Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

With two stores that could provide stable supplies, Li Long did not need to look for more. He only needed to go to the stores regularly to pick up the goods and then deliver them to the mountains.

The saddles in the Beiting store are of better quality, but the old man is slower. The saddles in the Maxian store are of average quality, but they make more and faster, and it is obvious that not many people buy saddles in this store.

Li Long is the biggest regular customer. He fed back the information about saddles he got from Halimu and others to the store owner, who will actively resolve the issue.

The service attitude is still very good. Li Long ordered some matching items through them. The old man's saddles and other things are all a set, but here there are only saddles. Li Long thinks that they should be treated equally.

Fortunately, there are few ethnic minorities in the county, and these craftsmen know each other, making it easier to communicate.

The saddle seller was also inspired by this, and soon he put whips, bridles, and mats with various intricate patterns in his shop.

It actually attracted quite a few people to come and watch.

Business isn’t much better, but at least the customer flow has increased.

So the shop owner was very polite to Li Long. He felt that Li Long brought him good luck.

At that time, there was no gap between comrades from ethnic minorities and comrades from the Han nationality, and the relationship was generally very good.

We are all people living on the same land, so it is normal to have some conflicts over minor issues, but there are not so many conflicts in major aspects. Aren’t they all instigated by people?
After Li Long sent the saddle into the mountains twice, heavy snow came again.

The snow was quite heavy at this time, and thirty to forty centimeters of snow was normal. However, in the previous life, people did not have the habit of going out to chase rabbits at this time. If Li Longtao had not caught rabbits, there would have been only two or three people in the team who would have thought of chasing rabbits outside.

As long as they have enough food to eat, most of them would not go out to do something that might not yield any reward in the middle of winter.

It's just like when you know you can catch fish by digging a hole in the ice, but most people don't do it. First, it's cold, and second, they don't think about how to eat or sell the fish after they catch it. Instead, they consider that it would be a waste if they went through the trouble of digging a hole in the ice but didn't catch any fish.
So basically I don't do anything.

Li Long has opened up a new path for them.

In fact, every winter in later generations, people would break the ice to catch fish. However, because the small lake collapsed in later generations, it could hardly hold much water. After others broke holes in the ice to catch fish, the other people in the village could only envy them.

Because it feels like if someone catches it, there will be no fish left.

Most people don’t realize how much change Li Long has brought to the village in the past two or three years.

Not only do they work to earn money, but now, after the heavy snow, many people in the village have run out to the snowy wilderness to chase rabbits and foxes.

Did it exist before? Basically, it didn’t.

After this heavy snowfall, the ice surface of Xiaohai Lake was frozen solid. Many people pulled shovels onto the ice, smashed holes in the ice and started to catch fish - after this period of time underwater, the fish had begun to lack oxygen.

But most of the people who came here were middle-aged and elderly people, and some were women. Because the young people were taken to the militia training by Xu Chengjun, gunshots could be heard occasionally from Dahaizi in the north.

Li Long came to the team, one to see his parents, the second to see the fattened cattle and sheep, and by the way, to get some bullets from Xu Chengjun.

To be honest, our country produces too many Type 56 ordinary bullets. A large number of these bullets are destroyed every year in militia warehouses at all levels. It is rumored online that Dongda produced so many of these things because it really intended to challenge the whole world.

Otherwise, what is the purpose of setting up militias across the country?

So Li Long took out more bullets from various places, and he had no psychological burden at all.

After all, forty years later, there are still a large number of these bullet grenades that have long expired but have not been destroyed.

"These cattle and sheep are growing very fast." Li Long looked inside the pen. "They seem to be getting fatter."

"It's good to be fat." Yang Laoliu was no longer afraid of Li Long. He had already received his first month's salary.

When he got his salary, Yang Laoliu went to the store and bought two bottles of wine and some pickled mustard tubers. Uncle Luo cut some air-dried meat and fried some pickles to keep things nice. The people from Lao Ma Hao had a meal together.

Yang Laoliu burst into tears while drinking. Although he was earning less money now than when he was a colonel, he was actually getting his salary again.

It was only then that Uncle Luo realized that Yang Laoliu had never wanted to be a farmer in his heart and had always been unwilling to do so.

Although I'm just helping Lao Luo raise cattle and sheep now, I don't have to farm anymore.

Most importantly, there is salary!

