Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1175 The situation in the neighboring country is getting worse, but opportunities are also increasing.
The next day, Gu Boyuan ate breakfast in the courtyard. After eating, he drove his Volga and followed Li Long's GAZ truck to the guesthouse where Liu Gaolou was staying.

After Liu Gaolou and his group finished eating and checked out of their rooms, they went to the sugar factory with Li Long and his group. After loading fifty tons of white sugar onto the truck, they waved to Li Long and left.

When Gu Boyuan left, he clearly looked quite triumphant; he was off to explore a new market.

Li Long could only marvel at how energetic his father-in-law still was.

He returned to the purchasing station and saw that people had already started selling fritillaria bulbs in the yard, so he parked the car and went inside to help his father.

Li Qingxia is very skilled at collecting hides, but he's only just started with fritillaria, and Li Long is worried that his father won't be able to handle it.

Sure enough, Li Qingxia's pricing for less-than-clean fritillaria bulbs was a bit erratic; it wasn't extremely high or low, but it felt rather arbitrary.

After the collection was complete, Li Long reminded everyone that any fritillaria bulbs that hadn't been properly cleaned or removed of impurities would be sold at a low price.

Li Qingxia also lacked experience in determining the dryness of fritillaria bulbs, so Li Long simply took charge of the process himself, handling all the fritillaria bulb sales.

After we finish collecting them, we'll talk to my dad when no one's around to discuss how to tell the difference between dry and wet fritillaria bulbs and how to determine the price.

In short, clean, dry fritillaria bulbs are priced the highest here, and of course, the price is even higher for the larger, selected premium-grade fritillaria bulbs.

Additionally, clean but slightly damp fritillaria bulbs are priced slightly lower. Even if they are very clean, but quite dirty, the price won't be high because they need to be washed and dried again.

Of course, even the so-called low price is actually higher than the prices at other purchasing stations; it's just a low price compared to the high-priced fritillaria they collect themselves.

Determining the degree of dryness or wetness of fritillaria is mainly a matter of experience. Li Qingxia spent four days basically mastering it—and people who brought various kinds of fritillaria to sell served as samples.

Otherwise, Li Long would really have a hard time demonstrating to his father.

Gu Boyuan and his group arrived in Yining the next day and then called Li Long to let him know they were safe.

On the third day, Liu Gaolou called Li Long and said that Liu Shanmin had learned about Li Long's needs. Although he had not yet looked for a source of goods, he knew that there were indeed high-horsepower wheeled tractors there.

According to the message relayed by Liu Shanmin to Li Long, some large farms in the Soviet Union and Kazakhstan currently have a full range of agricultural machinery, but the profit margin is not high. Some people transport these agricultural machines to the black market for sale after planting.

So Li Long should be able to get the tractor he wants on his next trip.

Of course, Liu Shanmin also agreed that Li Long would settle the matter in RMB, and the money could be given directly to Liu Gaolou. He would exchange more US dollars for sugar on the black market, so he had sufficient funds.

What Liu Shanmin didn't tell Li Long was that the request Li Long made to him conveniently concealed a rather crucial task he was currently undertaking.

High-horsepower wheeled tractors are very expensive equipment. The fact that Liu Shanmin can afford one means that he mainly does business there. This would make those who were watching him relax, making it easier for him to get what he really needs.

Of course, this didn't need to be discussed with Li Long; it was Liu Shanmin's own business. All he could say was that Li Long's request was a godsend for him.

Liu Shanmin increasingly felt that Li Long was his lucky star, because every time he needed something, it was exactly what he could get and that was useful for his operations.

Sometimes Liu Shanmin even had an absurd thought: could this Li Long be another person on his end, someone specifically there to cooperate with him?

Of course, this was impossible. Liu Shanmin knew Li Long very well and knew it was just a coincidence.

It was precisely this coincidence that made his actions over the past year go more and more smoothly, which is why he marveled at the ingenuity of life.

After receiving Liu Gaolou's call, Li Long called Liu Jianhua to urge him to deliver the cement.

"Mr. Li, I'm so sorry. If you hadn't called, I would have completely forgotten about the cement."

Liu Jianhua has been quite busy lately. It has been ten years since the reform and opening up began. Although the construction speed in northern Xinjiang is slower than that in other parts of China, that is only a relative speed. In fact, infrastructure and urban construction have been accelerating in the past two years, whether in Urumqi or Beiting. Buildings are being erected one after another, and factories are being built in large numbers.

