Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1102 There are quite a few good things that can be obtained, in the name of scrap!
Liu Shanmin was having a lot of worries.

He received a new task from China: to find a certain component for some heavy-duty trucks, and ideally, to acquire the manufacturing process.

We had to get our hands on it secretly.

Although the purpose given by the other party was vague, Liu Shanmin immediately guessed, based on his previous missions, that it was used by a certain Second Artillery Corps to transport certain things that could travel around the world.

Our country's weapons are currently adequate, but our delivery vehicles are not yet fully up to standard.

We need to learn from the older brother's technology. To be honest, the older brother's products are bulky, rough, and clunky, but they are really durable and practical.

Liu Shanmin's collaborators weren't fools either. They might turn a blind eye to civilian-related matters, but some crucial items would definitely be investigated.

His important task was to go back to the port to pick up the goods and then go to the neighboring country to do it.

After all, international calls are usually monitored at this time, and certain departments on both sides are not idle.

The dilemma is that you need to get your hands on it as soon as possible, but you can't make it public.

They grant a lot of authority, but while there's no funding, procedures like customs clearance are relaxed accordingly.

Customs clearance procedures for things like white sugar are relatively easy to handle.

The same applies to shipments here; customs clearance can even be handled on a case-by-case basis.

He knew that he could definitely get his hands on some things in his city, as some bases often released usable items.

But outside these bases, there are many like him, like crows, from many different countries.

But others can only contribute money, unlike him, who directly transported supplies, making his cronies even closer to him.

No matter what, those tickets only count as money once they're spent!
The three truckloads of sugar earned his associates at least four or five times the amount of the $6,000, if not ten times.

There's no way around it; when resources are scarce, anything can be driven up in price, especially sugar, which can be a strategic resource during wartime!

So Liu Shanmin quickly came up with a solution, which also required Li Long's cooperation.

After Liu Gaolou and Li Long finished handing over the supplies and paying the money, the pressure on them was greatly reduced.

After the last truckload of antelope horns was sold, his uncle Liu Shanmin told him that he would have to cover the expenses for any future similar work. He wouldn't be contributing money anymore, and he would have to pay for the supplies as well. After all, although these items weren't very valuable, they were time-consuming to find, and people would only do things if he paid them.

In other words, Liu Gaolou currently has a principal of over 100,000 yuan; the question is how much interest he can generate from this money.

Fortunately, he didn't need to worry about customs clearance; he only needed to receive the goods, sell them, and then transfer the money—his initial investment—to the other side.

If he works honestly, he believes that earning a million by the end of the year will be no problem.

For example, this time, Li Long valued those hides at 20,000 yuan. There wasn't much hide, but a lot of damaged pieces; some hides had several bullet holes – damn it, these guys used submachine guns!
The reason it was worth 20,000 yuan was because the snow leopard pelt was relatively large and intact.

On the contrary, the price of antelope horns remained firm. Although Li Long called Jia Tianlong to ask, the market price was still slowly and steadily increasing.

There's nothing we can do about the low price of bear bile. A few years ago, it could have been higher.

But now that artificial bile extraction technology has been introduced, the price of bear bile has actually dropped.

Just like the price of red deer antlers is rising now, in a few years, when the technology for artificially breeding red deer matures and a large number of farmed red deer and sika deer are on the market, the price of red deer antlers will drop to the price of cabbage – equivalent to what it used to be.

Therefore, Li Long did not dare to offer a high price, since the acquisition price was already low.

Antelope horns are different. They will be contraband in the future, and not many people will raise them, so they will become increasingly rare and eventually almost extinct.

Those two truckloads of medicinal herbs remained stable, worth several thousand yuan.

There's no way around it; even if it's several thousand yuan, Liu Shanmin will still send it over every time. Because astragalus there, like bitter bean and reed grass here, is a common wild plant. Just find a tractor, drive over, plow it up, and then collect it.

The cost is extremely low.

Its price is equivalent to that of Qinghai jade in the 1980s, where a truckload would only cost a few hundred to a thousand yuan, or even less.

After all, at this stage, what was called Gobi jade couldn't yet be considered jade. Many people currently only recognize Hetian jade; others are considered worthless. Even Hetian jade is generally quite inexpensive.

