Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Li Long was a local celebrity. When he went to the Armed Forces Department to report on the matter, the officer on duty immediately went to report to the minister after hearing Li Long's self-introduction.

At this time, the armed forces department was undergoing a special reform period. Although it was under the dual management of the military and local authorities, the cadres inside were local staff members, not military personnel.

It wasn't until after the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis that the country reformed its armed forces system, transforming the armed forces departments into military agencies, and incorporating their officers into the military establishment, allowing them to enlist directly.

Therefore, there have been groups of people in the military who have a long service as officers but a short service as soldiers.

After exchanging a few pleasantries with the minister, Li Long explained the matter.

"You mean you dug up dozens of boxes of weapons from the mountains?" The Minister of Armed Forces took it very seriously and immediately stood up to go and see after hearing Li Long's words.

Li Long then took him and another cadre from the Armed Forces Department to the purchasing station.

By this time, people were already coming to the purchasing station to sell medicinal herbs, and even more people were buying agricultural supplies. The Li family's agricultural supply store had a good reputation in the county, and it was starting to seem to be surpassing the state-owned stores.

Li Long drove his car into the purchasing station and stopped in the backyard.

"Comrade Li Long, your purchasing station is doing quite well," the Armed Forces Minister said with admiration after looking at it. "You've built a very large business."

"So-so," Li Long smiled and pointed to the warehouse in front, saying, "The stuff is in there."

He stepped forward, opened the warehouse door, and led the Minister of Armed Forces inside.

The minister was startled to see the boxes displayed in the warehouse. Li Long grabbed an iron crowbar from the side and pried open one of the boxes, revealing rifles wrapped in oiled paper inside.

"Oh, a water-soaked pearl!" The armed forces minister picked up a gun, looked at it, and said with some surprise.

"What is a string of pearls?" the cadre asked, not quite understanding.

“Mosin-Nagant,” Li Long explained from the side, “a Soviet gun, decades old, even older than the Type 56.5.”

“Yes, yes, Comrade Li Long is quite knowledgeable. Xiao Wang, you should learn from him. It’s embarrassing for us armed forces cadres to not know anything about guns.” The minister pointed at the gun and said, “The gun is quite new. Maybe it was hidden by bandits back then.”

"I guess so. Usman occupied Panxian back then, and they might have been acting under the direction of the Soviet Union."

In reality, relations between countries are extremely complex. The Soviet Union never intended for a major power to develop in its southeastern region.

Therefore, many of the rebellions in northern Xinjiang before and after liberation were related to the Soviet Union.

For example, that third zone.

"Although these guns are no longer of use, they're still good for storing in our militia depot," the minister said with a smile as he put the guns into the box.

Li Long pried open another box, showing off the sabers inside as he said, "These ten or so boxes are all sabers."

The minister, interested in comparing sabers to guns, picked one up, examined it, and said the same thing as Meng Hai:
"This saber is sharpened; it might have been used to kill someone."

Regardless of whether it was true or not, Li Long handed it over anyway.

The minister didn't hesitate. He borrowed a car from Li Long and hauled the dozens of boxes of weapons to the county. Then, he had Li Long dictate how he discovered these items, and the armed forces cadres wrote a report, which was then sent to the county and the military sub-district.

This has become quite a big deal; many organizations have heard about it.

However, it may not have been reported in the news because the matter involved weapons.

Li Long, on the other hand, received two certificates of merit from the county and the prefectural military district, along with a bonus of two hundred yuan for each.

However, not long after, the director of the county cultural relics management office came to the purchasing station to find Li Long.

"Comrade Li Long, you did something wrong. This is definitely a cultural relic, why should it be handed over to the Armed Forces Department? It should be handed over to us."

Furthermore, the sites where these cultural relics were discovered must be protected and preserved as historical sites so that future generations can understand the historical development of our county.

Once someone slaps a big label on you, it's hard to say what would happen if this happened to someone else.

