Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1193 Is it okay to be Meng Hai's behind-the-scenes boss?
On the wasteland, two cotton tents stood somewhat forlornly beside a ditch.

Beside the tent was a pot made of stacked stones, containing half a pot of noodles that had clumped together before they were finished eating.

The noodles contained leafy greens and chunks of meat, topped with a layer of oil; they looked quite appetizing.

There was a pile of collected dry branches nearby, which served as firewood. Next to the tent were some tools, some intact, some broken.

The ground not far away had been leveled, and there were many cement boards (cement slabs) that had been molded out on it. Many of them were already standing up and stacked together, while the ground was still wet.

Dozens of bags of cement were piled up further away, covered with rainproof plastic sheeting. Next to the cement piles were large piles of sand, gravel, and other materials.

Meng Hai was leading his men to lay cement slabs in a nearby ditch.

The people brought from the village were all covered in dust and dirt, but they were full of enthusiasm.

"Let's work even harder and try to finish laying the remaining cement slabs and plastering them within three days. Then we can just wait for the inspection and get paid," Meng Hai encouraged everyone loudly.

"We've brought the project ahead of schedule, so the quality should be excellent. This money is well-earned. When we split the profits, I'll give you all a day off so you can buy your wives and kids some meat and clothes. It won't be a wasted trip!"

"Old Meng, will we still have this kind of work in the future?" A young man looked up and wiped the sweat from his forehead and asked.

His face was already covered in mud and grime, and this smear made him look like a clown, which made some people laugh.

"Yes, definitely. Comrade Li Long said that as long as this job is done well, once the road is finished, we'll set up an engineering team and we can still take on jobs like this! And we can even take on bigger jobs in the future!"

"That's great!" Everyone was quite happy.

Although the work is tiring, you can get cash after finishing the work, and that's equivalent to becoming a worker.

The land on the Qingshui River side is much less than that of Li Long's fourth team. It's really not easy for them to get rich through farming like the fourth team, at least not at this time.

Things might be better when specialized planting begins, but not now.

Therefore, we need to expand from other aspects.

Building roads in the mountains was the first step Meng Hai took with these people, and building canals outside the mountains was the second step.

If Li Long can get Meng Hai and his team a second extra job after the road is repaired, Meng Hai believes that they will be able to find work on their own from then on.

Li Long had told Meng Hai that the country was currently carrying out reform and opening up, and with economic development, there was a great need to build many new facilities. The irrigation canals built in the 1960s and 70s could no longer meet the current needs of agricultural development, so many new irrigation canals would be built.

Of course, roads, bridges, houses, etc. are all needed, but Meng Hai and his team need technical expertise and the addition of technical personnel.

However, they are not even a formal engineering company yet, so it is difficult for them to recruit qualified technicians.

Take it one step at a time.

What Meng Hai didn't know was that Li Long was now thinking about the same problem.

What does that powerful empire next door have that's worth importing?
Many things can now be produced domestically, and they are of good quality and inexpensive. If you want to buy something, you can only buy those things that have become cheaper due to economic inflation.

Used machinery is a good option.

Meng Hai and his team did a good job. Li Long went to see them once and said that Meng Hai did a great job in maintaining quality and was making rapid progress. Yang Bo was quite satisfied.

Therefore, Li Long was thinking that he could expand Meng Hai's engineering team in the future.

While the future development of northern Xinjiang may not be as advanced as other regions in China, that is relative, mainly because it is a vast and sparsely populated area.

As long as we ride this wave and maintain good quality control, we can actually take on quite a few projects.

Although Li Long didn't have a wide network of connections, he could still help construction teams get some small projects—he didn't plan to take on large projects like highways, large bridges, or commercial complexes.

They can still do some work such as maintaining agricultural irrigation ditches and rural roads.

So Li Long was thinking about whether he should import some machinery first, such as forklifts, trucks, and mixers.

Otherwise, road repair work would be too slow if done by manpower and tractors alone.

The efficiency is poor.

At this point, Li Long had already brought the engineering team under his control, which is why he had this idea.

When Li Long realized what was going on, he thought it wasn't such a bad idea after all. Meng Hai and the others would provide manpower and labor, while he would provide the machinery. It would be a good idea for them to cooperate, and he could treat it as investing his equipment as equity.

