Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1199 Gu Boyuan's Afterthoughts; Stopping Xu Haijun
When Gu Boyuan called the purchasing station to tell Li Long about this, Li Long had just returned from Shicheng.

He went to Shicheng Old Street mainly to buy a seine net—he had a really enjoyable time catching fish in Sandaohuzi, Yili, in the spring, so he thought he would get a seine net and try it out in Ma County as well.

Team Four didn't have the necessary resources; the seine net he bought was too small, only good enough to block the river—or rather, a river-blocking net. After all, people in later generations used seine nets that were tens or even hundreds of meters long in fishponds, while the river-blocking net he got was only twenty or thirty meters long.

There's no other way; all these nets here come from the mainland. The owner is running a small business and is worried that if they get into a large net, he won't be able to sell them and will be stuck with unsold stock.

Li Long not only bought a seine net, but also a small net that could be supported by two sticks, with a long spool at the bottom, which was also a barrier net to catch fish in the small canal.

This thing can be used by four teams, for example, at the gate. You prop it up with sticks on both sides, and when a fish goes in, there are two consecutive scoops behind it, the kind that lets in but not let it out.

"You had a great time," Li Long said enviously as he listened to Gu Boyuan recount his harvest from the mountains.

"Hey, that's for sure. The four of us hunted down two wolves last night. It wasn't very bright, so we don't know who did it, but even though the wolves escaped, at least two or three were injured. I doubt they'll dare come back." Gu Boyuan was quite proud.

"I was just too tired. By the time I skinned the wolf, it was already past midnight. I didn't get up to hunt wild boar the next day and went back to the city."

He said with emotion:

"Now I understand. Having a few friends in the mountains, life is so good! When you're free, you can go hunting in the mountains, and they'll tell you where you can catch something."

Going to the mountains allows you to find local specialties, which are very popular; if you bring them things they need, they'll be more than happy to give you everything they have to eat and drink.

Li Long chuckled.

“I thought it was quite tough for you to go into the mountains those years, but now it seems like you were just enjoying yourself.” Gu Boyuan concluded.

“That’s different,” Li Long retorted. “Back then, I didn’t have a car like I do now. At first, I had a horse-drawn carriage, and it was freezing cold in the dead of winter. Later, I rode a bicycle, and then I bought a tractor, but that was really slow, especially in winter, you know…”

"That's true." Gu Boyuan thought about it and agreed. He had been too focused on enjoying the trip. If they switched to a horse-drawn carriage to get to their destination, it would take most of the day just to travel there.

"But you're doing well too," Gu Boyuan quickly added, trying to salvage the situation. "I've made friends with a herding family, while you're friends with an entire tribe... You must have found some good stuff, right?"

"It's alright, there are some gemstones and rough stones too, Xiaoxia knows about them."

"Hey, there are even rough gemstones? Really... Not bad, not bad. I just got a few pieces of agate, they look pretty. By the way, someone told me about a valley where you can collect agate, I'm planning to go there when I have some free time. It's just too far from Ma County, otherwise Xiaoxia could bring Mingming and Haohao over now that it's a holiday."

“Xiaoxia will have to ask for leave if she wants to go,” Li Long said. “Actually, it would be good for her to rest. I’ll ask her.”

"Hey, I should have known better than to transfer to the county. If I had taught in the township, I would have been on summer vacation." Gu Boyuan thought of this again.

"Who can see both the front and the back?" Li Long didn't think the transfer was a bad thing. To be honest, the future prospects in the county education bureau were much brighter than those of a middle school teacher.

"Let's not talk about that. Just a casual remark, ask Xiaoxia if she's free. If she is, it would be nice for her to come over and have some fun. The grasslands here are completely different from the grasslands in the Nanshan Mountains of Ma County..."

“I know, I know, I’ve been there,” Li Long nodded and said. “I’ll tell her.”

After hanging up the phone, Li Long was thinking about how to tell his wife when Li Qingxia, having just finished collecting a batch of wild mushrooms, turned and asked:

"What did Xiaoxia's dad say? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing much. He's free now. He went to the mountains for a couple of days and hunted wild goats and wolves. He said he was too tired, otherwise he could have hunted a few wild boars too."

“He must be really bored,” Li Qingxia said with a smile. “Looks like things have been sorted out at the purchasing station over there, and he can finally run around and have some fun.”

