Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

We have been cooking in the big yard recently, so the ingredients are still abundant.

Liang Yuemei and Sister Yang work together with two stoves, plus the three stoves in the house, so they cook quite quickly.

At noon today, we had steamed rice and fried vegetables, but Du Chunfang couldn't eat the noodles because they were too hard. This time, Li Jianguo brought over a bag of new rice, saying it was freshly milled.

In fact, the new rice that Li Long brought back last time has not been eaten much. The rice at this time is really fragrant. When the steamed rice is opened, the whole house is filled with the fragrance of rice.

At this time, people have a large appetite, so the amount of food cooked is also large. There is a lot of oil in the kitchen, so Liang Yuemei is willing to use more oil. Sister Yang was a little uncomfortable at first, but seeing Liang Yuemei use so much oil when cooking, she followed suit.

"Ever since Xiaolong was able to go hunting in the mountains, my family has used more oil and meat in cooking," Liang Yuemei explained while cooking, "He said that if you use less, it won't be tasty, and besides, we have it.

Xiaolong, you have really grown in ability in the past two years."

"Yes, Uncle Li is really capable. I have never seen anyone more capable than him since I was a child." Sister Yang wholeheartedly agreed with this statement.

Stir-fried meat with mushrooms, stir-fried meat with dried beans, stir-fried meat with chili peppers, and stir-fried eggs with chili peppers.

Four dishes, plus rice soup, were placed on the table, and it looked very sumptuous. Li Qingxia joked:
"It's just like a festival. It smells so good."

Li Juan and Li Qiang had been hungry for a long time. They had become familiar with Han Fang. At this time, the three children washed their hands and helped to carry the bowls and serve the dishes. For a while, the kitchen was very lively.

The dining table in the courtyard was not big, so the women simply ate here while the men went inside. Liang Yuemei and Sister Yang were also quick, dividing each dish into two plates and bringing one plate into the living room of the main house.

The three children ate in the dining room, the women chatted about family matters, and the four grown men also ate and chatted in the living room.

"Many people bought agricultural supplies this autumn." Gu Boyuan already has his own purchasing channels. He sighed while eating, "With the production packaged to each household, everyone is very motivated to grow crops. There are not enough seeds to sell."

"That's easy. Next year, more people will grow melons in our team, and we can sell some melon seeds to you." Li Jianguo has some business sense. He said while eating, "Now more and more people know about your agricultural supply store, and more and more people know that you sell seeds. Naturally, someone will come to ask about it next autumn."

"That's good." Gu Boyuan nodded, "It's good for both sides."

"In fact, we can also set aside some land specifically for growing seeds, but it's a bit more troublesome." Li Long thought that most people are growing grain now, and the grain self-sufficiency rate is actually enough.

What is not enough is vegetables. At present, there are still relatively few people who specialize in growing vegetables. In the future, the villagers in the villages and teams around the county town with fewer plots of land will start to change from growing grain to growing vegetables, and finally start to build greenhouses on a large scale.

However, in the early stage of large-scale vegetable planting, seeds are needed. For example, bamboo shoots, carrots and other vegetables that are easy to store are actually more popular at this time.

But there are not enough seeds on the market for those who want to grow vegetables.

The only problem is that these seeds, except for bamboo shoots, can produce seeds in the same year, but the others need two years. Plant them in the first year, dig them out in autumn and bury them in the sand in the vegetable cellar, and dig them out again in the spring of the second year and plant them in the ground as seeds, waiting for them to produce seeds in autumn.

The same is true for beets, so it is quite troublesome.

Li Long had thought before that this was a way to develop the economy, but the time period to reap the benefits was too long.

Li Jianguo listened to this matter, pondered it slowly, and then said:
"You can try it on a small plot of land. It's not worth it on a large area."

"You can also plant some sunflowers." Li Long continued to analyze, "Isn't there a private roasted nuts factory in Qiuli looking for goods? It's impossible that they only want melon seeds, right? They must also want flower seeds, right?"

In later generations, sunflower seeds became more common in the market, and then horse-tooth melon seeds became popular. In fact, they are a special type of white sunflower, which is also good.