He acted on his thought. Since he had so much money sitting in his account anyway, Li Long figured he might as well buy something and make it worthwhile, especially with prices rising.

He called Liu Gaolou and told him about it.

"You should have told me sooner! If I had come a couple of days earlier, I might have gotten it for you. But it won't work this time. My second uncle will be delivering the goods tomorrow. This time, he's bringing a car, hides, and antelope horns."

"Oh, right, didn't you say you wanted deer antlers? My second uncle brought you a whole truckload this time—the deer antlers over there are unwanted too, they're very cheap. My second uncle's idea is, you can just give him a small token of your labor for picking up the antlers, plus the customs duties."

"Sure," Li Long said with a smile. "Then I'll be making a fortune."

"Hey, let's do it together, we'll all make money." Liu Gaolou made money from the hides and antelope horns, Liu Shanmin made money from the black market price difference of white sugar, and Li Long made money from selling goods here.

Triple win!

“After my second uncle arrives, I’ll talk to him tomorrow and let him check the prices of forklifts over there. Used trucks aren’t expensive. I bought two for your father-in-law a while ago; each used truck was only about five hundred dollars, which is about the same as a car.”

The truck provided by Liu Gaolou is also a GAZ brand, and the price is really not expensive.

Li Long didn't ask further, guessing it was the same reason. Food was becoming a problem over there, so naturally, some jobs couldn't be done. What could they do to get enough to eat? They had to sell things.

“My second uncle has accumulated quite a bit of hard currency recently, such as gold jewelry, and has stored a lot of it. It’s just that importing it is quite troublesome, and he’s still trying to find a solution. He asked if you were interested.”

"That's incredibly interesting," Li Long said with a smile. "How could I not be interested in this? If I can successfully complete the game, I'll definitely want a lot of it."

I won't go into detail about the rising price of gold here, but in any case, it's still a stronger hard currency than the US dollar.

Whether it's ordinary people or the powerful and influential, this thing is a treasure.

If Liu Shanmin could bring gold over from there, he would naturally be happy, and the authorities would probably be happy too.

After all, this thing is a hard currency internationally, isn't it?

Of course, it's also a good thing that a large amount of US dollars can be brought in, since the country is still short of foreign exchange.

After letting his mind wander for a while, Li Long hung up the phone.

Before hanging up, Liu Gaolou mentioned that he wanted to haul cement on this trip, so Li Long had to contact Liu Jianhua immediately to have the cement delivered in the next couple of days.

Liu Jianhua has some inventory; he's a bit laid-back in business. His business circle is mainly around Wucheng. After all, Wucheng is currently undergoing major construction, and while cement isn't necessarily in short supply, there's certainly no shortage of buyers.

However, since Li Long had already made his promise, he sent a convoy to deliver five truckloads of cement that afternoon, and continued to haul them over the next day. Li Long kept finding people from the casual labor market to unload them.

When Liu Gaolou arrived with his convoy, more than 200 tons of cement had already been unloaded from Li Long's purchasing station.

Looking at the tall stack of cement bags, Liu Gaolou was very satisfied.

However, his speech was not very pleasant:
"Mr. Li, it seems like there aren't as many people outside as last time. Is your purchasing station's business not doing so well?"

Li Long could tell he was half-joking. He looked down at the list of supplies that had been delivered and said:
"Business has its ups and downs. With the fritillaria season over, my business is naturally not as good as before. If it were like that every day, I would be exhausted. The balance between work and rest is the way of life, and now is the time to rest."

"Hey, you know quite a lot. I seem to remember you didn't graduate from junior high school?" Liu Gaolou and Li Long were on good terms, so he joked around casually.

"You're never too old to learn, you know? I read books every day."

"Reading martial arts novels counts as learning?" Liu Gaolou vaguely remembered that there was a martial arts novel in Li Long's car.

"Lao Tzu said that in the eyes of a person who loves learning, reading any book is learning." Li Long continued, head bowed.

The list shows what was brought over this time.

Five cars: two GAZ-69s, one Lada, and two Volgas. These will cost Li Long $4,000. Three thousand pairs of antelope horns will cost Li Long $90,000.

