on Li Long's offer.

This thing can't be taken out of the border region; if it is, Liu Gaolou might not be able to protect it.

“These corner pieces alone are worth about fifty or sixty thousand yuan,” Li Long said. “The prices of licorice and astragalus haven’t changed much.”

"Hey!" Liu Gaolou clenched his fist. "I knew this would work!"

Next came the inspection of the goods. This time, even Gu Boyuan was drawn over. He told Sun Jiaqiang to hold the fort at the front counter while he went over to examine the corner pieces, constantly exclaiming in admiration:

"This is antelope horn! How can it be like cabbage? There's so much of it..."

Sacks of antelope horns were unloaded, and after opening them, they were counted in pairs. Li Long examined the horns; most of them were very fresh, with bloodstains still on them, indicating they had been killed recently.

I have no idea where the sheepskins went.

And there's meat.

The licorice and astragalus were about the same as last time. Li Long gave 30 yuan a pair of antelope horns. Two thousand pairs would be 60,000 yuan. Adding the licorice and astragalus, the total was more than 66,000 yuan.

Paying with a hundred-yuan bill isn't much; it can be easily packed into a small black bag.

This time, Liu Gaolou declined Li Long's invitation to dinner, left Li Long a small bag, and then hurriedly left with the truck.

He went directly to the post office and wired 60,000 yuan back to his hometown. He used the remaining few thousand yuan to pay for the three drivers' fare, saying he needed to stay and take care of some things.

After the driver left, Liu Gaolou went to the guesthouse to stay.

All of this was done as his uncle instructed, mainly for safety reasons.

Li Long didn't care about Liu Gaolou's situation; he was in a hurry to leave, and Li Long naturally wouldn't stop him. The main thing was still these antelope horns.

“Just put them in your big yard. These are all good stuff,” Gu Boyuan said after thinking for a moment. “No one may know the value of these things for a while, but once people find out, these things… sigh, it’s better to keep them safe.”

Li Long didn't think much of it. The neighboring country currently has millions of saiga antelopes. Regardless of whether he was involved or not, they would be hunted down to only tens of thousands within a certain period of time, and then protected and recovered to millions again.

With Liu Shanmin's connections, it's estimated that a large quantity of these things will be transported into my hands within a certain period of time.

Even if we just keep them, they'll probably keep piling up, and we'll have to sell some of them. But since Gu Boyuan has already spoken, we have to give our father-in-law face.

He drove his tractor and transported the goods to the courtyard in two trips, then put them into the side room.

There are more than twenty rooms in the courtyard, which is more than enough to hold all these things.

If so many antelope horns were released into the market, the price of antelope horns would likely plummet.

Of course, Li Long couldn't release so many at once; he would take it slowly.

Liu Gaolou stayed at the county guesthouse for a day, and then went to Shicheng, where he bought a ticket to return to the port.

Although the back-and-forth travel was tiring, he grew to like it. He earned a good amount of money each time, and by winter, his earnings were enough to support his entire small family!
Both transactions were conducted according to the steps instructed by his uncle, and the profits were greater than expected. Originally, Liu Shanmin had invited Liu Gaolou over simply to earn some extra money for his family in his spare time.

He himself did not expect that by directly creating a breach, he might disrupt the market for a certain type of medicinal herb.

The car departed from Shicheng, and by the time it reached Wutai, it was already dark. We had to stay there overnight before heading to Guozigou the next day.

At this time, the highway runs directly along Sayram Lake. There are no fences around Sayram Lake yet, and the highway runs right along the lakeside. There are no facilities along the lakeside, and there is only a dilapidated Taoist temple on the island in the middle of the lake.

Once inside Guozigou, the mountain road became difficult to traverse. It had rained a couple of days prior, and some rocks that had washed down the road hadn't been completely cleared away, making it extremely difficult to walk. A car slid down into a ditch, and the people inside had already climbed out, looking on with worried expressions.

This place is in the middle of nowhere, so it would be very difficult to tow the car up here.

Liu Gaolou sat in the bus, looking at the people below. Although he wanted to help them, he felt helpless.

He himself was also aware of the danger. The mountain roads in Guozigou are extremely dangerous, so it's best to be careful. He has to make the trip every now and then, so he can't let his guard down.

After the bus arrived in Yining, Liu Gaolou found a place to stay before going to the post office to make an international call to report the situation to Liu Shanmin.

Liu Shanmin knew that antelope horns were expensive, but he didn't expect Li Long to be able to buy this batch.

"Uncle, next time could you just send two truckloads of ram's horns? And forget about the licorice and astragalus?" Liu Gaolou asked.

"No. The herbs still need to be sent out. Gao Lou, you need to understand, this ram's horn is quite eye-catching. If it's not sent out with the herbs, it might not even reach you after passing through customs."

Liu Shanmin wielded some power in the neighboring country, and the people at the grassroots level wanted to make money and live a better life. Liu Shanmin exploited this, having them hunt antelope horns, which he then bought at low prices and packaged with other industrial goods he had collected to smuggle across the border.

After passing through customs, the industrial goods would be received by designated personnel, while the remaining goods would be stored in the port warehouse, from which Liu Gaolou would then retrieve them.

"The next shipment will arrive at the port in five days. Get three trucks to take it away, but when you come back, find Li Long and have him help you haul three truckloads of white sugar. I need that."

In Kazakhstan, it's important to acquire some goods that are needed domestically. Sometimes money isn't the most important thing; it's better to get your hands on scarce, locally sought-after items.