It’s just that the white sunflower is now about the same size as the flower sunflower, and at this stage people can’t quite accept the skinny appearance of the watermelon seeds, thinking that there are too few kernels and it’s not worth it.

They analyzed while eating, and soon, the dishes were eaten and the rice in the bowls was also finished.

Two years ago, when we ate, there was more rice and less dishes, and we needed to eat more rice and less vegetables. This is no longer the case. Even with several children, they all eat slowly without fighting or grabbing, and they have enough.

It looks good.

The three children were all very well-behaved, so Liang Yuemei, Sister Yang and Gu Xiaoxia all looked happy.

After dinner, they chatted for a while and then Li Jianguo and the others went back. After Li Long rested for a while, he put a sheep on the tractor, drove to the bank to withdraw some money, and then went to the village of Li Juan's grandfather Liang Donglou.

The kitchen had been cleaned up. Han Fang asked Sister Yang to go and review her lessons while she and Gu Xiaoxia packed up the things that Li Jianguo and the others had brought.

Rice, noodles, various dried vegetables, eggs, dried fish, etc.

"Auntie, your parents-in-law are so kind to you." Sister Yang sighed sincerely while cleaning up:

"Look at the things sent here, they are all real. Today, when I was cooking with his uncle's sister-in-law, she praised you so much and was worried that you might have problems with your pregnancy..."

"Sister-in-law..." Gu Xiaoxia stopped what she was doing and said slowly, "Actually, I remember when I was a kid, I almost called sister-in-law mom -

My dad and my eldest brother have a very good relationship. At that time, Li Long was not in a good mood. He didn't work hard, and I ignored him. My dad took me to my eldest sister-in-law's house, and my eldest sister-in-law pulled me aside and told me things that I should pay attention to when I was a girl..."

Although Liang Xiaoxia didn't continue speaking, Sister Yang could understand what she wanted to say.

The two families were familiar with each other when their children were young, knew each other well, and had always had a good relationship. Later, when they got married, their relationship became even closer, so naturally it became even better.

"I really envy you." Sister Yang said with envy, "You have a good father, a good man, and good parents-in-law..."

"Sister Yang, where is your family? Your parents-in-law..."

"Hey, stop talking." Sister Yang shook her head. "My hometown... there are good people there, but I didn't have them. If they were good, I wouldn't have brought Xiaofang to the northern border to find her father."

Gu Xiaoxia had no impression of staying in her hometown and did not understand the situation there.

It is true that parents would destroy their children's good marriages in order to let their children take care of them in their old age. It is also true that parents-in-law would hide the situation of their son or daughter in order to get more money.

"What about your parents' family?" Gu Xiaoxia thought, there must be a good one, right?

"I... have been an orphan since childhood and grew up with my grandparents, who passed away a few years ago." Sister Yang spoke with a calm expression, and she has accepted her past calmly.

Gu Xiaoxia was stunned for a moment. She really didn’t expect that Sister Yang’s life experience was so... pitiful.

"Fortunately, Xiaofang's father was kind to me. When he was around, I felt that I had a pretty good life. It was just that our family didn't have much land, and there were many people, so we couldn't get enough food, so he followed others to the northern border, and who knew..."

Gu Xiaoxia almost knew or guessed what would happen next.

She couldn't help but say:

"Then don't go back. Find Brother Han later and ask him to register your household registration here. It's better to live in Northern Xinjiang than in your hometown."

"That's right!" Sister Yang laughed when she heard Gu Xiaoxia say this, "Life here is really good. Of course, it's also thanks to her uncle, otherwise my mother and I would be freezing somewhere right now."

……

Li Long didn't know what the women were discussing. He drove his tractor to the door of Liang Donglou's house.

Although Li Long has been here more than once, the rumbling sound of the tractor still attracts many people to come out and watch, just like when a car enters the village ten years later, some people will come out to see whose relative's car it is.

Liang Wenyu had heard the sound of the tractor a long time ago. When he came out and saw that it was Li Long, he immediately opened the gate with a smile and let the tractor drive into the yard.

The snow in the yard was swept clean and things were put away neatly, even tidier than my eldest brother's house.