With the increasing demand for cement and the construction of new cement plants, Liu Jianhua's business has been thriving.

Of course, he wouldn't stop doing business with Li Long because of this. Li Long's demand is large, and although the unit price isn't high, the overall profit is quite substantial.

So as soon as Li Long made the call, Liu Jianhua organized a convoy to transport cement to Ma County. Within three days, one hundred tons of cement arrived.

The leather has already been transported away. Li Long knows that Liu Shanmin's demand for cement may be even greater in the future, so he simply asked Liu Jianhua to transport another 200 tons of cement.

Li Long believed that Liu Gaolou would be able to transport the cement away when the peak season for fritillaria arrived.

Perhaps spurred by last year's fritillaria season, not only are there more people digging for medicinal herbs in the mountains this year, but the fritillaria digging season has also started earlier. In the past, fritillaria digging would begin around late April and last for more than a month.

Judging from the fritillaria bulbs we've received, people were already digging for them in the mountains around April 10th.

At this stage, the fritillaria seedlings have only just opened two leaves. These people are truly... blinded by greed.

Fortunately, the size of the fritillaria below remains unchanged, whether it has two leaves or four leaves. This fritillaria grew plump after flowering last year, so digging it up earlier simply means letting it emerge from the soil sooner.

It will not affect the quality of the fritillaria.

Li Qingxia, the old man, had already mastered the method of pricing various fritillaria bulbs, so Li Long left the counter and continued to do his odd jobs.

He called the forestry teams in Ma County and Hu County, then drove there and emptied the "garbage" from their warehouses, spending a total of 15,000 yuan plus two cases of liquor.

Li Long roughly calculated that cleaning up this "garbage" would bring him about 30,000 yuan in revenue, plus two meals of hand-pulled mutton treated to him by the two forestry teams.

Of course, he also received new information from the forestry team: the forestry department was going to be reformed, and forestry bureaus would soon be established in various counties and cities, and then integrated. The Eastern Tianshan Forestry Bureau and the Western Tianshan Forestry Bureau were directly under the autonomous region, as were the forestry sub-bureaus below them.

In other words, the forestry department will be a vertically managed unit in the future, the forestry teams will be disbanded and replaced by forestry work stations, which will no longer have law enforcement power.

Enforcement power belongs to the forest police, which is the forestry police station, and it has nothing to do with them anymore.

They will be reassigned, and although they will still receive a salary, the nature of their work will definitely be different from what they are doing now.

In other words, this year will be the last year these two forestry teams exist.

The two forestry team leaders also said that during the upcoming fritillaria season, they will crack down on the illegal digging and harvesting of forest and grassland resources.

Li Long understood what this meant. In the final moments, both sides of the forestry team planned to make a final profit. Whether it was the forestry team cadres or the forest rangers, the next moment was the last chance to make money.

Li Long also ran into Polati. Polati confided in Li Long, saying that he was lucky to have met Li Long in the first two years, as he had even earned some extra money and bought a house for his son.

Otherwise, after the reforms, they will lose their law enforcement power, and relying solely on their salaries, it will be virtually impossible for them to buy a yard.

Li Long knew this was the tide of the times, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The world's trends are overwhelming and unstoppable; those who follow them prosper, and those who oppose them perish.

He was aware of that.

So I chatted with Polati for a bit, telling him to be more careful in the future.

After all, with the forestry team's law enforcement authority transferred to the forest police, these forest rangers are no longer allowed to carry firearms. From now on, when they encounter those digging for medicinal herbs, they have no good way to deter them except by relying on their former official status.

Polati laughed and said he knew. He whispered to Li Long that many of the forest rangers actually had their own hidden guns.

In the next two years or so, although they will hand over law enforcement power, they will definitely carry guns when patrolling the forest. No one will risk their life on the fact that those who dig for medicinal herbs will obey orders.

Li Long thought this made sense.

For the next two days, he worked with Liang Shuangcheng and Sun Jiaqiang at the recycling station, cleaning up the garbage that the forestry team had brought back.

These items are mainly medicinal herbs: last year's Codonopsis pilosula, some aged deer antlers, Astragalus membranaceus, and Bupleurum chinense.

Some of them are already broken and rotten, so we have to clean them out and throw them away.