However, Li Long smiled and said, "Chief, that's not how it is. If I were building a courtyard and unearthed an ancient tomb or the ruins of a temple or something, I would definitely tell you."

But this is dozens of boxes of weapons! What if they get lost if we hand them over to you? Our county cultural relics management office can't store them properly, can it? If we hand them over to the prefecture, is that place safe?"

After Li Long said that, the director couldn't really say anything.

To be honest, the reason Li Long didn't hand it over to the cultural relics management office was because he knew something.

Almost everyone in China knows about the brocade arm guard with the inscription "Five Stars Rise in the East, Benefiting China," right? Actually, several other artifacts were also unearthed in Niya at the same time, including a gold piece.

As it turned out, after being stored in the Autonomous Region Museum, that thing was lost.

It was stolen at the beginning of the next century.

They still hadn't found it by the time Li Long was reborn and returned.

Many people say that during those ten years, cultural relics in China were severely damaged, but that's not true at all.

The period of greatest loss of cultural relics in China after liberation was the 1980s and 1990s. During this time, due to the reform and opening up, the group of people who had previously taken money abroad colluded with those in China who were short of money to smuggle cultural relics out of the country on a large scale.

Many Buddha heads were stolen from overseas during this period.

At that time, the country was short of funds, and the efforts in cultural heritage protection were truly inadequate. Of course, there were also many cases of embezzlement, but I won't go into those.

The director of the cultural relics management office was also aware of his own situation. Some items were stored at the armed forces department; regardless of how well they were managed there, at least the militia warehouse was guarded by armed men.

What about their place? It's just a lock. If someone really had designs on it, could they keep it safe?

However, the director was concerned not only with those things, but also with where Li Long retrieved them.

"That place had actually collapsed. We got the things out from half of the collapsed house," Li Long explained. However, the director insisted on going to see it, so he drove the director to the mountains.

The cultural relics management office doesn't have its own vehicles; there's no other way due to tight budgets.

Upon entering the mountains and reaching the hot spring valley, Li Long saw that the road had been extended more than 100 meters further in.

What's convenient is that the obstructive shrubs and trees along the path leading to the yard have all been cleared away.

"Comrade Li Long, this is quite a generous gesture," the director exclaimed. "The scenery here is truly beautiful."

“It’s my friend’s pasture,” Li Long said. “He and I are partners in the cattle and sheep business. I thought the scenery here was nice, so I suggested he build a yard for him.”

The origin of this courtyard needs to be explained clearly, otherwise people will misunderstand.

He had already told Meng Hai that if the forestry police came to inspect, he should say the same thing.

When the car arrived at the location where the yard was to be built, Li Long pointed out the spot to the director and said:
"Look, it's right there."

After getting out of the car, the director rushed over, looked at the broken wood and tattered cloth, and shook his head, saying:
"How could this be?"

“If we hadn’t built a courtyard here to expand the space, you would never have known there was an underground space here,” Li Long said. “To put it another way, it’s thanks to us that we were able to create it.”

At this time, Meng Hai and his team were mainly focused on building the base, so the dilapidated house was left as it was.

The director went inside with a camera and took a few pictures. He looked around with a flashlight but found nothing.

"There really wasn't a single trace left." The director was somewhat disappointed after looking at it. "I thought I could find some marks, even if they wrote a few words on the wall."
Of course, it's also good if you don't find it; leave it there, and maybe it'll become a historical site someday.

"Do you think many of those bandits, like Usman, are literate?" Li Long said half-jokingly.
"He died, and his son raised the flag again. I suspect there's more than one place like this. If his son hadn't surrendered in the end, this place might have become the source of later chaos."

The director and Li Long had different ideas, but after listening to Li Long's words, he felt that they made sense.

After taking a few photos, the director finally left with some regret.

He planned to look around, so Li Long chatted with Meng Hai.

"Boss, do you still keep this thing?" Meng Hai asked in a low voice.