One thousand pairs of deer antlers would cost Li Long twenty thousand yuan—yes, you read that right, twenty thousand. That's too cheap.

Three thousand hides, two hundred and forty thousand.

In summary, Li Long was to give Liu Gaolou 350,000 RMB and 4,000 USD. The USD would naturally be deducted from the sugar money, while Li Long would directly transfer the RMB to him.

There were also 700 kilograms of fritillaria and 280 kilograms of dried wild mushrooms brought over by Lao Gu.

The antelope horns of Li Long have already filled two rooms, and the third room is half full.

He plans to wait another five years before gradually shipping the goods.

After all, the current price isn't the right time to ship.

When the cotton ginning mill in Ma County can accept cotton harvested by cotton harvesters, he will produce a batch of antelope horns and then buy a new cotton harvester.

After all, the sale of antelope horns in China was not officially banned until after 2008; before that, they could be legally sold.

Although Li Long was somewhat lazy, he wasn't a lazy bum. He had a plan for what he had hoarded; for example, he intended to sell most of the jade before the 2010s.

Aside from keeping some for myself, my family, and relatives, I'll sell the rest.

This thing represents a culture, but there's no need to have too much of it.

We've already talked about things like antelope horns, and around that time, all but a few of the calligraphy and paintings were sold off.

As for the business aspect, the acquisition station model can only last until the beginning of the next century at most. By then, various industries will be more specialized and have many branches, and it will probably be difficult for his acquisition station to continue operating.

The main issue is that the competition will definitely be very fierce, so Li Long is now making plans for mechanized agriculture, including Meng Hai and his team.

These are all paths that can be taken steadily and step by step, so Li Long is not worried.

Controlling quality has become a habit for him. He believes that with his current network of contacts and excellent quality, he can at least achieve stable development, if not become the richest man in the world.

This trip to Liu Gaolou still requires fifty tons of white sugar and one hundred tons of cement.

Liu Shanmin didn't mention anything else, so naturally he wouldn't say anything more.

However, Li Long estimated that shoes, coats, and the like would likely be needed next. Although the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic had shoe factories, it was hard to say how many of these things could be produced to supply the local population.

After all, both northern and southern Xinjiang produce a large amount of natural gas, but the price of natural gas in northern Xinjiang is higher than in Shanghai.

Fifty tons of sugar still cost $50,000, and one hundred tons of cement cost $20,000. Li Long earned a stable income of over $50,000 every two weeks, which was a very large sum (after paying $10,000 to the sugar factory).

Li Long felt it was still not enough. If he wanted to buy a large amount of suitable machinery, he would need a large amount of US dollars, since the ruble would have collapsed by then.

Liu Gaolou wasn't in a hurry, so he unloaded the goods slowly. After finishing the transaction with Li Long, he went to the guesthouse. They had lunch at the Kuitun military post on their way here, so he declined Li Long's invitation to dinner.

After unloading the vehicles, hides, antelope horns, deer antlers, and other supplies, Li Long felt fortunate that the purchasing station was large enough, otherwise it really wouldn't have been able to hold them all.

Since Liu Gaolou wasn't planning on eating, he decided to unload the goods first and then reload them. This time, he didn't plan to let Liang Shuangcheng and Sun Jiaqiang unload them. Instead, he drove the van to the odd-job market, picked up the dozen or so people who were still trying their luck there, and had Sun Jiaqiang and Liang Shuangcheng direct them to unload the supplies.

Then fill it with cement.

After the cars were unloaded, Sun Jiaqiang and Liang Shuangcheng parked them separately in the front yard. There was a covered carport there to shelter the cars from the wind and rain.

There are still two cars that haven't been sold, and with the five cars brought over this time, that makes a total of seven.

However, Li Long wasn't worried. He was just concerned that it would be difficult to find similar cars in the future—because there were always people wanting to buy cars, and Li Long hoped that the cars shipped from there wouldn't have any major problems.

He didn't really care about the age of the car, since some people want to buy a new car while others want to buy a cheap one.