Li Long felt that the two forestry teams had basically been waiting for him to arrive before cleaning the warehouse. They didn't seem to care how much the goods sold for; they were all going to make a profit anyway. The most abundant items were, of course, hides. Some were confiscated, and others were hunted by the forest rangers. They would simply peel off the hides, rub them with salt, and throw them into the warehouse, without caring whether they could be sold or for how much.

Fortunately, these people were skilled with guns and skinning techniques. Most of the hundred-plus hides were whole hides, and they were all winter hides, which was quite good.

As for animal protection laws, these forest rangers really don't care about them.

Finally, there were some odds and ends found in the mountains, including some jade that needed to be cleaned to reveal its quality, some rusted bronzes, and large clumps of knotted copper coins, etc.

After two days of cleaning, Li Long kept the copperware and coins, and let Liang Shuangcheng and the others continue cleaning the leather, combing the fur and scraping off the grease, while waiting for Zhao Hui to arrive.

We've already announced our intention to collect donkey hides, and we've actually collected about ten in the last few days.

Donkey hides are not expensive, and leather factories don't buy them much, so Li Long usually buys them for around 20 or 30 yuan.

At first, Liang Shuangcheng and the others thought of putting the donkey hides in the leather goods area, but Li Long told them to put them in the medicinal herbs area.

Sun Jiaqiang and Liang Shuangcheng didn't know, but Li Qingxia did, saying that this stuff could be used to make glue and was a good thing.

As for the purchase price, Jia Tianlong had previously replied that he hadn't purchased any yet, but it would probably be around fifty yuan per piece, though it could be higher. He's currently taking care of his children and hasn't started doing business yet.

Li Long wasn't in a hurry, knowing that once the fritillaria season started, Jia Tianlong wouldn't be able to take care of the child anymore.

He also attended a meeting in the county, after all, as a representative, he still had to exercise the power entrusted to him by the people. Li Long and the others discussed the meeting's agenda in groups, and then submitted their prepared proposals.

Representatives are required to collect opinions from the people every year and formulate proposals. Li Long has two proposals this year: one is to vigorously develop sideline planting, mainly cotton; the other is to vigorously develop agricultural mechanization, which is also related to him.

Because he had readily available case studies and existing experiences in mind, both proposals were based on clear data and logical reasoning, and did not seem like something someone who had not graduated from junior high school could have come up with.

Anyway, it's going to be the trend in the future, so Li Long brought it up first to gain an advantage.

During this time, Gu Xiaoxia had also learned to drive. Li Long got her a license, and she started driving the Lada that Liu Gaolou had brought over.

All the GAZ trucks have been sold, bought by the same group of people—Zhao Zongming's colleagues, the company commanders and political instructors who came from the Production and Construction Corps.

Or rather, after Wang Mingjun bought the GAZ truck, it caused a stir in the Production and Construction Corps, and many company commanders and political instructors wanted to buy one too.

However, they didn't have time to come over once spring plowing began. After the cotton planting was finished, they came together and cleared out Li Long's car.

There were only so many GAZ trucks; the rest were Ladas and Volgas. It was only because Gu Xiaoxia had driven the Lada away beforehand that it was left behind; otherwise, it's likely that car wouldn't have survived either.

Li Long could only say that these company commanders and political instructors were really rich.

Zhao Zongming later hinted to him that although some company commanders and political instructors could not organize people to make big brooms and make money like Wang Mingjun, some of them would suddenly become rich when the dividends were distributed at the end of each year.

Li Long knew that some things were inevitable, but he was still quite angry.

But there was nothing we could do.

Gu Boyuan called on April 26th to say that the purchasing station had opened the day before.

Because we had already contacted the people from Revolution Buick beforehand and run a three-language advertisement on the state TV station for a week, there were quite a few people coming to sell things on the opening day, and we spent more than 90,000 yuan on the first day!

Gu Boyuan had prepared 100,000 yuan for the acquisition, thinking it would be more than enough, but he didn't expect it would almost not be enough!

The bulk of the goods consisted of hides transported by the Revolutionary Bek County collective, some hides transported by Wu Yongbo, and fritillaria bulbs sold by individual vendors.

Gu Boyuan told Li Long some unexpected news: that day, a reporter from the state TV station came to interview him, and a leader's secretary also came over, made an appearance, and said a few words to Gu Boyuan, implying that he was welcome to open a purchasing station there.