“Clean up the top and turn the bottom into a basement,” Li Long said after thinking for a moment. “We’ll make good use of this space.”

"Understood. I'll put the basement entrance in the master bedroom, so we can hide in the basement if anything happens."

Since it's an existing underground space, there's no harm in making use of it.

The director walked around the area for a long time, and then smashed the ground on the opposite side of the stream, trying to see if there was any underground space there, like this place.

However, after circling around, he didn't sense any movement underground and returned disappointed.

Finally, the director said with some regret that there should be similar things in the mountains, but the Tianshan Mountains are too big, so they probably can't be found.

Li Long didn't take it seriously. He said there were plenty of things hidden in the world that hadn't been discovered yet. If they were hidden, so be it. We can't let this generation find them all. What would future generations find then?

"That's true." The director smiled. "You're quite open-minded."

Back in the county, the director got off at the purchasing station and rode his bicycle back to his unit, while Li Long went back to the courtyard to pick out a machete from the side room.

My father wanted one, my older brother wanted one, but I didn't need one.

The machete I got in the mountains a few years ago is much better than these common ones; having that one is enough.

Li Long picked out two sabers of relatively good quality from the box, took them out, and then nailed the box back up.

He then took out the Mauser pistol from the box and started playing with it.

Li Long grew up watching movies like Tunnel Warfare, Mine Warfare, Plains Guerrilla, and Railway Guerrilla.

Which boy at that time didn't dream of Li Xiangyang?
With two pistols tucked into your waistband, if you encounter Japanese soldiers or traitors, just pull out your guns and fire two shots to kill them instantly—how satisfying would that be!
So holding this heavy Mauser pistol, Li Long had only one thought in his mind: "Young people are born with great courage!"
He hadn't tinkered with pistols much before, but now that he'd gotten his hands on one, he was thinking of taking a good look at it.

He wasn't an expert and couldn't tell whether the gun was German-made or a domestic copy, but it felt quite new, heavy, and well-made, so it probably hadn't been used for very long.

There were bullets nearby. Li Long pressed the latch to remove the magazine and then loaded the bullets one by one.

He remembered reading in the book that the wooden box of the Mauser C96 could be attached to the back of the gun as a stock.

It was shown in "Snow Leopard", but there was no wooden box in this box, only a gun.

After loading ten bullets, Li Long raised the gun and aimed it; it was indeed heavier than he had imagined.

However, with his arm strength, lifting this gun was naturally no problem at all.

Try pulling the bolt back and then pushing it back will chamber a round. At that moment, he really wanted to find a place to fire.

But of course, it's not possible at home.

After playing with it for a while, he ejected the bullets, put the gun back, and then picked up the revolver to examine it.

I just don't feel like this revolver is as convenient as the Mauser C96 pistol.

There's an old saying: "One shot, two horses, three flowers." But there's no famous Browning in this box, so it seems the person who buried the gun wasn't a big shot either; maybe just a Karami.

Li Long put down the revolver and wrapped the Mauser pistol, which he had just loaded with bullets, in an oil paper bag, intending to put it in the Land Cruiser and test it out in the mountains tomorrow.

Of all the things in this box, he only wanted to keep the Mauser C96 pistol, but if he kept the pistol, the rest was uncertain. He couldn't very well say the box was only half full to begin with, could he?

So I kept the rest and dealt with them myself.

As long as it doesn't harm anyone, it's fine.

Oh, and when he had a spare moment, he also had to remind the Minister of Armed Forces that there was a militia weapons depot in Nanshan. In the late 1990s, someone tried to steal the weapons from there and even dug a hole in the brick wall, but they never managed to find the right spot.

We still need to be careful. These days, management is still quite lax, and people don't really care.

So in this day and age, thefts are common, if not rampant. Some are reported, while others are kept under wraps.

At dinner, Li Long handed a saber to his father, Li Qingxia.

