Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

The short-haired girl's thoughts were very straightforward. Although Wucheng was not as prosperous as the mainland, many people had become rich thanks to reform and opening up, as well as resources from other channels.

Although Li Long's used cars have opened up a portion of the market, his brand awareness is still not high in Wucheng's high-end circles.

The girl has some influence in the industry. She wants to cooperate with Li Long to sell cars. Her idea is to split the profits 50/50 with Li Long. She will introduce car buyers to Li Long, and the two of them will split the profits equally.

The girl had anticipated that Li Long would not agree to the distribution plan, so she was well prepared to explain. However, she did not expect that Li Long did not want to cooperate with her at all. Before they could even get started, the rest of the process naturally could not proceed.

Seeing that Li Long was considering seeing the guest off, the girl had no choice but to quickly reveal her plan. She also told Li Long, "As long as you cooperate with me, I am confident that I can help you sell at least twenty Mercedes-Benzes within a year."

I know you don't sell a Mercedes cheaply, and your profit margin is probably not very high. But if we cooperate, I can get you to sell these Mercedes at a higher price, and your profit will at least double what you're currently making.

"Then why do you want to cooperate with me? Just buy my Mercedes and sell it to your target customers." Li Long still had no intention of cooperating with her. Qi Zhengyang filled Li Long with vigilance. Cooperating with these people might mean that one day they would swallow up even his other businesses.

He didn't want to cause trouble.

"You think I don't want to? But I can't." The girl rolled her eyes at him and said, "I have to do this behind my family's back. If my dad finds out I'm doing this, he'll break my legs."

But he doesn't give me enough pocket money. If I want to buy some fashionable bags and clothes, I have to find the money myself. I can't do the things Qi Zhengyang does, so I can only cooperate with you.”

“We can’t work together.” Although the girl explained his difficulties, Li Long still refused. “If you have connections, you can introduce people to us, and I can give you a referral fee after the purchase. But the method you suggested is definitely not going to work. I can treat you as an intermediary, but I can’t treat you as a partner.”

"How much difference is there? Although my dad doesn't allow me to get involved in business, if you think it's worthwhile for me, I can introduce you to other avenues," the girl said persuasively.
“I know you’re in the foreign trade business, and I also know that Kazakhstan and Russia are short of a lot of supplies. I can introduce you to some factories where you can get goods at prices lower than the wholesale price.”

“Then you can do it yourself,” Li Long said, even more puzzled. “You know the channels and you have the supply, so why don’t you do it yourself? It’s very profitable, I think you know that better than I do.”

"Like I said, I don't have the money! And my dad won't let me do this! Besides, you have distribution channels, but I don't. I can't just go to the port and ask who wants these goods. I have my pride too, you know."

"For someone like Qi Zhengyang to swallow his pride and take the lead in something like that is already considered a loss of face in our circle. If I did it, I'd be laughed at later."

“Like I said before, if you want to make money, introduce people to buy cars, and I’ll give you a commission,” Li Long said. “Other forms of cooperation are out of the question.”

Seeing that Li Long was unmoved by her words, the girl left angrily, glancing at the Mercedes parked in the shed as she went.

These two cars are indeed very beautiful, and she herself wants to own them. Unfortunately, the girl knows very well that if she drives the Mercedes back, her father can send her to work the next day, and she will no longer be able to drive so freely.

On the way back to Wucheng, the girl thought it over and over and felt that Li Long's idea was not wrong. After all, Qi Zhengyang had just tricked him, and she was with Qi Zhengyang. She came here to talk about cooperation. It would be strange if she rashly believed him.

I want to earn some pocket money, so it seems like I can only become a middleman.

I just don't know how much commission this guy surnamed Li will give.

There's a group of people in their circle who aren't very high-class, but still want to save face, so a used Mercedes is just right. It's not that those who want a brand new one can't afford it, but it hurts their wallets to buy it.