"Yes, we found an experienced person to help keep an eye on things. Now that person can take over for a short period of time, and it's also the off-season, so he can go out and take a look around. Otherwise, he would get anxious if he just stayed at the purchasing station."

“Yes, yes,” Li Qingxia nodded. “Just staying there to work won’t do. Like me, I can go back once a week, but if he stays there all the time, wouldn’t he be anxious to death?”

After chatting with his father for a few minutes, Li Long went to the backyard to spread out the net and check if there were any problems with it—the fishing tackle shop on the old street was too small, and it wouldn't look good if the net wasn't spread out.

After examining the entire net, he found it to be perfectly fine. As for how to use it, he had used it before in Sandaohuzi and knew exactly how. His father knew, and presumably his elder brother did too.

Of course, Li Junfeng and his team will probably use it too.

As for the specific location of use, he was thinking that the most likely place would be Mohequ.

He heard from Li Qiang that when the school was building its wall, some workers threw two electric wires into the river, which electrocuted a lot of large crucian carp.

Besides the workers who picked up several buckets, the students also picked up quite a lot, but in the end, their homeroom teacher took them all.

The homeroom teacher lives nearby.

This shows that there are quite a few fish in the Mohe Canal.

Of course, it can only be used when you're not in a hurry, so keep it on hand for now.

The main reason was that the big fish he caught in Sandaohezi last time had really provoked Li Long.

It's harder to catch big fish in the small lake now. The biggest fish you can catch with a net is only one or two kilograms. Any bigger fish are very cunning, and nowadays the gillnets are all single-layered. If you catch a big fish weighing seven or eight kilograms or more, it's really easy for it to break free.

I wonder if there are three layers of netting inside. I'll have to call Huang Lei and the others to ask when I have time.

After putting the nets away, Li Long put them in the back of the car, intending to see when he would need them.

You need a stick to pull fish, and these are easy to find around here; they can be found everywhere along the Mohe Canal.

He originally planned to go to the fourth team to take a look, but after a middleman sold his wild mushrooms, he wanted to see the car, so Li Long accompanied him to take a look.

There are no GAZ vehicles left in the shed, and the dealers are well aware of this, but this guy just wants to see a Lada.

The Santana was too expensive, the Volga wasn't cheap either, and the GAZ was too ugly, so I went with the Lada.

These are the exact words of the vendor surnamed Zheng.

"This Lada is practically brand new," Li Long said, now speaking fluent industry jargon. "It's been driven for less than two years..."

If you say this 30 or 40 years from now, you'll either get beaten up or laughed at.

After all, back then, a "nearly new" car meant that it had been driven for less than a month that year, or even barely driven at all.

After two years, the car's price will drop by at least a third. How can it still be called a nearly new car?
But at this moment, they dare to do it, and they do so with a clear conscience.

Mr. Zheng also thinks that's a valid point.

The Lada is in good condition, with a faint scratch on the front right side – it's been repaired.

"And the price?" Boss Zheng had actually looked at this vehicle several times before. Every time he came, he would take a look around. He had finally saved enough money from selling wild mushrooms before he came to ask.

“A Lada isn’t as expensive as a Volga, but this one is relatively new, so it’s only 60,000 yuan,” Li Long said. “We’re old acquaintances, you often come here to sell things, so I don’t need to tell you. I’ll lower the price by 5,000 yuan, it’s just a favor, 55,000 yuan, take it and drive it away!”

Li Long basically sets car prices rather arbitrarily, since he's bound to make a profit anyway.

Pricing is based on the individual; that's normal.

Currently, no more than four people among the dealers are buying cars; the rest all want GAZ trucks. Those trucks are indeed convenient for hauling goods, but they certainly don't offer any comfort.

“This sedan is comfortable to drive, and it can carry a lot of goods when we’re picking up cargo in the plains. It also makes us look good,” Li Long said. “It can also be driven in the mountains, just be careful.”

Boss Zheng was surprised that Li Long had offered to lower the price. Having sold goods here for so long, he knew exactly what price each vehicle should fetch, and his target price was around 60,000 yuan. Li Long's direct price reduction pleased him, but he also hesitated.

"If you want, you can try driving it," Li Long said. "You can drive, right?"

"Yes, I can do it." Boss Zheng nodded hurriedly. "I practiced with a friend."