Neither Li Long nor Gu Boyuan could clearly explain the meaning behind it, but they both understood it.

"The opening went smoothly. Anyway, no one came to cause trouble. There were quite a few people selling things today. So far, most of them are from the surrounding rural areas, and a few are from surrounding counties and cities, such as Huocheng and Chaxian."

Gu Boyuan's voice was a little hoarse, "My warehouse is under construction, but the existing buildings can last for a while. When Boss Liu goes there next time, I'll have him bring the leather and other things over for you."

By the way, I've already collected over 400 kilograms of fritillaria since yesterday. It's from last year's stock, and the average price I paid was around 70 yuan, which is considered a high price here. I estimate I'll have collected over two tons by early May...

They have a lot of stock here, probably because the purchase price wasn't high, so some people are holding onto it, waiting for dealers. When my TV station advertised, they directly listed the prices, so many people with stock came over.”

Li Long knew that Gu Boyuan's move was tantamount to ruining everything. If it weren't for the leaders who came during the opening yesterday, there might have been someone causing trouble.

After all, price suppression is an unspoken rule in the industry in many cases. If a newcomer comes along and overturns the old practices, raising prices all at once, how can those who used to suppress prices stand it?
This is considered taking a risk, and it can also be seen as challenging the old rules of the trade.

Fortunately, someone was backing him up. Li Long and Gu Boyuan weren't afraid on the surface; what he was worried about was the things happening behind the scenes.

After all, the fire in Donglai was quite frightening, so he immediately reminded Gu Boyuan to pay attention to safety and to send people on night watch, preferably with more people.

"Uncle Gu, we're making quite a bit of money now. Just yesterday, you brought in 400 kilograms of fritillaria, and we earned 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. So we should hire more people, even just as security guards, to take turns on duty day and night to keep an eye on the warehouse and the main gate."

We've blocked their path to wealth. If they're desperate, they might resort to underhanded tactics. We must be careful!

Gu Boyuan had actually already thought of it, but he hadn't planned to rush it, intending to take it slowly. Li Long's reminder and mention of the data immediately brought him to his senses.

Yes, just the profit from fritillaria alone is thirty to forty thousand a day. Just imagine how much it would be if you added other things.

At this point, someone would take risks for a few dozen yuan, let alone so much money?

"Okay, I'll go to the TV station today and post job advertisements to hire a few capable veterans. To be honest, there are definitely fewer people now; yesterday we almost collapsed the counter due to the crowds!"

With Gu Boyuan's situation on track, Li Long felt somewhat relieved.

He has a telephone line installed, so the two sides can communicate in a timely manner if there is any situation. Although the distance is a bit far, in any case, it is no longer a solo effort.

And having someone watching over me makes me feel somewhat safe.

Two days after Gu Boyuan's business opened, Liu Gaolou called Li Long from Khorgos, saying that he had purchased two high-horsepower wheeled tractors, John Deere 4440 models.

"Actually, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, you can buy more Soviet-made Kiro cars, but you don't want that one, and it's too fuel-inefficient and uncomfortable to sit in."

Liu Gaolou introduced Li Long as follows:

"These two machines don't belong to the farm; they were bought by an agricultural machinery research institute for research purposes. The institute is now out of business, and the managers disposed of these two machines by taking them out."

"How long does it take?" Li Long asked.

"Neither of them was driven for long. They were mainly used for research. Actually, even though it was for research, they weren't disassembled much. They drove over from there and the ride was fine. The driver said it was more comfortable than riding in a GAZ truck."

"How much is that?"

"Since they are second-hand phones, my second uncle spent less than $50,000 per set when he bought them, so you can just give him $300,000 for both."

Almost at the official exchange rate, Li Long didn't understand why Liu Shanmin was offering such a low price. Before he could ask, Liu Gaolou gave another explanation:

“You told my second uncle before that the ruble would depreciate more and more, while the value of foreign exchange such as the US dollar would rise. So my second uncle exchanged his money for US dollars after he made it. Now, he has made a lot of money from it, so I’m giving you such a low price as a reward.”

Li Long thought to himself, "That works too," and of course he was happy to agree.

"Because wheeled tractors can't possibly go as fast as cars, we'll be a little late getting there. Also, have you prepared the cement yet?"

"Three hundred tons, enough for you to make several trips!"

"Hey, that's great! I love doing business with people like you."

(End of this chapter)