To be honest, after making this comparison, Li Long actually wanted to complain a little. Both his elder brother and his wife would rather work than clean the house, so the Li family's yard can barely be considered clean, but it is a bit difficult to say that it is tidy.

Of course, there is no problem in putting basic things in place, but just look at the vacant houses and you will know that things are piled up here and there, not as neatly planned as here.

The tractor turned off, Li Long got out, and Liang Donglou and Chen Xiuzhu also came out of the house.

"Why is Xiaolong here?" Liang Donglou asked, "Come in and warm up."

"Okay." Li Long went to the truck bed and took out the sheep. "This is a sheep I got from the mountains. My eldest brother took the sheep away from their place. I had nothing to do, so I brought it to you."

"Hey, Xiaolong, you keep making these things, and my mouth has become picky." Liang Donglou knew he couldn't refuse, so he made a joke.

"If you, Uncle Liang, hadn't sent things to my eldest brother and his wife a few years ago, I would still be hungry." Li Long also said with a smile, "Compared to that, this is nothing?" What I did was at most icing on the cake, while that one was truly providing timely help.

"Every Hui people mention this. What did we send back then? Just some coarse grains."

"That's when people can survive."

The sheep was put in an empty house, and there was an iron hook hanging from the roof beam, so Li Long put the sheep leg on the hook. Liang Wenyu wanted to help, but Li Long did it easily.

"Xiaolong, you are really strong." Liang Wenyu was a little surprised. The sheep looked like it weighed more than 20 kilograms. Li Long held it almost above his head with one hand, and used the other hand to hold the iron hook and pierce it into the frozen meat, and he did it easily!
"Hey, just practice if you have nothing to do." Li Long joked.

The mutton is hung in the air because there are many rats here and people are afraid of being bitten.

At present, they are just house mice. After ten years or so, the exchange and transportation of materials between the port and the mainland will become more frequent. The train cars carrying goods will bring the big black rats from the mainland, and they will soon become rampant here.

There are a lot of mice here, and many people in the countryside use rat poison. Some dogs and cats die after eating the poisoned mice.

These big rats are not afraid of people, cats or dogs, and they even dare to confront people, cats and dogs.

Most pet dogs and cats kept in cities are no match for these rats and will be scared away. There was a time when tabby cats in rural areas were very rare, so these rats became particularly rampant.

There was no other way. In order to protect their food supplies, rural people began to use large mousetraps. Ordinary mousetraps were completely useless.

Of course, the mouse traps used to catch house mice in short videos are not very useful.

Fortunately, the number of tabby cats gradually increased. After all, there were fewer people growing crops, there were more natural enemies of mice, and there was less food - small mice would even be food for big mice, so as there were more tabby cats, the ecology gradually became balanced.

After hanging the mutton, the two men entered the house. Chen Xiuzhu had already poured the tea.

"How is Xiaolong doing recently?" Liang Donglou asked.

"It's OK. My wife is pregnant. Some time ago, I went into the mountains to deliver some food and daily necessities to my herder friends who had returned from their pastures. They gave me some leather and mutton."

Li Long did not bring any leather this time. After all, leather was of little use to the people in northern Xinjiang these days. Its greatest use was to sell it for money.

In Li Long's opinion, for quite a long time, people in Ma County have been somewhat disenchanted with leather products, including fur.

Those living in the wild, in the absence of protection laws, are hunted, firstly to sell their skins for money, and secondly to eat their meat.

Later, the skins were not valuable, so no one hunted them anymore. In the 1920s, water rats, or muskrats, began to proliferate in Xiaohai Lake. Why? Because more were born than died. If the locals didn't hunt them, they had no natural enemies in the water.

"Then you must spend more time with your wife in the future." Chen Xiuzhu said.

"Well, I basically don't go out in the winter," Li Long said, "I plan not to go to the militia training either. I will just rest during this period."

After chatting about family matters, Li Long started to get down to business.

"Uncle Liang, I want to tell you something. See if you are willing to do so."

Liang Donglou said:

"You said."

"In the summer, I went to Kuitun and got a harvester to harvest wheat."