The girl's idea was to introduce these people to Li Long.

Although Li Long had advertised on television and in newspapers, he hadn't really expanded his network or gained widespread recognition; his influence was limited to the area around Beiting, Huxian, Maxian, and Shicheng.

Not many people in those circles in Wucheng knew this, and that's exactly the information gap the girl wanted to exploit.

In early July, the students were already on holiday, and the cooperative's cotton began the topping process.

This year's cotton is growing very tall, with the plants mostly reaching a little over one meter in height. By other standards, this is quite tall. However, the cotton in the cooperative's fields has produced a lot of flower buds, with almost every side branch bearing several buds.

This makes the members of the cooperative always have a smile on their face.

They also participated in the topping work, which was very tiring every day. Their hands were peeling, and their fingers were stained with chlorophyll that they couldn't wash off when they were pinching cotton toppings, but they didn't complain at all.

Many villagers took this opportunity to work in the cooperative's fields and earn some pocket money.

The other two cooperatives have less land. For the first two years, they followed the model of Li Long's cooperative, but the odd jobs were still done by their own people.

In the past two years, we've come to realize that cooperatives need to be more organized, so members need to participate in the work, just like other employees. That's why everyone was able to earn some money this year.

The topping time is relatively concentrated, and the harvesting begins immediately after topping, so the timing is quite tight.

In the past two years, due to the influence of the cooperative and the fact that everyone has made money, they are no longer so anxious about planting grain. With a broader perspective and the fact that the village itself has more land than other teams, grain crops such as wheat, corn and rice are basically enough to feed the people and provide for the government, and the rest are planted as cash crops.

Cotton is the most common crop.

When the cotton plants started to be topped, Li Long stopped staying at the purchasing station. As the cooperative's chief technical expert, Li Long spent every day in the cotton fields these past few days, participating in the topping work and, more importantly, checking the cotton's nutritional status.

Gu Xiaoxia also returned to her house in the fourth team from the courtyard. She usually takes care of Mingming and Haohao, and also rests here.

With less demanding tasks, Gu Xiaoxia, who was in the fourth team, would occasionally stroll around the fields, but most of the time she would stay by Du Chunfang and Liang Yuemei's side, chatting and catching up on everyday life, living a very comfortable life.

Han Fang is on vacation. It's just Grandpa Yang and her in the courtyard. Han Fang sometimes goes to the cannery to check on things, but most of the time she stays in the courtyard doing her homework and cooking.

“It’s really incomparable.” Wang Caimi stood at the edge of the cooperative’s field and sighed, “I looked at the cotton in our cooperative. On average, each plant has eleven or twelve buds. Yours is much better. Each plant has at least thirty or forty buds. If they all bloom and bear fruit, then each acre will easily yield more than four hundred kilograms.”

As Li Long examined the leaves in the field for insects, he laughed and said, "How could they all possibly bear peaches? If half the flowers turned into peaches, we'd be laughing in our sleep."

To encourage more peaches to develop on flower buds and prevent them from falling off, adequate nutrition is essential.

From the current perspective, the cotton in our cooperative's plot of land is in good nutritional condition, with lush green leaves. There are no large-scale pests observed so far. Because it is drip-irrigated, there is no shortage of water, so from a distance, the cotton in our plot appears to be a darker color than the cotton in other plots.

So Li Long was quite satisfied. If the management was done properly, the yield per mu should be able to reach 350 kilograms without any problem.

However, more people are planting cotton this year, so the cotton yield will definitely be higher than last year. Whether the price can reach three yuan again like last year is hard to say.

On July 7th, the day of the college entrance examination, two pole-beating and film-cleaning machines brought by Kui's Machinery Factory were delivered to the purchasing station. When they learned that Li Long was not at the purchasing station but in the village, the truck driver and the person in charge of the truck asked Liang Shuangcheng to lead the way so that they could take the goods to the team.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Liang Shuangcheng led them to the cooperative's courtyard, letting the driver and the person in charge of the vehicle rest, while he hurried off to find Li Long and the others.

