Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

There were dozens of bags of fish piled up in the yard. Fortunately, Li Long had been selling fish frequently in the past year, and he was also an "employee" of the supply and marketing cooperative, so there were so many bags at home, otherwise there would be no way to pack the fish!

The fish were placed in bags and covered with snow. But the next job was not easy.

In order to make it easier to sell the fish later, the fish need to be broken apart one by one before they are completely frozen, and then some snow is added before they are put into bags.

Otherwise, when the fish are transported to the market to be sold, all the fish in the bag will be frozen into a lump. At that time, it would be difficult to separate them even with an axe, and if they are separated, the fish may be dismembered.

Fortunately, this job is not very difficult. The fish is not frozen very solid now. The next day, Li Long, Li Anguo and the other five people started working in the yard.

Drag a bag of fish to the snow outside, pour it down, and then start to break the fish into pieces. After breaking them into pieces, mix some snow into the bag when putting them into the bag. This way, the snow will serve as an intermediate, so even if the fish are frozen, they won't be frozen so tightly.

All five of them wore gloves and were not very experienced at first, but they became faster later on. A bag of fish was processed in just a few minutes.

As the sun rose, Li Long shouted to Chen Xingbang and the others:

"Brother-in-law, second brother, don't look too far away. It's easy to get snow blindness."

"Oh, I see." Several people had heard Li Jianguo talk about this, so they all cared about it.

While he was busy, someone was calling Li Long from a distance.

Li Long took a look and was surprised to find that it was Li’s opposite neighbor, Lu Yingming’s son Tietou.

"Tietou, are you...chasing rabbits?"

Tietou was holding two rabbits in his hands. One of the rabbits was dead and frozen, while the other was still kicking its legs, obviously alive.

"I chased it yesterday." Lu Tietou said proudly as he walked over, "Brother Xiaolong, my dad asked me to bring this rabbit to you guys to eat."

"Really?" Li Long laughed, "How many rabbits did you chase yesterday?"

"Nine!" Tietou said proudly, "I chased four more this morning... One got away yesterday, otherwise there would be ten in total!"

"Awesome, really amazing!" Li Long gave a thumbs up.

"Well, you guys take it and eat it. We can't finish it all at home." Lu Tietou took the rabbit and handed it to Li Long, "Brother Xiaolong, you take it. I'll go to the east to take a look in the afternoon."

These are two big rabbits, each weighing more than three kilograms, and they look quite fat.

"Then I'll give it to you..." Li Long hesitated.

"My dad said that this is for you to eat. We also got two from Uncle Jianguo. We often ate meat from your house before, so this rabbit is nothing..."

Lu Tietou seemed to know what Li Long wanted to say. After giving the rabbit to Li Long, he turned around and left quickly.

Li Long smiled.

Li Junfeng came over and asked curiously:

"Uncle Xiaolong, whose child is this? He's so cute, he even gave us a rabbit."

"We live next door to each other." Li Long picked up the rabbit and looked at it, saying, "Our two families have a good relationship."

He turned to Li Junshan who was carrying a bag of fish and said:

"Junshan, go take the rabbit to Uncle Luo. We'll fry it for lunch today."

"Okay." Li Junshan put down the fish with a smile, took the rabbit and turned back to the stable.

"Hey, this is different. They also give away rabbits, two at a time. Back home, no matter how good the relationship is, you can just get a bowl of cooked rabbit meat." Li Anguo sighed.

Heart for heart.

This is what Li Long said in his heart.

After this episode, although Li Junshan was not around, everyone started talking more while working. Most of the time, Li Junfeng asked Li Long what else there was in the wild besides rabbits, especially what was edible and valuable.

They are all adults, and they can react quickly. This is not a mouth, and there are not so many people, so there will naturally be non-human things growing or living in the large uninhabited areas outside.

"There aren't many things on this dry beach. What valuable things can we get? Foxes, that is, foxes. Their skins are worth a few dollars. Badgers, their skins are not bad either. And what else..." Li Long thought for a moment and said, "There's nothing else. There are a lot of things to eat. Forget rabbits. There are hedgehogs in hot weather and quack chickens in winter. When I have time, I'll take you to find some. If you find any, they're good to fry and eat."

"That's not much." Li Junfeng felt dissatisfied.

"There aren't many on the dry beach, but there are many in the mountains." Li Long pointed at the horse horn and said, "I have some herder friends in the mountains. They often graze and know where there are wild animals, such as wild boars. If you encounter a group of wild boars, you can ambush them and kill two in one night. There are 100 to 200 kilograms of meat. Even if it's 50 cents per kilogram, it's not a small amount of money, right?"

This is the truth.

"There are also deer. If you can't find a deer, you can pick up deer antlers and sell them for money." Li Long added, "The same goes for roe deer antlers. One kilogram costs several dollars. A pair of large antlers weighs more than ten kilograms, which is dozens of dollars. Wait until winter, and if you encounter a deer, you can kill one and get dozens of dollars for the deer skin. You can keep the deer meat for food, and the deer penis and other things are also valuable."

"There are also wolves. But you have to use a gun to shoot them. Most wolves in the mountains live in groups of three or five. You can attack them by surprise, but you can't let them surround you."

Thinking that it’s snowing, Halimu and the others should be back by now, right?
"There are so many good things..." Li Junfeng was amazed. "These are living things. There are also many medicinal herbs, such as Fritillaria and Codonopsis, which are very valuable. If you had come a few days earlier and dug Codonopsis in the mountains, you could have made some money."

"Then no one cares?" Li Anguo asked.