And white sugar is one of them.

"Can Li Long get his hands on white sugar?" Liu Gaolou wondered.

"Don't worry about it. Just go to him and say you want to trade him for ram's horns. Aren't ram's horns valuable? You can give him a lower price, but the sugar has to be shipped over."

After a pause, Liu Shanmin continued:
"You can also tell Li Long that I'll need sugar and cement in the future. If he can get them, given our relationship, I can invite him to go hunting in Kazakhstan—he can hunt as many as he wants on the grasslands there as he wants back home!"

Hearing his uncle's words, Liu Gaolou felt a longing in his heart and asked, "Uncle, can I go in the future?"

"Yes, but not right now. I need to build relationships here, which will take some time, and it's not very safe here right now."

Upon hearing this, Liu Gaolou immediately shrank back, chuckling awkwardly as he said, "No rush, no rush."

He just wanted to earn a little money safely, not much. Actually, earning this much money at once has exceeded his expectations.

With so much money, there are many things you can do at home; there's no need to take any risks.

However, since Liu Shanmin didn't tell him to stop, he naturally couldn't stop either.

This is why Liu Shanmin asked him to do this job: to be obedient.

"Ask Li Long again what else he needs from here... Hmm, I'll transport the goods to the port in five days and then I'll tell you what I have here and see what he needs."

After hanging up the phone, Liu Gaolou breathed a sigh of relief and then returned to the guesthouse.

At that time, Yining was still a relatively small city. Its area extended east to Dongliang and Hanrenjie, northwest to Huacheng, and then west to the Feima roundabout.

It's much smaller than the city I mentioned, and there's not much entertainment. Liu Gaolou can only eat barbecue and such at the stalls run by ethnic minorities. It's hard to have any fun.

Fortunately, he didn't have many demands. In a place where there seemed to be more people of this ethnic group than Han Chinese, safety was the top priority, and it was better to go out less.

If it weren't for the fact that Guozigou is quite difficult to navigate, he would have actually planned to spend the last five days traveling to other places before returning when the time came.

But with Guozigou in the way, he didn't dare take the risk. There are frequent heavy rains and car accidents in Guozigou, which can close the road, making it impossible to get in.

Five days later, Liu Gaolou took a bus from the Great World to the Khorgos Port. At that time, the port was just a small town with few people, and only the national gate was relatively visible.

At that time, there weren't that many stalls. There was triple management at the border: the border defense company, the border armed police, and the customs. There were warehouses nearby, and the things that Liu Gaolou needed to transport were in the warehouses.

He didn't handle customs clearance matters, and Liu Shanmin didn't allow him to either; these processes were handled by others, and all he needed to do was transport the goods.

Heading towards Ma County again with three vehicles, Liu Gaolou was quite cautious this time. Last time he came, he hadn't known those "ram horns" were so valuable. Li Longtou received a pair at a time, and although he said it would cost several tens of yuan, Liu Gaolou hadn't seen the money and therefore wasn't sure.

A few thousand yuan isn't actually a lot for him.

But I didn't expect it to be something worth tens of thousands of yuan.

Liu Shanmin brought him another three thousand pairs of "ram's horns" this time, which was worth 100,000 yuan. How could he not be nervous?

Liu Gaolou was relieved when the truck arrived safely in Ma County and he saw Li Long's purchasing station.

Li Long didn't expect Liu Gaolou to come back so soon.

When he received the call, Liu Gaolou, looking travel-worn, was eating melon in the reception room. Upon seeing Li Long, he stood up and smiled. Because he had melon in his mouth, he didn't speak, but simply nodded.

"You mean, you want three truckloads of white sugar delivered?" Li Long asked after Liu Gaolou finished eating and stated his conditions. "Is that all?"

“Three truckloads would take at least ten tons. Can you even buy that? Even white sugar has to be allocated these days. You don’t think this is so easy, do you?” Liu Gaolou retorted.

"Of course I don't think this is simple. I just want to know if there are any other requirements."

“My uncle also gave me a list, saying, ‘Take a look at this list of Kazakh specialties and see what else you need. If you need anything, he can get these things in.’”

Li Long glanced at the handwritten list; the handwriting was quite good. It listed various types of leather, some minerals, dried meat, wood carvings, and so on.

Li Long glanced around and said, "Wild animal skins will do. For example, snow leopard skin, lynx skin, bear skin, fox skin, wolf skin, etc.; red deer skin and gazelle skin are also fine, of course the antelope skin with this horn is also fine, dried meat is also fine, but these things are very cheap, unless you do a lot, you won't make much money."

As for other things, Li Long definitely doesn't need mineral resources, and there's no point in hauling two or three truckloads. Dried meat is good, but I don't know how strict the regulations are for getting it in.

Liu Gaolou understood and said he would reply to his uncle truthfully.

Li Long then had to consider the sugar issue.

P.S.: Let me tell you about Xiaohaizi. I went back a little over a month ago, and the old man said he cast the net twice, but didn't catch a single fish. The mesh of the net wasn't small; you could see small crucian carp about the length of an index finger—lots of them, but no big ones.

As a result, the old man couldn't resist setting his net again the day before yesterday and caught something. However, this time the fish wasn't as pretty as before; it was white, unlike the crucian carp that used to have a reddish-yellow head and tail.

Of course, I only watched the video; I'll film it when I have time.

(End of this chapter)