Li Long was still in the cotton field when he received the news. He rushed back to the cooperative's yard and, together with the others who had come over, unloaded the two pole-beating and film-cleaning machines.

This machine was designed according to Li Long's vision, with a rod in the front and a screen attached to the ground in the back to screen out the film residue in the ground.

Because cotton has not been planted for very long, the situation in the fields is not too bad now, and the residual plastic film is not so serious. However, in a few years, when these fields have been planted with cotton for a longer period of time, there will be a lot of visible residual plastic film in the fields, which will affect the growth of cotton, fertilizer absorption, and water infiltration.

The driver had Li Long sign the delivery receipt, and then hurriedly drove back.

Li Long originally planned to save the watermelons for dinner, but since the other party said things were urgent, he simply put two watermelons in the car for them to quench their thirst on the way.

The other members of the cooperative gathered around the machine, commenting on it. The cooperative had a special rod-beating machine, which Li Long had designed earlier. It was relatively simple and could be driven by both small and high-horsepower tractors.

Other cooperatives and ordinary farmers use manual threshing, which is quite troublesome. Mainly because cotton stalks are quite stiff, making threshing difficult.

The new type of cotton mulch removal machine can pull up the cotton roots along with the residual film after the front cutter head has finished removing the mulch. This is because the cotton roots will not rot when the land is plowed and sown again in the spring of the following year, making it easier to remove them.

As one of the designers, Li Long explained the machine's principles to everyone. They were all knowledgeable people and understood it immediately. They were quite happy because this machine would save them a lot of trouble in farming.

After finishing his story, Li Long planned to go back to his older brother's house. It was almost noon, and it was time for lunch.

A Santana pulled up to the side of the road, and someone got out and asked the people in the yard, "Hey folks, does anyone know where Li Long lives?"

Everyone else looked at Li Long. Xie Yundong, who was thinking a bit more, asked him, "What do you do? What do you want with Li Long?"

"I'm a farmer from Huxian County, and I'd like to ask Li Long some questions." The man was wearing a shirt, had his hair slicked back, and was dressed in dress pants and leather shoes; he really didn't look like a farmer.

Xu Haijun shook his head and said, "Judging from your appearance, you don't seem like a farmer. Can a farmer afford a Santana? It's not shameful to tell the truth, but what do you do for a living?"

"I'm a farmer, but I'm a big farmer in our county. I contract two thousand acres of land; back then, that would have been considered a large landowner." The man could tell these people were no ordinary individuals; several cars were parked in the cooperative's yard. He walked over, offering cigarettes as he spoke:
“I used to mainly grow corn and sunflowers. Last year, cotton prices suddenly soared, and I thought that cotton could be more profitable than growing corn and sunflowers. However, I don’t know much about growing cotton. I saw on TV that you have a cooperative here and are doing quite well in growing cotton, so I wanted to come and ask you for advice.”

Li Long refused the cigarette offered to him, saying, "I am Li Long. Ask me anything." "Hey, what a coincidence! I didn't expect to get to know you on my first question." The man smiled and extended his hand, introducing himself, "My name is Lü Dawen, from Dafeng County, Huxian. Hello, hello!"

"Hello." Li Long shook hands with him and then asked, "Have you ever grown cotton before?"

"No, some people in my area grow it, but I think it's too much trouble to grow, and even more trouble to pick the cotton, so I didn't do it. But in the last two years I've found that growing cotton is quite profitable. If I could have grown it, I might have made a fortune last year."

Xu Haijun chimed in from the side, "You have two thousand acres of land. Even if you don't grow cotton, you'll still be rich."

"Not at all," Lu Dawen lit a cigarette and said as he smoked, "It's just hard-earned money. You all know that wheat, corn, and sunflowers aren't worth much. It's just that we planted a lot of them, and we can make a living of ten thousand yuan a year."

