Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Li Long, Li Qingxia and Tao Daqiang were all carrying urea bags as they walked back - eight bags in total!
When I got home, it was already daybreak and the sun was still some time away from rising. Plastic sheeting had been laid out in the yard and a large chuck had been placed in place.

Even so, seeing Li Long and the other two carrying so many bags, Du Chunfang in the yard was still a little surprised:
"Why do you have so many?"

"Not only fish, but also water plants, wild ducks and water chickens." Li Long put down the tire and net bag, and then poured them onto the plastic sheet.

A large pile of nets with fish were piled high. The three people began to consciously select the fish and sort out the nets at the same time.

After all, after selling the fish, you have to come back to pick up the net. If you mess up the net at this time, you will be asking for trouble.

From the beginning of spring till now, everyone has gotten used to it. When choosing fish, try not to squeeze the fish too hard or knock off the scales. This way the fish will not get hurt and can live longer.

Four large bags of fish were collected. There were not many ditch fish, so they were placed in a small bag, some water was poured into each bag, and then they were tied to the sides of two bicycles.

Li Long felt that the air in his bicycle was a little low, and as he had to take Tao Daqiang with him, he took out an air pump from an idle room, unscrewed the cap on the air nozzle of the bicycle's rear tire, clamped it with a duckbill, and began to pump air.

He pumped it seven or eight times, pressed the back seat a bit, and then pumped it five or six more times. When he felt it was working, he put away the air pump.

"Let's go!" Li Long said to Tao Daqiang and Li Qingxia.

Li Qingxia had a basin and a scale on the back seat of his bicycle and a small bag of ditch fish hanging on the front handlebar. He had already ridden out.

Li Long pushed the bicycle to the road, pedaled a few times to get on it, and then Tao Daqiang sat on it.

The bicycle shook, and Li Long began to pedal hard to rush forward.

When they arrived at the village, Tao Daqiang and Li Long switched places, and he took Li Long with him.

During this period, Li Long was in the mountains, and Tao Daqiang also learned how to ride a bicycle in the team.

He is still thinking about whether he should buy a bicycle.

When they arrived at the county, Tao Daqiang handed the car to Li Long and ran to the market, while Li Long went to the yard to get a scale and a basin.

Gu Xiaoxia had already gone to work. Li Long took his things, locked the door, and went to Shicheng.

There are still a lot of people in Shicheng Old Street. Today, there are not as many people buying fish as yesterday, but the fish are still sold out in less than an hour. The advantage of a large flow of people is that as long as the product is good, it will not be difficult to sell.

After returning from Shicheng, Li Long did not go to the free market to find Li Qingxia and others. Instead, he went to the purchasing station.

"Hey, Comrade Xiao Li is here." Chen Hongjun had just opened the door for a while. No one had come today, so he was very happy to see Long. "Are you going to sell fish?"

"Yes." Li Long nodded, and then asked: "Comrade Chen, I want to ask, do you accept Cynomorium songaricum?"

"Cynomorium songaricum?" Chen Hongjun put down the towel he was using to wipe the table and said, "We used to collect this, but we don't collect it now."

"Not accepting it?" Li Long was a little disappointed.

"Yes, but I know where to buy it." Chen Hongjun said with a smile, "Do you have a lot of Cynomorium songaricum in your area?"

"Too many, too many. They are everywhere under the white thorns on the alkali beach."

"That's fine..." Chen Hongjun said, "Pharmaceutical companies will buy this, it's a good herb. Of course, not all pharmaceutical companies will buy it, it depends on the scale and the processing situation."

Li Long knew this. In his previous life, many people in the team knew that this was a medicinal material. Some people had come up with this idea. When they couldn't sell it here at the purchasing station, they went to a pharmaceutical company. But then they came back and said that the pharmaceutical company wouldn't buy it either.

But a few years before Li Long died of illness in his previous life, the price of this thing had gone up. The dried goods cost dozens or even hundreds of yuan per kilogram, and the wild ones were even more expensive.

At that time, there were not many alkaline beaches in the team. They had all been reclaimed and planted with cotton. The few remaining ones were very far away, and no one in the team went to dig them up specifically, after all, there were too few of them.

There are people who specialize in digging this up. They ride electric tricycles around looking for it, and then take it back to deal with it themselves after digging it up.

So even though the entire team has this resource, to be honest, not many people make money from it. Occasionally, one or two people make money from it, but they don't do it anymore because they say it's too troublesome and the pharmaceutical companies have too high requirements.

"This needs to be processed." Chen Hongjun said, "It needs to be cleaned and not rotten or broken, with the roots intact. You know the hairy stuff on top, that stuff can't fall off. It can't be too dry when it's dried in the sun, or it'll be hard to slice later..."

Li Long took note of these words carefully.

After leaving the purchasing station, he did not go to the medicinal material company, but to the market. Seeing that Li Qingxia and Tao Daqiang still had some fish left to sell, he walked around the market twice, waiting for them to sell the fish. The three of them went to the big meat canteen to eat breakfast together, and then returned to the team.

Du Chunfang has already started picking up the nets, Li Juan is helping in the yard, and Li Qiang is playing with the water chickens.

Three people joined the team to pick up the nets, and Li Long replaced Li Juan. Li Long could clearly feel Li Juan sighing, she must be very tired.

With the addition of three people, the net was cleaned in more than an hour. Tao Daqiang went back to cook, and Li Long also started to cook. Du Chunfang couldn't cook for so many people at home, and Li Qingxia couldn't cook either. Li Long was also familiar with this.

