Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1142 There are many ways to sell a car

After returning from the sugar factory, Li Long called Liu Jianhua.

The agreed-upon 100 tons of cement hadn't been delivered, so Li Long wanted to know what was going on.

"I thought you'd wait until spring to ask for it since you didn't call," Liu Jianhua said with a smile after answering the phone and recognizing Li Long. "Besides, most of the drivers from my company have gone back to the countryside."

Let me put it this way: most of the drivers I hire are from the region. They work in northern Xinjiang for ten months of the year; they're very capable. Then, around January, when it's almost Chinese New Year, they go home to rest.

Li Long thought it made sense; there weren't many truck drivers in northern Xinjiang at that time. Vocational schools were offering driver training programs that were at least six months long, where drivers had to learn how to repair and drive from experienced masters, and getting a license after graduation wasn't easy.

Those truck drivers who can get a license naturally have some skills. Although these people may not be able to afford to buy a truck and most of them drive for others, they make a living through their skills, just like chefs in later generations. Unless they have a bad temper or very high standards, they don't have to worry about making a living.

“Even if I can find a driver now, the freight cost will be very high. I do have some trucks, but not as many as before. If you need cement now, I can only transport 30 to 50 tons a day at most, and the freight cost will be twice as high as before.”

Liu Jianhua was quite open with Li Long, mainly because after he bought the car, he felt it was really good to drive, and when others asked about the price, they all said he got a bargain.

Therefore, Liu Jianhua was very proud and treated Li Long well.

Some people do business based on mutual affinity, rather than purely on profit. Liu Jianhua is one of those people, which is why he genuinely cares about Li Long.

"A little higher shipping is fine," Li Long said. "Just send it to me here, I'll cover the shipping cost. The main problem is that the customer needs it urgently, and I can't do anything about it. I know you're thinking of me, Boss Liu, I appreciate it. I'll come to Wucheng to have a drink with you sometime."

"Okay, okay, you get the idea. I'll get someone to load the truck and ship it to you today!"

Having received Liu Jianhua's affirmative reply, Li Long was relieved. At least next time Liu Gaolou came over, he wouldn't have to worry about not having anything to transport.

Because Liu Gaolou brought in another three thousand hides this time, Li Long had to call Zhao Hui again and ask him to come over before the New Year.

The person who answered the phone was Zhao Hui's family member. He wasn't home yet, so Li Long asked his family member to pass on a message, telling Zhao Hui to call Li Long back when he got home.

Three days later, after 100 tons of cement arrived, Zhao Hui called Li Long back.

"Mr. Li, what's this? You've got a new supply of goods?" Zhao Hui's voice was light and cheerful.

Li Long said with a smile:

"Judging from that voice, Mr. Zhao, you must have made quite a bit of money this time, right?"

"Not bad, not bad," Zhao Hui said with a smile. "Thanks to the hides you gave me, the market is good now, and I've made some money."

Given Zhao Hui's personality, he wouldn't normally leak such information. Even if Li Long's leather had made him money, he usually wouldn't say so, otherwise he'd be easily manipulated, leading to an increase in raw material prices.

However, he knew that Li Long was not that kind of person, so he always brought up the price increase of raw materials himself. The two sides cooperated well and made a lot of money this time. This was mainly because a year after the Animal Protection Law was promulgated, various localities gradually introduced some policies. Although some policies have not been officially implemented, once the news spread, there were fewer hunters.

These days, most hunting is still a side job for farmers and forestry workers. They have their own income, and hunting is just a supplement, something they can choose to do or not do, something they can add to their income.

Now that the Animal Protection Law has been introduced and the authorities have been promoting it, even if management hasn't started yet, at least the loopholes are being prepared, which naturally makes hunters worried.

This has led to a shortage of wild animal pelts. Although some are farmed, the overall scale of farming is currently small and insufficient to fill the gap in raw pelt production.

That's why leather prices started to rise rapidly. Now, whoever can hoard a large amount of leather holds the upper hand.

Zhao Hui always gets thousands of hides from Li Long, making him a leader in the industry. In the past, he was the one who had to find others to sell his goods, but now others are coming to him for help.

He hasn't answered Li Long's calls these past two days because he accepted banquets from purchasing managers of two downstream companies. They were begging him to get the hides and sell them to them.