That's a bit of an understatement. But the cooperative members, who had been growing cotton for several years, knew that what Lü Dawen said wasn't entirely outrageous. The grain bureau's purchase prices for wheat, corn, and sunflowers were indeed low; after paying the grain tax, the remaining money from selling them was barely a little more than the cost.

In other words, you can earn a little more money if you have more land, but it's very difficult for ordinary farmers to make money this way.

Lu Dawen then asked Li Long about his experience in growing cotton, and Li Long told him about the aspects that need attention when growing cotton in a conventional way.

Li Long spoke these things fluently, from sowing to picking cotton, without holding anything back.

However, he noticed that Lü Dawen didn't seem very interested in these things, so he quickly wrapped things up.

After he finished speaking, Lü Dawen asked, "I saw on TV that you use drip irrigation for farming? They said the yield is exceptionally high?"

“Indeed, the yield per mu can reach three to four hundred kilograms.” Liang Dacheng interjected, “But you can’t do it. The cost is too high. We only managed to do it after applying for a project from the autonomous region.”

"Comrade Li Long, could you tell me about your experience with drip irrigation farming? I heard that you were the first in your county to develop it, so you must have some secrets, right?" Lu Dawen said with a smile, "Don't worry, I won't let you talk for nothing. I'll give you a consultation fee."

Curry once said that ideas are valuable, but others pay for ideas; I pay for experience.

As he spoke, he pulled an envelope from his pocket, inside which was a thick wad of banknotes. Lu Dawen handed the envelope to Li Long: "This is my consultation fee, five hundred yuan. How about it? If it's not enough, I can add more."

Li Long shook his head and said, "We've already held a meeting on-site. These things are readily available. You can find them if you want. I can tell you, and there's no consultation fee."

"But Da Cheng is right, you can't do it. The initial investment for this stuff is quite high, and the cost of growing it will wipe out your profits."

"Then why are you still planting?" Seeing that Li Long didn't want the consultation fee, Lu Dawen put the envelope away and asked suspiciously, "Aren't you afraid of losing money?"

“We’re different,” Xu Haijun said with a smile. “We applied for support from the autonomous region, and the initial infrastructure construction was funded by the state.”

He didn't say much, leaving the rest to Li Long.

Li Long continued, "I just told you about the procedures for ordinary cotton planting. The most expensive part of drip irrigation cotton planting is the drip irrigation tape. I have my own drip irrigation tape manufacturing plant, you can see it over there."

He pointed to the drip irrigation tape factory next to the cooperative's courtyard and said, "We use this ourselves at cost price, so we can still make a profit."

But if you buy this drip irrigation tape from the market, the cost of the tape alone could be over a thousand yuan per acre. Think about it, even based on last year's cotton prices, you'd need a yield of over 300 kilograms per acre just to break even on the cost of the drip irrigation tape. What about the other costs?

Lu Dawen pondered for a moment; he hadn't expected things to turn out this way.

After hesitating for a while, Lü Dawen still hoped that Li Long could give him some pointers on how to grow drip-irrigated cotton well, so Li Long gave him a brief explanation of the key points.

Although still somewhat unwilling, Lü Dawen wanted to go back and ask someone to verify whether the drip irrigation tape was really that expensive. But deep down, he already believed what Li Long said.

Fortunately, Li Long's last words gave him some hope. Li Long said that in two years, a large chemical plant in Xinjiang would be put into operation, and the cost of drip irrigation tape would be reduced, so it might be possible to plant it. At that time, the price of cotton might be even higher. He told Lü Dawen to wait and not to rush.

After Lü Dawen left, as Li Long was about to go eat, Tao Daqiang asked, "Brother Long, what is buying ideas? What did that guy mean by 'idea consulting'?"