After dinner, Li Long did not return to the stable. Instead, he took a shovel, put a bag on the back seat, and rode his bicycle to the alkali beach in the east.

There are many white thorns, red willows and saltwort growing on the alkali beach. These plants are very distinctive. White thorn is a large beach on the ground. Now it has red and purple fruits. This thing is sour with a little sweetness and a medicinal smell. Don't eat too much. Eating too much will cause nosebleeds. I won't talk about red willows. Basically, what we see in later generations are like shrubs. But because there are too many here, although some people cut them down, because there are so many, many of them have grown into trees, some are three or four meters high.

The alkali grass is a large green mass that forms a sphere without any need for trimming. Some birds, such as the big-headed sparrow and the yellow sparrow in the local dialect, will build their nests in the alkali grass.

The locals whose ancestors lived here also burn the alkali ash, which turns it into a emerald green like tourmaline, which is very beautiful. Of course, the leftovers are ignored.

Li Long didn't even need to look for it, he could see the purple-red Cynomorium songaricum with white alkaline soil sticking out like donkey's dicks next to the white thorn on the roadside.

After parking the car, Li Long picked up the shovel and bag and walked towards the nearest Cynomorium songaricum.

Because this thing is purple-red and contains a lot of moisture, it works like a dye, so children would pull its head off and use it as a pen to write and draw on hard soil.

Li Long found a big one and dug carefully, trying not to damage it. With this shovel, he dug out three, the longest one was more than a foot long, and the shortest one was more than 20 centimeters, with the roots still connected.

Gently scraping off the soil on top, Li Long put three Cynomorium songaricum into the bag and continued digging.

The alkali beach is very alkaline, and the top layer of soil is pure white, even crystallized. Only salt- and alkali-tolerant plants such as white thorn, tamarisk, and salsa can grow here. Occasionally, you can see reeds, but they are not very tall.

Li Long spent half an hour digging out half a bag, then he clipped it directly to the back seat of his bicycle and rode back.

Back at the stable, Li Long first used a brush to clean the dirt off the Cynomorium songaricum root, then climbed onto the roof and spread it out to dry. The roof was not very steep, the space was not small, and there was not much debris, so it was just right for drying things.

He planned to do an experiment.

In the next two days, Li Long continued to fish and sell fish. On the third day, he went to the house to see that the Cynomorium songaricum had dried, so he carefully picked them up and put them in his bag. After lunch, he rode his bike to the county.

When Li Long rode his bike to the medicinal materials company, the company had just started working.

The herbal medicine company was also responsible for selling medicine at this time, so even though Li Long came in with a bag, the people at the counter still thought he was buying medicine and asked:

"Comrade, what medicine did you buy?"

"I don't buy medicine, I sell Cynomorium songaricum." said Li Long.

"I can't make the decision on this. You have to ask our director."

Li Long went upstairs to find the director. He had been there once before, and the director said he would not accept him.

This time Li Long found the other party again.

"Didn't I say I wouldn't accept it?" The other party was also quite impatient. These people are just annoying and clingy!
"I brought samples this time. Can you take a look at them, Director?" Li Long said with a smile without getting angry.

It's about making money, no problem.

The director had no choice but to wave his hands.

Li Long took out the Cynomorium songaricum that he had dried and placed it on the table.

"This... is what you handled?" The director took a quick look and was about to refuse outright, but he didn't expect that the quality of this Cynomorium songaricum was quite good!
"Well, I'll take care of it." Li Long knew that this was a bit interesting, so he said, "If all the Cynomoriums I brought were like this, would you accept them?"

"Well - if they can all reach this quality, we will accept them." The director didn't accept them before because most of the things that people brought to the door were either leftovers or had dirt on them, or were simply filled with dirt, impurities and other things. If they were accepted, they would have to be processed again, which was very troublesome!
"Then I guarantee that they will all be of this quality." Li Long said, "Director, can you tell me the price?"

"You promise? How can you promise?" The director really didn't believe Li Long's promise.

"Actually, I am a purchaser for the supply and marketing cooperative, and I also do some of my own work." Li Long took out the certificate, "Section Chief Li of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative's Purchasing Department can prove it."

After reading the certificate, the director's expression eased. He handed the certificate to Li Long, picked up the Cynomorium songaricum, looked at it carefully, and then said:
"If they are all of this quality, I can give you fifty cents per kilogram for the dried goods."

Li Longmo calculated that the price of dried goods was 50 cents per kilogram, which meant that the price of fresh goods was a little over 10 cents per kilogram - that is, four or five kilograms of fresh goods and one kilogram of dried goods.

If you collect them from the team yourself, at five cents a kilogram of fresh goods, there will definitely be a lot of people willing to sell them to you.

All you need to do is find a place to dry it.

Anyway, there are so many Cynomorium songaricum in the alkaline beach, and there is no significant cost except for labor. I think as long as I spread the news through Tao Daqiang, there will be plenty of people willing to come and help me dig it.

The wheat harvest season has passed, and the sunflower and corn harvests will take some time. With this gap, everyone should be motivated to dig Cynomorium songaricum.

"Will you accept whatever I bring?" Li Long asked finally.

"Well, I'll take whatever you can bring - provided, of course, that the quality is this good."

Li Long smiled and said, there will definitely be no problem.

This matter is settled! (End of this chapter)