"Is this it?" Li Qingxia looked at the saber and really liked it. He drew the saber, felt the cold gleam on the blade, and was very satisfied.

"It's a little rusty, it hasn't been maintained for a while, you need to wipe it with oil and remove the rust," Li Long reminded him.

"Don't worry." Li Qingxia stuck the knife in, then carried it back to the purchasing station.

Mingming and Haohao both wanted this thing too, but before Li Long could say anything, Gu Xiaoxia scolded the two children, saying that this thing was very sharp and could be easily broken off with a light touch, leaving them disabled.

Upon hearing this, Mingming and Haohao immediately changed their minds and obediently went to play with the little goat.

Gu Xiaoxia now knew what Li Long had done. That night, after Mingming and Haohao fell asleep, she asked Li Long with some concern:
"You left a few sabers behind, will that cause any problems?"

"It's alright. This thing isn't really a proper antique or cultural relic. If I hand over most of it, the leaders will just be happy."

As for whether they'll suspect I took a machete, even if they do, I won't say anything. It's not something worth making a big deal out of.

Li Long explained to Gu Xiaoxia while wiping his feet:

"Think about it, if I don't hand them over, I can keep all of these things. As long as we keep it confidential, no one will say anything, right?"

"That's true. If you hand it in, it will make you seem quite conscientious."

"Yes, see, you've got the point now. I handed over the item, and your initial concern was that others would suspect I had hidden something. That's the wrong way of thinking. You should be thinking that I deserve a reward for handing over the item."

Li Long patiently guided his wife, urging her to look in a positive direction.

Just like in later generations, when someone finds a wallet and returns it to its owner, most owners are mainly grateful, but a few say the money is not right and suspect the finder.

Regardless of whether the amount of money is correct, you are the one who made the mistake. You accidentally lost the money, and someone else found it and returned it to you. Your first thing to do is to thank them.

As for the amount of money not being enough, if you really have too little, then call the police. You're just making a judgment about someone based on suspicion.
Li Long was also explaining leadership thinking to Gu Xiaoxia. The key is to focus on the main points and priorities, not the minor details.

Gu Xiaoxia also seemed thoughtful. She felt that she always gained new insights after discussing something with her husband.

You'll find that looking at a problem from different angles yields different results.

The next day, after having lunch and dropping the child off at school, Li Long drove to the mountains.

Meng Hai and his group set up tents at Wenquangou, planning to stay there and build up the courtyard before leaving.

The main goal is to buy time. The town's road project hasn't been started yet, so we're taking advantage of this time gap.

As Li Long drove into the mountains, he encountered several people carrying bags and supplies heading into the mountains.

He guessed that these people were probably going into the mountains to dig for fritillaria bulbs. They would go into the mountains in advance, choose a good location, and then start digging.

By this time, the harvesting of fritillaria bulbs is quite complicated. There are only so many spots in the gullies near the mountains, and not all gullies grow fritillaria bulbs, so choosing a good location is naturally quite important.

Most people avoided him after seeing him, afraid of being targeted by him, but a few individuals not only did not avoid him, but also waved to Li Long, seemingly wanting Li Long to pull them away.

Li Long ignored these people and drove straight into the mountains, heading towards the hot spring valley.

Meng Hai and his team acted swiftly. When Li Long arrived, he found that the gravel road had already been paved up to the area where the courtyard was being repaired. And right now at the mouth of the valley, workers were boiling asphalt, clearly intending to pave the road with tar.

very nice!
Li Long parked his car at the entrance of the valley so as not to interfere with the road construction. When he went inside, he found that the foundation of the yard had been laid, several people were building the yard wall, and several people were working on the structure of the house.

According to Li Long's design, the house should be made more sturdy. Although it is made entirely of brick, the roof should be made of wood instead of precast panels.

He was worried about the safety of the precast concrete slabs, fearing that there would be earthquakes in the mountains in the next few years.