"I know about this. Your sister-in-law told me when she sent me the melon seeds. You must be making a lot of money, right?" Liang Donglou said with a smile.

Liang Wenyu's face was full of envy. He was still using a horse-drawn carriage, which was No. 76 brought by his sister-in-law.

Who doesn't want to drive a tractor?

"I make a lot of money. In one summer, one wheat season, I can earn almost as much as a tractor." Li Long said, "It's just a bit hard work."

"Hey, so many?" This time even Liang Donglou was surprised, "How can there be so many?"

"Yes." Li Long said, "Look, a tractor with a harvester can harvest 150 mu of wheat a day. If you pay two yuan per mu, that's three hundred yuan..."

"So many?" This time it was Liang Wenyu who was amazed.

"This is because the tractor cannot be used all the time, otherwise the engine can't bear it." Li Long said, "People can't bear it either, it's too hot and we can't bear the sun."

"Three hundred a day, a month..."

"We can't keep mowing like this. It's OK for nearby areas, but for distant areas, we can mow 80 or 100 acres a day, or even less, including the cost of the road," Li Long said. "We also have to deduct the cost of gas, but gas is cheap now."

"That's a lot." Liang Donglou nodded, then asked:

"What are your plans? Are you planning to come here to harvest wheat next year? That's no problem. Just let Wenyu introduce you to them."

"No, no, no," Li Long said, seeing that Liang Donglou had misunderstood his meaning, "My idea is that I will lend some money to Wen Yu so that he can buy a tractor with a harvester, and then it would be best if he could harvest the wheat in this commune."

"What?" Liang Wenyu was confused.

Such a good thing...is it my turn?

"Then you...then what do you want?" Liang Donglou was also stunned for several seconds before he sighed:

"You let me do all the money-making work, then you... Well, I get it. Look, if you harvest wheat, I'll give you one yuan per mu, how about that? Of course, the money for the tractor and harvester will still be yours."

Liang Donglou doesn't want to feel guilty about making money.

Li Long said hurriedly:

"No, no, no, that's not what I meant. Actually, I'm going to go back to the team tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and I'm going to tell my team members to do this, but Wenyu doesn't need to. We're family members, and I think it's better to let our own people do this job than to let others do it. We can obviously make the money, so why not?"

"No, I can't take advantage of you for nothing." Liang Wenyu couldn't stand it anymore, "We will do whatever your team does."

"How can it be the same? Those people in the team are outsiders, and we are our own people." Li Long stopped them:

"Wenyu, I don't need the money. I just thought that now that I have some money, it would be good for my eldest brother to develop. Uncle Liang, you guys are not on my team, so I can't just ignore it, right?"

Let's not talk about this anymore, the matter is basically settled.

Li Long left five thousand yuan for Liang Wenyu and said he would deliver the harvester when the time comes.

After Li Long left, the Liang family looked at the five thousand yuan and didn't want to talk.

"Dad, I plan to buy a tractor and make some money from harvesting wheat. I'll have to give some to Li Long." Liang Wenyu suddenly said. He and Li Long no longer called each other brother and sister. They were used to it.

"Yes, that's true." Chen Xiuzhu was the first to agree.

"I'm just afraid he won't harvest it." Liang Donglou saw further. No one in the production team could afford to buy a tractor, mainly because the production team had little land and there were no cash crops to grow.

Next year, if I plant some melons at home and buy a tractor and use a harvester, I will be far ahead of ordinary families.

If we continue like this, as long as we maintain it, we will become richer and richer in the village and always occupy a leading position.

I never thought that Li Long would be so capable.

"Go, cut off a leg of the sheep and send it to your second sister." Liang Donglou suddenly said to Liang Wenyu.

"Then this money, this tractor..."

"Buy it next spring." Liang Donglou said, "Tell your mother to keep the money first. The tractor is not needed in winter and it is easy to break down. Buy it in the spring. You can learn more from Li Long. Otherwise, it will be a joke if it breaks down."

Liang Wenyu had no objection to this. After all, young people are still somewhat vain. He went to cut the lamb legs, but he was already thinking in his mind that when he drove a tractor next year, the way the team looked at him would be completely different. (End of this chapter)