"How could it be possible that no one is watching over it?" Li Long laughed. "There is a forestry team in the mountains, and people patrol the mountains every day. But I have an identity. I am a part-time forest ranger in the forestry team. I am one of them, so they don't care."

Chen Xingbang finally understood why his father-in-law had returned to his hometown and boasted about how happy he was in the mountains. With Li Long's identity, wouldn't he be able to walk around freely in the mountains?
By noon, the four men had processed almost one-fifth of the fish. It seemed like a very long process.

But it had to be done. Everyone knew that since they had taken the money, they should stop hesitating and just obey.

Li Long's series of actions made them fully understand that this young man, who was only 21 years old, actually had an extremely flexible mind. He could be the leader of them and lead them to make money.

And they won't be treated unfairly.

That'll do.

For lunch, we had rice with braised rabbit meat. Uncle Luo didn't know how to make spicy rabbit meat, and he learned how to braise it by watching Li Long make braised wild boar meat a few times before.

It tastes pretty good.

"This rabbit meat is really chewy." Li Junfeng commented as he nibbled on it, "It's a lot of meat, but it's not as delicious as pork."

At that time, people preferred to eat fat meat, which was greasy at the mouth, which was completely opposite to later generations. Because at that time, people felt that fat meat was more delicious.

After all, most of them are short of oil and water and need to be replenished.

"Don't be so fussy if you have something to eat." Chen Xingbang scolded with a smile, "Back home, I drink porridge every day at this time, and I never hear you say anything."

"Then the conditions are good." Li Junfeng also smiled. "Uncle Jianguo and Uncle Xiaolong are still very respectful. They directly sent the rabbits to us. Hey, that's great."

"In a few days, we will be slaughtering a pig at home and making a pig slaughtering dish. We will definitely invite others." Li Anguo knew about this when he was chatting with Li Jianguo. He said it while eating, "There will be a lot of people coming, right?"

"That's definitely not young or old." Old Uncle Luo said with a smile, "Last year, Xiaolong brought back two wild boars, and Jianguo and the others asked people to help with the butchering of the pigs. It was so lively..."

"It will definitely be lively this year..." Li Junfeng said with a smile, "It was also lively when we slaughtered pigs in my hometown..."

"There are not many people here, so any activities here will definitely not be as lively as back home." Li Long said as he ate, "But anyway, more people means more fun, and fewer people means fewer advantages."

"That's right. It's easier to work with more people, and it's easier to eat bread with fewer people." Li Anguo added, and everyone laughed.

In the afternoon, I continued to catch fish. I pulled the bags of fish out, separated them one by one in the snow, and put them back in. Li Long sighed in his heart that the snow at this time was so clean, unlike in later times, when it snowed and I could pinch a snowball in my hand, the snowball was covered with dust.

There are no big factories now, and the weather is good regardless of winter or summer. Thirty or forty years later, there are all kinds of factories nearby, and in winter, the big chimneys are all emitting smoke. The development zone in Shicheng is even more smoky, and the entire northern Tianshan Mountains, which stretch for hundreds of kilometers, are all gray.

The economy was developing at that time, but it was rare to see a sunny day in winter.

The next day, the fish were still being divided, and by this time, less than a third of the fish were left untie. Tao Daqiang and Yang Yongqiang also joined in. Originally, they came to ask Li Long if he wanted to set some traps, but when they saw everyone else working, they followed suit.

"The ice over there in Xiaohai Lake is not very thick." Yang Yongqiang said as he worked, "Meng Zhiqiang and his men are still breaking holes in the ice, trying to catch fish, but there are not many fish under the ice holes, and we can only catch less than five kilograms a day..."

"The fish are not lacking in oxygen now, so they definitely won't come up." Li Long said, and then asked:
"Didn't they go to the sea to catch fish?"

"Meng Zhiqiang found out too late," Yang Yongqiang explained. "By the time he found out, he had caught less than 10 kilograms of fish. He said that if he took the fish to the street, he wouldn't be able to sell it at a good price."

The fish from the big lake are not as popular as the fish from the small lake. But in a month, when the ground freezes over, people who want to eat fish will have few choices. So Li Long is not worried.

"Let's go sell fish together later." Li Long pointed at the fish in the bags and said, "Come with me if you have time. Let's see if we can earn enough money this winter to earn the rest of the year!"

Almost ten tons of fish, even if it is sold for only fifty or sixty cents per kilogram, after deducting the cost, it would be several thousand yuan.

If you calculate it, it’s still less than a year’s money, maybe half a year at most.

However, if we give everyone money, it will be enough to cover almost a year's expenses, so that others can also have a good New Year.

In fact, during this fish harvest, many people in the village also sold fish to Li Long, but they went late, and they had only done reed harvesting twice in the past year, especially after autumn, and earned some money. Unlike the villages under Dahaizi, they did not have such work and thus earned less money.

Therefore, most people who caught a few fish took them home to eat. After all, winter is still long, and the fish can be released now and eaten all winter.

But the attitude of the villagers towards Li Long has changed significantly. Except for a few people with mental problems, everyone knows that the biggest reason why everyone has some money and a little wealth in their families over the past year is naturally the land allocated by the higher authorities, and the second is just Li Long.

He set an example for everyone and showed them how to make money. He also brought work to the village, allowing everyone to earn real money.

Li Long accepted such looks calmly, and he also gladly accepted things brought by others. In the past few days, Lu Tietou was not the only one who brought rabbits to Mahao.

So the people at Mahao ate several meals of rabbit to their heart's content.

Until Gu Xiaoxia appeared.

Li Anguo and the other four people met Li Long's girlfriend for the first time. This girl, who had lost the temperament of the yellow-haired girl before, stunned the whole audience as soon as she appeared. (End of this chapter)