That's why he was so extremely proud. Of course, Zhao Hui also knew that the reason he was able to obtain so many pelts was largely thanks to Li Long's connections. Currently, among the countries bordering China, the only regions where large-scale hunting for pelts is possible are the Northwest, North, and Northeast.

There are indeed large herds of wild animals in the north and northwest, but the people there still have some problems dealing with the people here. There are too few people in the northeast and the forest area is too large, so the northwest has become the main source of wild animal pelts.

Li Long wasn't the only one in this business, but Li Long had a larger supply of raw leather at lower prices, giving him a significant competitive advantage, which naturally contributed to Zhao Hui's success.

"Alright, just as you said, I've got another batch of hides, three thousand pieces. I don't know if I'll have any more in a couple of days, but this should be enough for you to haul. So you'd better come over before the New Year and take the hides away."

"Okay, okay, I've settled the payment for the goods these past two days and will be there right away." Zhao Hui was overjoyed to hear this. There was really no shortage of wild animal pelts to sell now, and he was very happy that Li Long had pelts.

After hanging up the phone, Li Long felt a little relieved.

I brought some things back from Yanjing, and since I had some free time, I took some to my older brother's place and also picked up Mingming and Haohao. The two kids had been playing wildly with Li Qiang there, and when Li Long arrived, Mingming and Haohao were overjoyed to see him for the first time, almost crying while hugging Li Long's leg.

Two minutes later, Li Qiang shouted from outside, and the two children ran away wiping their snot, saying they were going to beat up the old ox.

“Dad made two oxen for the two kids, and they’re so happy,” Li Jianguo explained. “They follow Qiangqiang out to play every day, and they’re not afraid of the cold. Every time they come back, your sister-in-law has to dry their shoes and clothes. She won’t rest until she forces them to sit by the fire for a while!”

Li Long laughed and said:
"They've eaten meat and drunk goat milk since they were little, so they're in good health, they're warm-natured, and they're not afraid of the cold. It's good for kids to stay outside more in the winter, but they've been running around a bit too wild, so we need to bring them back to school for a couple of days."

“She’s learning here too. When Juan does her homework, she pulls the three of them along. They have to write characters, do arithmetic, and recite poems, otherwise they can’t play. Juan has lived at the school for a semester and has grown up quite a bit.”

Li Long also felt that Li Juan was significantly more mature than when she was in junior high school. Not only did she act more like an older sister when taking care of the children, but her daily behavior was also different, and she was much more composed when greeting people.

At lunchtime, Mingming and Haohao were quite well-behaved and ate a lot without being picky. It was obvious that they had gone out to play in the morning and had used up a lot of energy. In addition, their sister-in-law's cooking was quite delicious.

When Li Long was about to take them back in the afternoon, the two children were reluctant. It was only after Li Long promised to take them back for a few days and then send them back the next day or the day after that the two children reluctantly agreed.

As he got on the bus, Mingming loudly said to Li Qiang outside the bus:
"Brother! Please keep an eye on Hao Hao's and my old ox for us, don't let anyone take it!"

"Alright, alright, I'll show you." Li Qiang waved with a smile.

The two children were a little reluctant to leave when they got into the car. Before Li Long even left the group, they started chattering and asking him what fun things to do in Yanjing, what fun things they experienced, and so on.

Li Long then told them about it. To his surprise, the two children didn't ask if Li Long had brought them toys or anything like that; they only asked about what they had seen and heard.

Hmm, some progress.

Back home, Gu Xiaoxia and Gu Boyuan were quite happy to see the children during dinner. They hadn't seen them for a while, and they kept asking the children questions. Gu Xiaoxia, in particular, noticed that the children's accents had changed, and she looked worried. They had been speaking Mandarin for two years, how could they have been influenced by it after just a few days back home?
Li Long wasn't worried at all. He knew it was due to the environment. Even if the two children did learn the dialect this winter, they would quickly revert back to it once they started kindergarten.

Gu Boyuan dotes on his two children immensely. He's not exaggerating; he genuinely has no plans to remarry, so his two children are basically his only source of comfort.

As for Gu Xiaoyu getting married and having children in the future, he probably won't be able to take care of her. For now, these two are the closest people he has right now.

The next day, Mingming and Haohao kept asking Li Long to take them to the fourth team so they could play Lao Niu and Hua Ma with Qiangqiang, but Li Long refused.