"Then let's give it a try." Li Long handed him the keys. "Don't drive it out. The backyard is big enough; you can drive around it a couple of times without any problem."

Mr. Zheng took the keys, opened the car door, and got inside. He touched this and that, and seemed a little hesitant.

After all, it's not my car yet. Even if it were, I'd still have to be careful—it's worth over 50,000 yuan!
Two more people came over to watch.

“Hey, Old Zheng is buying a car too,” a man surnamed Wang remarked. “All the old guys who came with me to sell goods at the recycling station from the very beginning are now buying cars.” “Why don’t you buy one?” another man of similar age asked. “If I had started recycling with you guys two years earlier, I would have bought one by now.”

"How can I compare to them? They used to have tractors, and they could drive around collecting dozens or even hundreds of kilograms of goods at a time, from the mountains in the south to the sand dunes in the north. I only have a bicycle, and I can only travel around our own village at most..."

"Then you still have a narrow vision," the man surnamed Fang mocked him. "They've already paved the way, but I haven't seen you follow suit."

"Hehe, hehe." The man surnamed Wang wasn't annoyed. Actually, he had enough money to buy a GAZ truck, but the truck hadn't arrived yet, so he was hesitating.

When Fan Mingcheng and others who bought GAZ trucks came to sell their goods, they were all carrying sacks of goods. He naturally knew that having a truck expanded the delivery range and meant earning more money.

Maybe I can earn back the cost of the car in less than a year.

But if you suddenly spend 20,000 or 30,000 yuan to buy a car, and you don't know how to drive it, what if it breaks down halfway through the road, with no village or shop in sight? That would be a huge problem.

Although wolves are not as rampant as before, they still exist in the uninhabited desert to the north and in the southern mountains.

Therefore, he had concerns.

Li Long said with a smile:

"If you have a car, do business with cars; if you don't have a car, do business on a bicycle. Everyone has their own way of doing things."

He would never actively solicit car sales; these things are already in short supply, so it's up to the individual to decide.

After driving around twice, Mr. Zheng parked the car in the original spot in the front yard—parking it a little crooked, which shows he has some skill, but not much.

"Mr. Li, this car is great, I'll buy it." He mainly drives to listen to the engine sound—that's what his friend told him when he was teaching him to drive. At least the engine sound of this car is very good, which makes him very satisfied.

"The paperwork is all in the car, take a look," Li Long said. "If you really want to buy it, I'll get you the contract."

A nearly new Lada costs 55,000 yuan. This is something that can't be kept secret, so it sets a benchmark. It's similar to how a new GAZ costs 30,000 yuan and a used one costs 25,000 yuan. After that, the price is basically the same.

As for the Volga, the price range is quite wide, and at least for now, no dealers seem interested in buying it.

After signing the contract and paying the money, Boss Zheng, unable to contain his joy, drove away.

The remaining two were people who had been selling goods here since the beginning of the purchasing station. One of them, who had just spoken, was surnamed Wang, and the other was surnamed Liu. The two remained silent, looked at each other, and did not say anything.

Those who came around the same time are now worlds apart.

Looking at the two cars left under the shed, the people sighed. "Look at them," they thought, "they started out as street vendors, how did they become car dealers in just a few years?"

The remaining people speculated about how much money Li Long could make from this car, while also wondering when they could save enough money to buy one themselves.

After having lunch and resting for a while, Li Long went to the purchasing station and stayed there for a while. Seeing that nothing was wrong, he drove to the fourth team.

Before the fourth team even reached the new settlement, they were stopped by Xu Haijun.

Li Long got out of the car, and Xu Haijun offered him a cigarette, but Li Long waved his hand and refused. He didn't smoke, and there was no need to be polite with Xu Haijun; he didn't need to burn incense.

"My wheat harvest is finished, and I'm thinking of sending two people into the mountains to cut some stalks. Will we still be able to make brooms this year?"

Every year, Xu Haijun would go into the mountains to cut down several thousand stalks of bamboo and sell them to the team members to make large brooms. He could earn several thousand yuan a year from this job alone. Although he would share with others, he naturally took the lion's share.

“It’s not very convenient this year.” Li Long just remembered the forestry bureau’s reform and said to him, “In previous years, things in the mountains were handled by the forest rangers. You must have taken care of the forest rangers before, so going in and out of the mountains was no problem.”