This time, Li Long estimated the total value of the goods he brought for Liu Gaolou to be 50,000 yuan, less than last time. He actually paid Liu 20,000 yuan. This was because Liu needed to use the remaining 6,000 US dollars to deliver goods to the sugar factory. Both parties were satisfied with the exchange of 30,000 yuan for 6,000 US dollars.

Liu Shanmin also told Liu Gaolou that they couldn't get that many antelope horns for the time being. The farming season and hay cutting had started over there, and they couldn't find that many people to hunt antelopes in a short period of time—there were plenty of those horns on the grassland, but not many people were hunting them.

In other words, no matter how much stuff you have, you still need people to fight it. The population of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic is less than that of northern Xinjiang, but its area is more than half the size of northern Xinjiang. It's a typical example of vast land with a sparse population, and it's all plains—just thinking about it makes my mouth water.

After the goods were unloaded, Li Long took Liu Gaolou to the Shicheng Bayi Sugar Factory the next day. After meeting with Section Chief Hu, they handed over all six thousand US dollars. Three thousand US dollars were to cover the debt from the previous sugar purchase, and the remaining three thousand US dollars were to cover the funds for this sugar purchase.

Yes, from this point on, Li Long no longer needs to use his own reputation as collateral; he can pay cash directly for the sugar.

It was still twelve tons of white sugar, which was immediately taken away on site.

There was no other way; the US dollar paved the way. That's how extravagant things were at that time, and they even cut in line to get sugar.

Liu Gaolou was naturally pleased. He would take the goods away as soon as they arrived, knowing full well the power of the US dollar and Li Long's capabilities.

Liu Gaolou left, Li Long stayed, and Section Chief Hu was quite happy. He took a risk in doing this, and now it seems that the risk was worthwhile.

"I heard from Xiao Song that you've got more cattle and sheep over there? How about we haul a few more truckloads of sugar residue over every week? I'll have the factory's trucks deliver it to you, no freight charges, how about that?" Section Chief Hu was simply returning the favor. The sugar factory produces white sugar, and besides sugar, it only has sugar residue left.

Li Long had fulfilled all his promises, and Section Chief Hu felt that it wouldn't be right for him not to do something in return.

This is when true equality is achieved. Thinking about the arrival of the dollars and the smiles on the leaders' faces, Section Chief Hu found Li Long increasingly pleasing to the eye.

"Thank you so much, Section Chief," Li Long said with a smile. "To be honest, I really need this on my end."

The sugar factory's sugar residue was hauled away and dumped for free for many years before a processing plant was finally established to process it into animal feed for sale.

Instead of doing that, I might as well produce more now. Maybe when the cattle and sheep farming volume increases, I can set up my own processing plant.

Anyway, the principle of processing sugar residue into feed is very simple. It mainly involves drying and compression, or even no compression is needed. Just ask Director Du to design a feed dryer.

Of course, this is all predicated on him raising enough cattle and sheep. Currently, Keyum provides enough beef and mutton daily, but the price of beef and mutton in the vicinity is rising slightly, and some astute merchants have already begun to bring in cattle and sheep from the mountains or other places.

After offsetting shipping costs, you can still make a little profit.

At this point, it doesn't matter if you have to do some physical labor, as long as you can make money.

Li Long didn't stay at the sugar factory for long. When he left, Section Chief Hu gave him some sugar cubes as a return gift.

The main reason is that Li Long is always very polite when he comes over and brings him gifts, so it wouldn't be appropriate for him not to reciprocate with something.

Li Long thought it would be better to save the sugar cubes and give them to Halim and the others when they returned.

If we leave them at home, Mingming and Haohao might secretly take them and eat them. We also need to leave some with our older brother and the others.

Back in the courtyard, Li Long finally had time to inspect the antelope horns that had been delivered.

They're very fresh, but they smell quite strong; they haven't been washed.

However, Li Long doesn't plan to wash them for now; he'll decide when he needs them. He'll definitely sell them eventually; it's just a matter of how many years they can last. If they're stored for seventy or eighty years, those ram horns alone could be worth millions.

Of course, this is on the premise that it is released little by little; releasing it in large quantities will definitely impact the market.

Even if Liu Gaolou can't bring in any more lambs, the stockpile is enough, and Li Long is very satisfied.

Li Long put away the ten bear gallbladders. Selling them now would be a loss, but he didn't know how long they could be preserved.