“Things that came up with by some people inside the country,” Li Long explained to him. “Some people start companies specifically to give people ideas and solve difficult problems.”

For example, some people couldn't sell toilet paper, so they came up with the idea of ​​printing comic strips on the toilet paper so that going to the toilet wouldn't be so boring, and the toilet paper would sell like hotcakes.

Some people even suggested building houses in the suburbs and giving away cars, so that people who want to buy a car in the city but can't afford one would buy a house in the suburbs, and so on.

Upon hearing Li Long's words, Liang Dacheng immediately became curious: "Where do people come from that are so extravagant? Buying a house and getting a car as a gift? Those cars are so expensive, can they afford to give them away?"

Li Long couldn't remember when the similar idea came out, so he just said that housing prices in big cities are even higher, with a house costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan. Giving away a car worth tens of thousands of yuan would be a small matter, wouldn't it?

Since none of the people except Li Long had ever traveled far from home, they believed it.

After lunch and a short rest, Li Long was about to go to the fields when his father, Li Qingxia, called him back to the purchasing station.

Someone wants to buy a car.

When Li Long arrived, he was somewhat surprised to see the short-haired girl.

This person actually managed to bring in a customer.

After Li Longyi arrived, the short-haired girl introduced him to the young man next to her: "This Mr. Li specializes in luxury cars. As you can see, this car is quite nice, isn't it? It was brought over from the former Soviet Union. These were all driven by high-ranking officials and wealthy people back then, and they are very well maintained. I only introduced you here because we are friends."

Li Long thought to himself that this guy was very smooth-talking, saving him the trouble of advertising himself.

The young man next to the girl was not tall and was slightly overweight. Judging from his demeanor, he was slightly more approachable than Qi Zhengyang, and seemed to have a slight sense of awe and reverence for the girl.

Li Long then took the opportunity to introduce: "The car has complete paperwork. Although it is a second-hand car, it has not actually been driven many kilometers, only two or three thousand kilometers. It is well maintained."

"Does this gentleman have a driver's license? If so, you can take a test drive. Whether you buy or not is fine; let's just be friends."

Based on Li Long's generosity and the girl's introduction, the young man asked about the price, got in the car for a test drive, and then promptly paid.

He seems to be quite wealthy, paying the full amount of 450,000 yuan in full by check.

Li Long was a man of principle who would act prudently at first but become more honest later. After checking the check at the bank, he returned, gave the other party all the necessary paperwork, signed the contract, and handed over the car.

While the young man was checking the paperwork, Li Long gave the girl 50,000 yuan in cash.

The girl was a little surprised; she hadn't expected Li Long to give her so much.

Li Long didn't say much, just said one order at a time, and they could talk about it later if business was good.

The girl seemed quite happy, and as she left, she whispered to Li Long that she would introduce him to more business opportunities in the future.

Mid-July marked the wheat harvest season. The threshing floors in various towns and villages were piled high with golden wheat. Small four-wheeled tractors pulled iron rollers and sped around the threshing floors. This time, Li Jianguo sent out several of his relatives to help others harvest wheat. After the harvest, they also plowed the fields.

He's now stationed in the fourth team and no longer needs to go out personally.

While chatting with Li Long in the yard, he said that nowadays, more people in his family use Kangmaiyin (a type of wheat harvester) than combine harvesters to harvest wheat.

Li Long casually suggested that they could buy two more.

Li Jianguo hurriedly waved his hand: "Let's earn back the high-horsepower tractor first, no rush."

Li Long laughed. His older brother's personality was still a bit conservative; he always sought stability.

It's pretty good.

P.S.: I got hurt by the black storm today, so I didn't write much. I took some photos, so I'll show them to you.

When fast-forwarding through the movie: Once it's in, it's like the end of the world.

Tornado in the field
In the cotton field, some of the plastic film had been blown away by the wind and needed to be replanted. I'll check tomorrow; I wonder how much has been blown away. (End of Chapter)