After chatting with Meng Hai and the others who were working for a few minutes, Li Long left, returned to the valley entrance, and drove in another direction.

He hadn't been to the salt mine cave for a long time, so he thought he'd go and take a look to see if he could find anything.

I also thought I'd try shooting some Mauser pistols there, just to have some fun.

When they arrived at the salt mine cave, Li Long knew that the car couldn't go in, so he carried his backpack and walked in.

The pistol was in his bag. He had only walked uphill for less than twenty meters when he sensed movement. Looking up, he saw five or six wolves emerging from the salt mine cave. Surprisingly, they weren't afraid of him at all!
The wolves' mouths were blood red, it was hard to tell whether they had just eaten something or hadn't cleaned themselves properly during a previous hunt.

With its blood-red mouth and those menacing eyes, it's really quite frightening!

He immediately took off his backpack, pulled out the pistol inside, chambered a bullet, and instinctively imitated the action in the movie, flicking his wrist and turning to fire a shot!
"boom!"

Li Long could see with his naked eye that a piece of stone on the rock wall next to the alpha wolf had been hit by a bullet. The flying pebbles and the sound startled the wolves that were trying to hunt Li Long, and they immediately ran away.

Li Long hurriedly fired again, but every shot missed. By the time all ten bullets in his gun were fired, the wolf had vanished.

This gun has some recoil, and it's really not easy to hit accurately.

Li Long first loaded the bullets, then chambered a chamber and continued walking uphill with the gun in hand.

Although not a single wolf was left behind, Li Long was not disappointed. This seemed to confirm the rumors circulating online that Mauser pistols were difficult to fire accurately.

We can now be fairly certain whether it's true or false.

The salt mine cave smelled strongly of urine. Li Long heard faint breathing coming from inside and became cautious.

He first threw a stone inside, but found that it didn't make any noise. Thinking about the wolves that had just come out, he guessed that there was probably some unfinished prey inside, so he picked up his gun and slowly walked in.

With a gun in his hand, even if he's not very accurate, he can't possibly miss if it's pointed at his face, so Li Long wasn't too scared at this moment.

Upon reaching the cave entrance, Li Long smelled the stench of blood. After taking a few steps inside and adjusting to the light, he saw a female deer lying in a pool of blood, her eyes wide open, her death unfulfilled.

Its belly was ripped open, its intestines spilling out onto the ground, some of which had already been gnawed on. A lot of its flesh had also been torn off, and there was a bloody gash on its neck.

Li Long guessed that the deer must have been licking salt blocks here when it was cornered by wolves.

He walked up to the deer and looked inside. He found a small deer lying in the innermost corner of the cave, shivering.

The little deer looked to be only two or three months old, and it was looking at Li Long with great fear.

Li Long was somewhat surprised. Had the wolves failed to spot the little deer, or had they not had time to kill it?
Or perhaps the mother deer is blocking the wolves from harming her fawn?
In any case, this little deer was lucky to have run into me.

Li Long walked in and picked up the baby deer with one hand.

Whether the little deer was too scared to resist or simply didn't know how, it obediently let Li Long carry it out of the cave.

Seeing that the deer had already been weaned and could eat grass, Li Long decided to take it back to the courtyard to raise it for a few days.

He held the deer in one arm and carried a Mauser pistol in the other, turning his head to look in the direction the pack of wolves had left.

Hey, those wolves are still on the mountaintop and haven't left.

Li Long estimated that the distance from the mountaintop to here should be two or three hundred meters. He raised his pistol, took a cursory aim, and fired at the wolves over there.

"Bang bang bang!"

After three shots, the wolves immediately darted away. Li Long fired two more shots, and then heard a scream of agony. Li Long himself was startled.

Is this a cover-up?
If you miss, the wolf shouldn't howl!
Li Long was curious and wanted to know exactly which part of the wolf he had hit, so he quickly rushed up the mountain.

There were still five bullets left in the gun, enough to deal with any danger.