The snow leopard pelt was quite good. Li Long hesitated, wondering whether to keep it or sell it after Zhao Hui arrived.

Li Long left the rest of the hides at the purchasing station, where Sun Jiaqiang and Liang Shuangcheng handled them. It's currently the off-season at the purchasing station; most customers are selling licorice root, astragalus root, and codonopsis root.

Therefore, Sun Jiaqiang and Liang Shuangcheng had more time.

The two of them have received quite a bit of money this year, and Liang Shuangcheng is already considering buying a courtyard house in the county, just like Sun Jiaqiang did.

He had almost enough money, but there weren't any suitable options nearby, so he was still looking. Tielanhua introduced Liang Shuangcheng to someone, but it didn't work out. The girl was also Hui, and her family was somewhat similar to Tielanhua's, except that she wasn't as brave as Tielanhua and listened to her family on some things.

Although Liang Shuangcheng is not opposed to finding Hui people, he wants to be like Sun Jiaqiang and not be restricted by those rules at home, so it's not going to happen for now.

Now that he has money, and has seen and heard a lot while working here, Liang Shuangcheng is no longer in a hurry to get married.

With a wide range of options available, he felt he could wait a little longer.

After arriving at the border with three truckloads of sugar, Liu Gaolou did not cross the border immediately, but instead called Liu Shanmin.

This time, Liu Shanmin went directly to the border and met with Liu Gaolou, asking him about his transaction with Li Long.

After learning that Li Long had directly handed over all the US dollars he had given him to the sugar factory in exchange for these three truckloads of sugar, Liu Shanmin roughly understood Li Long's intentions.

“That’s how the sugar deal works. Next time, give Li Long six thousand dollars and have him haul sugar for you,” Liu Shanmin said. “You’ll earn less this time because Li Long paid for the sugar hauling for you last time. But this time, you’ll earn the real money.”

"Then can we bypass Li Long and trade directly with the sugar factory?" Liu Gaolou wasn't ungrateful, but he was a little reluctant to part with the $6,000 he could make by reselling sugar, half of which would go to Li Long.

"Unless you can guarantee that everything you bring from here will be sold quickly in Northern Xinjiang, and someone can deliver goods to you so smoothly. And you also have to consider whether the sugar factory can still sell sugar to you so smoothly without Li Long."

Liu Gaolou shook his head.

He can't.

While these supplies should theoretically be in high demand, how can ordinary people possibly consume such a large quantity? And among those who can, who are reliable partners?

He knew nothing.

Liu Shanmin chose Li Long because he knew Li Long was reliable.

He didn't have time to find another suitable trading partner for his nephew—nor did he have the inclination; Li Long was fine.

Making money is a two-way street; you can't possibly pocket all the profits, can you? It's normal for someone to endorse your product or service and earn a commission.

After Liu Shanmin convinced his nephew, he immediately called Li Long.

He needed to see if Li Long could help him get this done.

After all, this mission is no ordinary one. If I succeed, I will have more power, and it will be easier to complete missions in the future.

"What did you say? A scrapped car?" Li Long was stunned for a moment. "What would I do with this thing? I run a recycling station, but not a scrap metal recycling station."

When Liu Shanmin called the purchasing station, Li Long was at home slowly cleaning a pair of antelope horns. He didn't wash them all, but some would make a decent gift to give to elders or close friends.

"What I mean is, I declared the cars as scrapped vehicles, but in reality, those cars are still drivable. For example, Ladas and Volgas."

Did you know? Almaty has hundreds of thousands of cars, a large number of which are quite old. Given the current situation, I can get those cars over here, and you can sell them privately for the price of a drivable car…”

In fact, Liu Shanmin wanted to use Li Long as a figurehead to make a superficial transfer.

What he was actually doing was acquiring a large number of scrapped cars there, from passenger cars to transport vehicles. And some of the scrapped transport vehicles contained parts he used.

But there had to be a point to connect them, so he chose Li Long.

Li Long thought it wasn't a bad idea. However, the quantity couldn't be too large, otherwise he wouldn't be able to handle it.

"Actually, it's not a bad idea to bring some scrap metal from the cars here and sell it to the scrap metal collection stations," Liu Shanmin persuaded patiently. "It'll definitely be cheaper than here."

Of course, after it arrives, his partners need to take what they are entitled to, and what remains is Li Long's.