So from that time on, Yang Laoliu was no longer afraid of Li Long, and instead wanted to get closer to him.

"Uncle Yang, do you think this sheep has grown about three kilograms in the past month?" Li Long asked, looking at the fat sheep.

"Yes, I must have gained three kilograms." Yang Laoliu said confidently, "I have been fed with sugar residue and bran every day, and I have been fed with good food and drink, and I don't have to run around everywhere, so how can I not gain weight?"

At least before the early 1990s, people still liked to eat fatty meat - fat meat contains oil and can be utilized more.

At this time, when you weigh the meat, you want to give more lean meat, but they are still unwilling to do so.

But at that time, sheep were rarely raised with feed, so it was difficult to raise them to the level of later generations with a thick layer of fat on their ribs.

Li Long felt that he might set a precedent. Although he did not use urea and compound feed to raise cattle and sheep, he kept them in pens and increased investment in winter - the sugar residue was at most a freight issue and could be ignored after rounding off. So when it was time to slaughter the cattle and sheep in the twelfth lunar month, they would definitely have a thick layer of fat.

perfect.

Old Uncle Luo happily carried a basket of sunflower heads to the pen and poured them into the pen along the wall. The cows and sheep then began to eat happily.

At this time, when raising cattle and sheep, it is normal to feed them grass in winter. Feeding them sunflower heads and sunflower tails is considered an additional feed. If you feed them some wheat tails and wheat offal, it is equivalent to giving the cattle and sheep a bigger meal.

Li Long directly feeds them sugar residue and bran, which are good feed for pigs. How can the cattle and sheep not get fat?
The treatment has never been so good.

The people in Laomahao are also optimistic about these cattle and sheep. At first, they were skeptical about Li Long fattening them and slaughtering them and selling them before the New Year, but now it is different.

Ma Jinbao came over with his flock of sheep.

It snowed heavily. Normally, cattle and sheep are kept in their own pens and fed. There would be no grass to eat if they were let out. After all, there was such a thick snow in the wild. What could they eat?

Ma Jinbao was lazy, and there was not enough grass to harvest in the autumn, so he mainly relied on his own corn stalks. Sheep, unlike cows, did not eat wheat straw, so he would drive the sheep out in the winter, mainly to the reed ditch and reed lake, and let the sheep dig through the snow and nibble on dry reed leaves.

Of course, sometimes he had another idea when he drove the sheep over, which was to let them nibble on the grass stalks that Lao Ma Hao had forked out of the pen.

The cattle and sheep in the old horse farm disliked the grass stalks. They only ate the leaves on the grass stalks, and they couldn't even eat the leaves completely.

After all, there are sugar residues and bran, so the grass will definitely be disliked.

But these grass stalks are very good things for Ma Jinbao. When his sheep come to the grass pile, they can actually eat them in big mouthfuls.

Yang Laoliu watched Ma Jinbao drive the sheep over and used to pretend not to see him. After all, they were from the same village and would meet each other every day, so it was not easy to just let him go.

In this kind of situation, everyone has to have some shamelessness. Although Ma Jinbao is a bit thick-skinned, Uncle Luo thinks that if his own cattle and sheep don't eat it, then let others eat it.

Anyway, it will be used as firewood after spring.

But since Li Long was here, Yang Laoliu couldn't just stand there. He kept his eyes on Ma Jinbao, thinking that as long as Ma Jinbao drove the sheep to the haystack, he would have to warn him.

However, Yang Laoliu underestimated Ma Jinbao's shamelessness. After driving the sheep to this area, he simply ignored the sheep and walked up to Li Long and Yang Laoliu, looking into the circle and saying:
"I said you don't know how to raise sheep. The cattle and sheep need to be let out and moved around so that the pen is clean and easy to clean. You keep the cattle and sheep in the pen and they don't move around, they just eat and poop, so the pen must be full of..."

He paused.

Anyone who has raised cattle and sheep knows that what Ma Jinbao said makes sense. If the warm circle is not big enough and there are too many cattle and sheep in it, the urine and feces of these guys can turn the warm circle into a swamp - of course, it's a bit exaggerated, but that's the idea.

This is the sheep pen of Ma Jinbao’s family.

There is naturally an ice beach outside.

He knew that Li Long had brought two or three hundred cattle and sheep, and thought that with so many cattle and sheep, the pen must be a mess.