It wasn't that he was unwilling, but Wang Mingjun called and said he would be driving a tractor to deliver the hides today, and asked him to wait here.

Li Long felt it inappropriate to leave, so he handed Mingming and Haohao over to Han Fang to play in the yard while he went to the purchasing station.

Although Mingming and Haohao were somewhat unwilling, they were already a bit more sensible by this time and knew that their father had important business to attend to, so they stopped bothering Li Long.

Upon arriving at the purchasing station, Li Long noticed that there weren't many people selling their wares in the front yard, so he went to the back to sort the hides with Liang Shuangcheng. The hides needed to be separated, with whole hides and damaged hides placed on one side, so that he could easily count them when Zhao Hui arrived.

When several hundred hides had been separated, the sound of a tractor came from the front yard. Li Longcai came out of the warehouse and saw Wang Mingjun driving the tractor, with Old Chen sitting on a shearing board, into the back yard. Both men were wearing leather hats and leather coats. Despite this, their hats and clothes were covered in snow and frost, making them look exactly like snowmen from the Tianshan Mountains.

How cold must it be!
Li Long hurriedly went to greet them, and as the two jumped off the car, he helped them brush the snow off their bodies while saying:
"Hey, you're freezing now, aren't you? Come on, let's go inside and warm up."

"Wait...wait a minute." Wang Mingjun, the tractor driver, stammered, "We can't go in all at once, it'll ruin everything."

"Let's go into the warehouse," Li Long said. "It's too cold outside. There's no stove in the warehouse, so the temperature isn't that high. Let's warm up in the warehouse for a bit before going inside. Come on, come on, it's too cold outside!"

The warehouse where the hides were stored didn't have a stove, and the temperature was a few degrees below zero, much better than outside. After entering the warehouse, the two men took off their leather hats and coats and began rubbing their faces.

"Hey, their balls are all frozen and shrunken back in." Wang Mingjun said nonchalantly, seeing that the warehouse was full of grown men. "I should have gotten an extra piece of sheepskin to protect their groins."

"It'll fit perfectly, and your wife won't need a tubal ligation anymore," Old Chen joked crudely. "And we won't need to send you condoms either, saving us money."

"Go to hell!" Wang Mingjun kicked him, then asked Li Long, who had just brought in water:

"Xiaolong, I see you have several cars here. Are these for sale, or do they belong to other people?"

“I’m planning to sell them,” Li Long said. “They came from the Soviet Union, the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. I have a friend there who can get some used cars from time to time.”

"Hey, why didn't you say so sooner!" Wang Mingjun's eyes lit up. "So, you're going to drive a car from now on, and you're not going to drive your Jeep anymore?"

"Of course we'll keep driving. What, you want to get a Jeep?" Li Long asked with a smile.

"Of course! I'd like to get a car, but you know how bad the roads are where we live. We often have to go into sand dunes, so a car simply can't drive there."

But are Jeeps expensive?

"If you want a Jeep like mine, it'll cost 20,000 yuan," Li Long said after thinking for a moment.

Although Liu Gaolou didn't bring over many GAZ-69 vehicles, Li Long knew the market price. The jeeps there were mainly for military use. The one he got for his older brother, which had been converted for civilian use and acquired through scrapping procedures, could be bought for $500 there. If it was purely military-grade, it might be even cheaper.

The main problem is that most of the military-grade Type 69 off-road vehicles they acquired weren't in very good condition and couldn't fetch a good price.

Given the relationship between Wang Mingjun and Li Jianguo, and their collaboration on the broom business over the past two years, it wouldn't be a problem to specifically ask Liu Gaolou to get him a GAZ-69 truck in good condition.

Twenty thousand yuan sounds like a lot, but in reality, given the rate of price increases in the past two years, it's about the price of two small four-wheeled tractors.

The small four-wheeled tractor that used to sell for over 5,000 yuan now sells for over 8,000 yuan for a 15-horsepower model.

More and more wasteland is being cleared in northern Xinjiang, and many people are growing sideline cash crops. More and more people can afford to buy tractors.

These years have been the period of fastest economic development in northern Xinjiang and rural areas.

However, these advantages were eventually dissipated. After all, the country was on the path of industrialization, and agriculture was also developing in the direction of intensification and large-scale production. Individuals farming on their own could no longer truly get rich.