If it's a scrapped car, the price of scrap metal is currently two or three cents per kilogram. Would that cover the transportation costs?
But if it can be opened, then it's a different story.

Even a car with problems is still a car.

Xie Yundong had been wanting to get a car for a long time. Now that Dafa vans have appeared in Wucheng, individuals who want to buy one still have to wait in line.

It costs over 30,000 yuan, which is quite painful.

If he could get a used car for a few thousand dollars, he would definitely be willing.

Li Long thought about it and agreed, but he had some disagreements with Liu Shanmin about the quantity.

Liu Shanmin felt that the first time should be at least ten units, and then ten units would be sent over every two weeks thereafter.

Li Long couldn't possibly eat that many, so he refused outright, saying he'd send ten to try first.

Whether or not to continue depends on the condition of the car.

Liu Shanmin did not expect Li Long to be so cautious, but at present, Li Long is the only partner he is optimistic about, and no one else has the ability to take over this type of product.

So let's get started, at least set up the framework. Even if the materials sent over end up piling up here, as long as the task is completed, he's confident he can make a name for himself over there.

Previously, things were done haphazardly, but now, by cooperating with Li Long, we can use the resources to overcome many obstacles that were previously blocked. If we can set up the recycling framework, the subsequent work will be much easier.

After all, you can do a lot of things under this name.

Ten cars it is. The economic situation there is not good, and many people really can't afford to drive.

At that time, the planned economy in the neighboring country was even more tightly controlled than ours, and you had to queue for a long time to buy things like meat, sugar, and butter.

Although Kazakhstan has vast arable land and produces a lot of grain, due to overall regulation, its own people are even going hungry—a lot of grain has been allocated to other republics.

Therefore, Liu Shanmin, together with some powerful local figures, had a considerable sphere of influence.

Li Long didn't care about all that. After hanging up the phone, he was thinking about what he would do if Liu Shanmin really sent ten cars.

He wondered if he should talk to Li Xiangqian about it. Li Xiangqian still commutes to work by bicycle, and if he got one for Old Li, he'd definitely be able to drive it without any problems. Although they were scrapped vehicles, Liu Shanmin promised that all of them were drivable and wouldn't have any major issues.

As for the formalities, I imagine Li Xiangqian should have no problem handling them.

As for the others, like Wang Mingjun and Xie Yundong, who drive cars, they might not even go to the county, so no one will care.

Besides, these are goods that were declared and imported through normal customs procedures. They are not smuggled and do not generate high profits, so people probably won't investigate him.

However, considering the risks, it's still quite high. If we don't do this anymore, and Liu Shanmin really does bring it over later, we'll just sell it to a recycling station as scrap.

Of course, let's wait for the car to arrive first. Li Long's own Jeep is considered quite high-end, but it certainly can't compare to a well-maintained Volga.

After all, there wasn't a single Santana in Ma County at that time, and the Volga was at least related to the Santana.

At least a sedan.

He planned to get one for his older brother too, so that at least he wouldn't have to think about riding a motorcycle anymore. Those things were still too dangerous. For a while, they were very popular in the countryside, and almost every family had one or two.

There were quite a few falls, with several people from the fourth team suffering broken bones, so we still need to be careful.

During that period, no one would have thought that you needed to wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle.

After receiving Li Long's reply, Liu Shanmin took the three carts of white sugar and crossed the border to the other side.

The mission was very important, and now that Li Long had made a promise, he could get started.

At first, they couldn't alert the enemy. They first sent some used cars to Li Long, and then, under the pretext of expanding their business, they could extend their reach to those "scrapped" military heavy trucks.

The plan was perfect.

P.S.: Here's something that happened recently. Someone was driving a new energy vehicle with only mandatory traffic accident liability insurance on National Highway 218 in Xinyuan, using assisted driving, and ran over and killed six horses belonging to a Kazakh herder. The herder said the six horses (three large and three small) were worth 45,000 yuan, but this guy refused to pay and said he would take legal action.

The herdsman was kind and honest; he treated him to a meal, found him a place to stay for the night, and even showed him around the nearby market… But this guy went online and started cursing the herdsman for driving his horse onto the road. That's a national highway, not an expressway! It's a road that crosses their pasture!

All I can say is that being too naive will get you bullied... you beasts!

(End of this chapter)