That's why he dared to say that.

However, when I looked into the sheep pen, I found that it was very clean. The grass stalks and other things had been cleared away. The sunflower heads that Lao Luo had just fed were poured along the wall, but they did not have any impact.

The door curtain of the warm circle was lifted for ventilation, and it looked very dry inside - mainly because it was big enough. Ma Jinbao could not continue his speech.

Yang Laoliu originally wanted to save some face for Ma Jinbao, but he didn't expect that he came here just to slap him in the face, so he didn't hold back and said with a sarcastic smile:

"Do you think everyone is as lazy as you? This new stable is so big, we clean out the grass stalks inside five or six times a day, and the cattle and sheep go out to play, drink water and urinate twice a day, so how could the bladder in the stable be so leaky?

Besides, your experience in herding sheep is useless! Look at your sheep, they are as skinny as sticks. Look at the sheep in the pen, their backs are flat, so fat! How good is this fat?

Let's see if you still have the nerve to say that. Drive your sheep away! If they collapse the pile of grass later, I'll let you pile it up again!"

Yang Laoliu had also handled special missions before, so he kept his eyes and ears open. While he was scolding Ma Jinbao, he saw out of the corner of his eye that the Ma family's sheep had run to the pile of straw outside the stable and started to nibble on it, so he immediately changed the subject.

If Li Long talked about Ma Jinbao, he could still argue a little, after all, he was older than Li Jianguo.

But Yang Laoliu was older than him, and that mysterious profession could also intimidate Ma Jinbao, so he could only smile awkwardly and go over to herd the sheep.

To be honest, his sheep are indeed not comparable to those in the pen. Their sheep are almost twice as big as his.

Just think about how much fat the sheep would have if they eat so much!

While herding the sheep, Ma Jinbao wondered if he could also go to the sugar factory to get some sugar residue. Is it true that raising cattle and sheep can produce so much meat?

Li Long is still very satisfied with the cattle and sheep in the pen. If he continues to feed them like this, almost all the sheep sold before the New Year will weigh more than 30 kilograms, at least 10 kilograms heavier than when he bought them.

This concept of fattening in a pen is still unknown in Ma County, at least for now. Li Long started this, and it was just the right time.

After all, thirty years later, people want to eat lean or slightly fat lamb.

Just like barbecue, if there is one piece of fat among three or four pieces of lean meat, the taste will be very good.

But if there were two pieces of fat meat, that would be a bit too much. At that time, fattening sheep were no longer in demand in the mainstream market. They were too fat, and it was normal for a sheep to weigh 30 or 40 kilograms.

But what about 30 years ago? A sheep weighing more than 20 kilograms was considered big, how could it be so fat? Li Long has been eating mutton for so many years, but it was only around the 2000s and later that he was able to eat very fat sheep.

We didn’t buy mutton outside very often before. There were people raising sheep in our team. The sheep were not particularly thin, but at least there was almost no fat on their ribs, just a thin layer at most.

But now, in the 1980s, this kind of sheep with thick fat is the most popular. The fat can be stewed to release the oil, and the meat can be sealed and eaten for a long time.

Moreover, sheep that eat grass in alkaline land have no mutton smell, so people who buy meat will definitely like it.

So Li Long was confident that he could make a good profit when slaughtering sheep before the New Year - even if he sold one kilogram of mutton for 1.5 yuan, one sheep would make more than ten kilograms of meat, and with two hundred sheep, he could make several thousand yuan.

What did he pay? Sugar residue and labor wages, less than 500 yuan in the past two or three months.

That’s a huge profit!
So there are really a lot of opportunities at this time, it just depends on whether you can seize them and whether you dare to take action.

There was still a long time before the Chinese New Year, and seeing that Uncle Luo and the others were doing a good job, Li Long did not interfere. He took the bullets, the rabbit sent by Jia Weidong, and the fish sent by Liang Dacheng, and went back to the yard.

In the afternoon, Li Xiangqian rushed to the big yard. When he came in, he saw Li Long making a snowman in the yard, and he complained:

"Xiao Li, let me tell you, it's normal for you to rest in the winter. Shouldn't you do something serious when necessary? It's snowed for several times. Don't you think you should run west and see what's going on?"

When Li Long heard this, he knew that Director Qian must have called Li Xiangqian.

He made a snowman to broaden the horizons of his two sons, but he didn't know whether it was useful or not.