Liu Gaolou told him that there were no fewer than 100,000 cars in Almaty alone, and Liu Shanmin's business had expanded to other cities, so Li Long didn't need to worry about cars—there were too many people in Kazakhstan whose living standards had declined, and plenty of people wanted to sell their cars to improve their lives.

Li Long was relieved.

Two days later, after seeing Liu Gaolou off, Li Long felt a little more relaxed and thought he should visit the fourth team more often.

I had just gone to check on the cotton fields when I was called back by phone; Meng Hai had come over.

When Li Long saw Meng Hai, there were still some cement spots stuck in his hair. He had changed his clothes, but he looked like he had only recently left the construction site.

"The work is finished, and Comrade Yang and his team have inspected it and said it's up to standard," Meng Hai said excitedly. "Comrade Yang also said that if there are similar jobs in the future, he will consider giving them to us."

Li Long smiled and said, "This is a good start. You've made a good start, and you should get more work in the future."

Besides informing Li Long, Meng Hai also planned to give Li Long a share of the profits after settling the payment.

After all, Li Long had helped them secure this project, and they weren't ungrateful people.

Li Long, however, was thinking about something else entirely.

His idea of ​​collaborating with Meng Hai on his engineering team is currently just wishful thinking on his part, and he doesn't know what Meng Hai thinks about it yet.

However, since he had already thought about it, and since Meng Hai was here, he naturally had to say something.

"You mean you're investing in us, setting up a construction team..."

“It would be best to register a company,” Li Long said. “When we have free time, we can find a reliable technician, whether by hiring him at a high salary, finding a bargain in the job market, or having someone else register him.”

These days, company qualifications are easy to obtain. Once you're registered, with your experience in repairing irrigation ditches, sluice gates, roads, and bridges, it'll be easier to get jobs later. Of course, this is just my opinion; it's up to you…”

"That would be great!" Meng Hai knew perfectly well that if he stayed in the village, his development would inevitably be limited.

The jobs we get right now are all thanks to Li Long, and that will likely continue for a long time to come.

Therefore, they were essentially tied to Li Long. Li Long took the initiative to propose cooperation, which they were more than happy to accept!
The reason he didn't dare to bring it up was because he was afraid Li Long would refuse.

“Okay, I’m planning to get some machinery from the Soviet Union, like second-hand trucks and bulldozers, and then look into buying cement mixers from China. That way you’ll have some good equipment and be more confident in taking on jobs.”

What Li Long said made Meng Hai feel like he had been hit in the face with a huge pie or a big naan.

What a stroke of good fortune!
The jobs that a construction team of only ten or so people can get are completely different from those that a construction company with trucks, forklifts, and cement mixers.

The former might even only be able to do the leftover outsourced work that the latter picks up!

Meng Hai wasn't stupid; he naturally understood how much Li Long valued them—these machines were so expensive that even if they sold all the belongings of the entire engineering team, they still couldn't afford them.

“But I won’t do the actual work; that’s your job. You’ll be the ones doing the work. You need to hire technicians, register the company, and focus on the technology and the quality of the project,” Li Long said. “I’ll provide the financial support, and I’ll cover the registered capital. The rest is up to you.”

"Old Meng, I believe in you. If we cooperate, as long as we ensure the quality of the project, the company will definitely grow stronger and make more money in the future."

Meng Hai was quite excited and immediately said that once the company was established, he would be responsible for the work, his engineering team would take 20%, and the rest would belong to Li Long.

Li Long laughed; this old Meng was a bit too honest.

This is how Meng Hai calculated it. If the construction team really wants to register a company, Li Long will provide the funds, the machinery, and the jobs. Li Long even plans to buy a yard as the company's headquarters.

They're just there to do the work; they'd be happy with even 10%, let alone 20%.

With so many machines, we can definitely take on big jobs.

The profits will definitely be substantial!
Li Long definitely can't do that. Even though he pays a lot of money without doing any work, it's fine at first. Once he gets a big project and makes a lot of money, Meng Hai might not be dissatisfied, but others might not be.

So he said he owns 60%, which means he has a controlling stake.

Meng Hai disagreed, saying they had taken too much and he felt uneasy.

They're just a bunch of farmers who haven't escaped the land yet; we'd feel bad taking too much!

(End of this chapter)