"Twenty thousand yuan..." Wang Mingjun hesitated.

He can still come up with 20,000 yuan. Now he's just weighing whether it's appropriate or worthwhile to use that money to buy a Jeep.

No one is a god; it's normal to have selfish desires. If you tighten your belt a little, it's easy to gain something for yourself.

To say that all the company commanders in the Production and Construction Corps are completely impartial would be a lie; it all depends on how well they maintain a balance in the overall situation.

Not to mention Wang Mingjun and Zheng Xiangyang, even Old Chen has a lot of money.

So when he heard that he could get a Jeep for 20,000 yuan, Old Chen was tempted and asked:
"Xiaolong, is it exactly the same as yours?"

“That’s different.” Li Long smiled. “You guys warm up first. Look at that,” Li Long said, pointing to a car covered with a canvas. “That’s a new car, but you can’t buy that for 20,000. That one is almost brand new. But if you want it, I can get you a car that’s only been driven for five or six years.”

"Alright, alright, can we watch it now?" Wang Mingjun couldn't wait any longer when he heard the car was right in front of him.

"So urgent?" Li Long smiled and said, "Alright, let's take a look." With that, he left the warehouse, walked over, and lifted the tarpaulin covering the new GAZ-69 truck.

There was snow on the canvas before, but Liang Shuangcheng would always clean it off after it snowed. Now the canvas was frozen solid, as hard as a shell, and shaped like a car.

Wang Mingjun and Lao Chen came over to help remove the canvas cover. They fell in love with the new GAZ truck at first sight.

"Hey, this car feels even better than yours!" Wang Mingjun reached out to touch it, but Li Long quickly stopped him, "Your hands are still warm, what if they get dirty? You really like this car? Then I'll call them and have them get you one like this."

"So, are you selling this one?" Wang Mingjun had no interest in an old car after seeing a new one.

“I will sell it, but it will be more expensive than the price I told you,” Li Long said. “It’s basically a new car, I haven’t driven it much.”

"You name the price first," Wang Mingjun said, sounding rather arrogant at this point.

"Forty thousand," Li Long said. "If it were someone else, I would have sold it for fifty thousand. This car was a gift to me. I already have one, and I can't drive it all, otherwise I wouldn't be selling it."

This new vehicle is far more useful than a sedan on the northern sand dunes. It has a large rear space, making it suitable for carrying both people and cargo. It also has ample power, good off-road performance, and is less likely to get stuck in the sand dunes when the road conditions are poor.

Although Russian off-road vehicles had many problems and poor sealing, in those days, having a car was good enough, so why complain? At that time, domestically produced cars also had many problems.

The price Li Long offered was comparable to that of Dafabet or Songhuajiang, which was quite cheap.

Wang Mingjun hesitated.

Old Chen said with a smile:

"I don't need a new car. If you have one of those five or six-year-old cars you mentioned, get me one too. I like the look of this car, and it'll be perfect for where we live."

Li Long said with a smile:
"Okay, I'll go over and call them in a bit and have them get one over here."

"Do you have any paperwork for this car? Can you get it registered?" Wang Mingjun thought for a moment, still preferring the new car, and asked again.

“Of course, the import paperwork is all there, we can get them registered as soon as we get them back.” Li Long nodded. “We got a batch of these as scrap cars before, but they were hard to get paperwork done, though they were cheap. They weren’t easy to sell, so they switched to these later.”

Wang Mingjun nodded. He had been staying in the Production and Construction Corps all along, and his connections were all there. If he wanted to get a cheap car, he could do it without going through the proper paperwork there, but he couldn't possibly keep driving it there forever, could he?
“You can also use the leather to get a discount,” Li Long suggested. “A full piece of leather is 120 yuan, and a piece of scrap leather is 81 yuan. You don’t have much to do this winter anyway, so you can collect enough to exchange for a car.”

"Can it work?" Wang Mingjun's eyes widened in surprise.

Old Chen had the same expression.

“It can be done.” Li Long smiled.

He said this because, firstly, there are many gazelles in the sand dunes, making them easy to hunt; secondly, Wang Mingjun and his group belong to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and the Animal Protection Law cannot govern them for the time being, as they have their own judicial system.

Therefore, this matter can be accomplished.

(End of this chapter)