When Li Long reached the spot on the mountaintop where the wolf had been, it was empty. After searching carefully, Li Long found some blood that had not yet congealed on the grass and Gobi stones.

With these bloodstains, if Li Long really pursued them, he should be able to find the wounded wolf.

However, he didn't really intend to continue searching at this point, mainly because the little deer he was holding was really weak, and Li Long felt that it seemed unable to hold on any longer.

So Li Long turned around and walked back, thinking he should hurry to the county to see if he could save the little deer.

Li Long quickly walked to the car, put away his pistol, placed the little deer on the passenger seat, thinking to himself, "Don't you dare pee," and then drove down the mountain.

The little deer was slightly startled on the bus, but it seemed to adapt quickly. It lay down on the seat, its head and tail almost touching, and remained quiet. Apart from its chest rising and falling, it made almost no other movements.

But the more they looked, the more pitiful they seemed.

Li Long drove straight to the courtyard, opened the gate, and drove the car in. Before he could even close the gate, he got out of the car and poured the goat milk he had squeezed that morning into a small bowl for the little deer to drink.

The little deer smelled the milk and seemed quite excited, noticeably more energetic than when it first met Li Long. It stuck out its tongue, licked the goat's milk, and then started drinking it.

As long as it's drinkable, it's fine.

Li Long breathed a sigh of relief before going to close the gate.

As I turned around, I saw two little goats dart up to the little deer, fighting with it for its milk, and occasionally nudging the little deer.

The little deer wasn't annoyed; it just kept drinking, squeezing out the mouths when it couldn't get any, but it didn't resist.

Is this a submissive character?
Li Long shook his head, but seeing that the little deer was obviously bigger than the goat lamb, he couldn't bear to see it suffer, so he went and got some dried sugar residue, put it in the goat trough and placed it in front of the little deer.

The goat milk was quickly finished, and the little goat went to nibble on the sugar residue, but the little deer wouldn't eat it. Li Long wanted to train it to eat, but just then the phone rang in the house.

Li Long then went inside to answer the phone.

The call was from Li Qingxia, who said that Professor Yang was currently at the Agricultural Broadcasting School and had called the purchasing station, asking him to come over in the next couple of days to discuss something.

Li Long acknowledged that he understood, then came out and found that the little deer had already started nibbling on the sugar crumbs.

As long as it's edible, that's fine.

This thing is easier to raise than I thought.

Since it's edible, there's no need to worry too much. He went to the car, took the pistol out of his backpack, and went back to the side room to clean it.

As for what Professor Yang mentioned, Li Long guessed it must be related to the experimental field.

Anyway, he's not afraid. As for the specifics, we'll talk about that later.

When Mingming Haohao returned home and saw the little deer, he screamed and pounced on it.

Li Long originally thought the little deer would be frightened, but to his surprise, the little deer, who was eating candy crumbs, didn't react at all and just stared blankly as the two brothers pounced on it.

It wasn't that feeling of being completely bewildered, but rather a blank stare, as if it were also quite calm, like nothing mattered.

This surprised Li Long and Mingming Haohao; this was different!

The two brothers played with the little deer until it was time to eat, and after eating they played for a while longer before washing their hands.

The little deer remained quietly in that spot, lying down when tired and eating when hungry.

Li Long wondered if this guy had given up hope.
The next morning, Li Long went to the Agricultural Broadcasting School and found Professor Yang and Principal Yang already waiting in the courtyard.

Several familiar students greeted Li Long, including one unfamiliar face. Li Long didn't think much of it, responded briefly, and then went to ask Professor Yang what was going on.

"The Department of Agriculture of the Autonomous Region is going to hold an on-site meeting regarding our experimental field project."

Professor Yang proposed a big project: "If this goes well and the leaders are satisfied, the next step might be to launch a drip irrigation transformation project for large fields. I think you would be interested in this."

That's incredibly interesting! (End of Chapter)