This year is different.

"What's different?" Xu Haijun had been busy harvesting wheat recently and hadn't gone into the mountains, so he didn't know what was going on.

"The Forestry Bureau has been reorganized, and the original forestry teams have been disbanded. The forest rangers are still there, but they don't have as much power as before. A forest police station has been established in Yamaguchi, and now law enforcement power is in the hands of the forest police. If you want to cut down a pole, you'll be fine as long as you don't run into them, but if you do..."

Li Long didn't continue speaking.

Forest police have law enforcement powers, mainly to prevent illegal deforestation and tree felling.

Therefore, they will definitely take charge of this matter.

Xu Haijun's expression shifted between light and shadow. After thinking for a moment, he asked:
"Xiaolong, are you alright?"

“The former forestry teams have become forestry work stations,” Li Long said. “My connections are all in there, but they don’t have law enforcement power now, there’s a layer between us. I remember you have an uncle who works in the prefecture, maybe you can get it done by talking to them.”

"By the way, since you served in the military, are there any classmates from the city who were assigned to the forest police, or perhaps the captain's former classmates who are in the public security system? It's not a big deal, just pass on a message."

It's really nothing serious, just a matter of a few words, and the favor owed isn't even that big.

But if there's no message, it's fine if you don't encounter it, but if you do, then it's really troublesome.

Therefore, Li Long felt it was necessary to remind Xu Haijun to be cautious.

After all, if someone were to be arrested and thousands of trees were cut down, the matter could be considered a minor or major offense. On a larger scale, it could be considered damage to forest resources, which could land someone in jail.

After thanking Li Long, Xu Haijun went home.

He now felt fortunate that he had been cautious and stopped Li Long's car; otherwise, if he had rashly entered the mountains and been caught, he would have been in deep trouble.

Li Long returned to his elder brother's house, where only his mother and Li Qiang were looking after Mingming and Haohao. His elder brother and the others had gone out to harvest wheat, and the able-bodied men in the family were all busy with their own tasks. Even his sister-in-law, Liang Yuemei, had taken Li Juan to the cotton field to weed.

Li Long came to see Mingming and Haohao and ask them if they wanted to go back to the county. The two children had no intention of going back at all.

If they don't want to come back, then they don't have to. Li Long knew that the two children were having a good time with their brother here, so he was relieved.

On the way back, Li Long turned at Old Ma's place and saw Uncle Luo herding donkeys nearby—yes, herding donkeys.

There are now more than 30 donkeys in this herd, and they all look quite plump.

Most people feed their donkeys grass, but Old Horse's Donkey has sugar residue, which is much more nutritious than regular grass.

In addition, these donkeys don't have to work, and their coats look shiny and they seem very happy.

There were also two little donkeys among them, which were very cute.

"Uncle Luo, why are you herding the donkey?" Li Long asked, somewhat surprised.

There were quite a few old men living in the old horse stable. Old Yang herded cattle and sheep, the others took care of wild boars, sika deer, and roe deer, and Uncle Luo was in charge of everything. That was basically the arrangement.

"They brought over two cartloads of sugar residue, and they cleaned it up and dried it in the sun, so I came out to let the donkeys graze. These donkeys are used to being let graze, and if they're not out, they all bray awfully," Uncle Luo said with a smile.

"That's perfect for a stroll," Li Long said with a smile, noticing that the donkeys weren't running around.

"By the way, Xiaolong, did you know there's been another flood? Yang Laoliu said that when the cattle and sheep were grazing by the reservoir, the water level suddenly rose a lot. It looks like there's been a heavy rain in the mountains. Do you think we should open the sluice gates down to the reed ditch? Otherwise, the small lake will be too full."

Li Long was startled and quickly said:

"Then you stay here, I'll go upstairs and take a look!"

He hurriedly got back into his car and drove towards Xiaohaizi.

Sure enough, the usually clear water of Xiaohaizi Lake has become much turbid, and the water level has risen. Although it is not as big as the flood in early spring, it is still quite large.

Li Long acted decisively, simply lifting up the newly constructed sluice gate leading to the reed ditch—it was secured with wire and wasn't locked. He unscrewed the wire, turned the turntable, and lifted the gate.

He simply raised the sluice gate halfway to let the water flow down.

He plans to leave the water overnight and check on it first thing tomorrow morning.

(End of this chapter)