"Captain, no problem. I'll go west tomorrow to have a look." Li Long said while slicing the snowman's head with a wooden knife with a smile, "The bullet..."

"Don't worry! We have enough bullets!" Li Xiangqian said impatiently, "You are just a money-grubber. Why do you hoard so many bullets?"

"I don't hoard them. My herdsman friends in the mountains use bullets to shoot wolves. There are so many wolves, they keep an eye on the cattle and sheep every day in winter." Li Long said half-truthfully.

"That's true." Li Xiangqian had experience and knew that now that there were more households, wolves no longer lived in packs in the plains and had all run into the mountains. Before the production of B1 was established, the grain procurement teams of the supply and marketing cooperatives went to various locations to urge for grain, and packs of wolves could be seen in the plains. They were very brave and dared to follow the horse-drawn carriage for more than ten kilometers.

In order to let Li Long go to the uninhabited area in the west as soon as possible, Li Xiangqian brought Li Long two hundred rounds of bullets this time.

He received 100 rounds and kept 100 for himself.

Li Long accepted it with peace of mind. After sending Li Xiangqian away, Li Long drove his jeep to the market and bought four bags of rice and four bags of noodles.

My sister's family doesn't lack meat, but they need to buy food. The rice grown here tastes good, so Li Long plans to bring two bags of it along the way.

The remaining two bags were of course for his second brother Li Anguo. As for Li Junshan and Yang Yongqiang, Li Long didn't know how they were doing, so he didn't bring anything.

I don’t know if I can do it in the dormitory.

After buying things, he went to the transportation company to find a driver he knew to check the jeep, and then went to the oil depot to fill up the gas.

Back in the yard, the next thing to do is to maintain the gun. I must bring a gun and bullets tomorrow.

That night Li Long told Gu Xiaoxia about this matter.

"Then buy some toys and school bags for your second brother's two children when you pass by Shicheng tomorrow." Gu Xiaoxia reminded him, "Buy some for Hongqin too. You don't see the children often, and you are their uncle, so you have to love them."

Li Long had neglected this point. He had stayed with Li Juan and Li Qiang for a longer time, and although he was an uncle, he was actually the head of the children.

So when I had money, my first thought was to buy things for these two children so that they could live better than other children.

As for Hongqin, Xueqin and Xueping, there was a layer of distance between them. After all, they didn't spend a long time together. They liked each other, but sometimes they just couldn't think of each other when they were doing something.

Li Long remembered this point. Even if he couldn't treat everyone equally, as an elder, he still had to express what he should express.

Besides, the children are all very sensible.

He solemnly expressed his gratitude to Gu Xiaoxia.

Gu Xiaoxia smiled, looked at the two children who had fallen asleep and said:
"Haohao obviously has many brothers and sisters helping them in the back."

"That's right. If they don't help me, I will teach them a lesson." Li Long said as a matter of course.

This is the advantage of a large family if the atmosphere is good.

After breakfast the next day, Li Long drove his jeep towards Shicheng.

He went to the Shicheng Department Store and bought three dolls. After thinking about it, he bought another one. He also bought a set of standard whips and old cows.

As for Mingming and Haohao at home, they don’t need the toys here for the time being.

Li Long bought some candies, biscuits and other things, put them on the passenger seat, and went to his sister Li Xia's house.

Li Xia was very happy to see Li Long. Hong Qin was not there, she had gone to school. Li Xia wanted to invite Li Long to dinner, but Li Long refused - he had to rush to the no-man's land and stop by Kuitun.

So after unloading two bags of rice and flour, as well as toys and snacks for Hongqin, Li Long drove away.

Kuitun is nearly 100 kilometers away from Shicheng. Wuyi Road is flatter in winter, with ice on it and is very slippery. However, Li Long doesn't think it's a big deal. There are fewer cars in winter, so he can drive faster.

Moreover, there are fewer cars, which is more conducive to the appearance of gazelles.

Li Long thought that if he encountered them, he would kill one or two like last year, and then pull them directly to his second brother.

Of course, Li Long was not that confident. This time the time was earlier than last year, so it was hard to say whether he could meet him or not.

There was a time when the gazelles were beaten and ran deep into the Gurbantunggut Desert and were rarely seen.

Later, they were protected and gradually increased in number.

I hope this time I will gain something. (End of this chapter)