Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

In the morning, Li Long continued to go to the purchasing station. The temperature outside was slowly rising, the ice and snow on the ground began to melt, and the dirty snow in the roadside ditch was slowly sinking.

There was still a faint unpleasant smell at the gate of the recycling station. Li Long opened the iron gate, went into the house and set up the stove, then came out and took the shovel left by the two bad guys and scraped away the remaining stains on the ground.

The shoveled snow and mud were thrown into the drainage ditch on the side of the road. Li Long saw that this was the only way, so he stood by the courtyard wall with a shovel and went into the house.

There were more pedestrians on the road, and there were also students passing by - I didn't know if they were late or hadn't gone to school, they were all in a hurry.

Li Long soon saw the first person who came to sell things. What was unusual was that this time it was a big sister. She came to the door with a small bag of things on her back, looked inside a little reservedly, and when she saw Li Long, she smiled first, then said:

"Hello, comrade. Do you... sell Fritillaria?"

"Take it." Li Long looked at the lady, who was about 40 years old, with short hair that didn't reach her shoulders, pinned with a black clip, with a few strands of messy hair. Her face was a little red because she walked hurriedly, but she was quite thin, and it was obvious that her living conditions were not very good.

"Okay, okay, then let's see how much this mother-of-pearl can be sold for?" The lady put the small cloth bag on the counter, then rubbed her hands and habitually warmed them on the stove.

Li Long saw that she had several chilblains on her hands, and it seemed that she had suffered a lot in the winter.

Cloth bags were originally used to hold noodles - at that time many noodle bags were made of cloth. After the white flour was eaten, the bags had many uses.

Li Long opened his pocket, reached in and took out a handful of Fritillaria and looked at it.

The Fritillaria were cleaned up very neatly, of all sizes, and it was obvious that they were mainly from last year. Li Long put the Fritillaria back and reached into the bottom of his pocket to grab another handful to see if there was any residue on the bottom.

A little bit, not much.

"The Fritillaria is good, it's cleaned up pretty well, I'll charge 45 per kilogram." Li Long said, "How is it?"

"Okay, okay!" the older sister smiled.

This small bag of Fritillaria weighs four and a half kilograms. She weighed it at home. Now she can exchange it for about two hundred yuan, which will be enough for spring!

Li Long took the scale and weighed it. It was 4 kilograms and 650 grams. After removing the skin, it was 4.5 kilograms, which converted to 202.5 yuan.

Li Long paid and poured the Fritillaria into the large basket on the counter. After thanking Li Long, the older sister happily folded the bag and left, her steps much lighter than when she came.

Based on the development situation in the past two years, Li Long estimated that the purchase price of fresh Fritillaria from Jia Tianlong this year should be more than 60 yuan per kilogram for the first-class products. He could make 60 yuan from these four kilograms, which would be enough.

This is the advantage of local farmers - the purchase price per kilogram is higher, but because of the monopoly advantage, they can make a lot of money.

He even thought that during the Fritillaria season, he didn't need to go to the mountains to harvest them. He could just harvest them here and still make a lot of money, even more than last year.

But after thinking about it, I decided to give up. People should learn to be unsatisfied and learn to do both.

Anyway, I am young, so I might as well do both jobs first and then slowly look for a suitable person to look after the store.

At around twelve o'clock, after Li Long collected the mother-of-pearl, rabbit skins, more than ten kilograms of copper coins, and two small silver ingots, he prepared to pack up and return to the yard.

He really didn't expect that the copper coin resources in Ma County were more than he imagined. He had heard about the money cellar from his elder brother Li Jianguo before, but he had never seen it with his own eyes.

It was normal for every household to have a few copper coins at that time, but I had never seen a particularly large amount of them - except for the half box I saw when I bought Lao Ma's yard, yes, except for those in the mountains.

Who would have thought that after just opening the purchasing station, he would receive nearly 100 kilograms of hemp seeds, and that was after he had carefully selected them. Many of them were returned as they were too rotten to be used.

It's never a loss to collect it as scrap copper.

It's normal to think about it. It is an ancient city after all. Even when Wang Dulu wrote Yu Jiaolong, he knew about the ancient cities along the line. There was no Shicheng or Kuitun, but Suila (Ma County) must be counted as one.

When I was packing my things and loading them into the car, someone came over.

Li Long stopped what he was doing and greeted with a smile:
"Hello, Comrade Guo!"

The person who came was Guo Tiebing, a policeman from the police station - the one who had a good relationship with Li Long.

"Hello, Comrade Li." Guo Tiebing, holding a clip in his hand, greeted Li Long, looked around, nodded and said:
"No wonder, this yard is nice. What did you harvest today?"

"Medicinal herbs, hemp coins, and rabbit skins." Li Long pointed to the things being loaded onto the truck.

"Can you make money?" Guo Tiebing asked again.

"It should be okay. I'll keep it first and then find a place to sell it." Li Long did not hide the fact that he was a middleman in front of Guo Tiebing. Anyway, as long as he didn't commit any illegal acts and took in things that the country was not allowed to take, he would basically not be charged with speculation in the next two years.

In fact, Li Long made an estimate. Not counting the copper coins, just the profits from things like mother-of-pearl and rabbit skin this morning were over a hundred yuan.

This is still the off-season. If it is the peak season for collecting Fritillaria in May, the profit per day will be at least 500 yuan.

Of course, this cannot be said to Guo Tiebing, or basically, it cannot be said to anyone else except family members.

"Do you know why I came here?" Guo Tiebing asked without beating around the bush.

"Did those two people confess the mastermind behind this?" Li Long packed his things, closed the car door, leaned against the jeep, took out a pack of cigarettes, took out a cigarette and handed it over: "Would you like to smoke?"

Guo Tiebing took the cigarette but didn't smoke it. He put it between his ears, tapped his right hand with the cigarette holder in his left hand and said, "I did confess. Do you know something?"

"Someone came to me a few days ago and wanted to buy my purchasing station, but I didn't sell it." Li Long nodded and said, "Two young people."

"Do you know his identity?"

"I guess he must be rich and noble." Li Long smiled, "Is he the child of a leader?"

"You are so smart." Guo Tiebing sighed and said, "Indeed, he is the child of a leader. We started the trial this morning, and the two scoundrels confessed very quickly. But you have to understand that after we finished the trial, the leader over there also found out about it, and he called us specifically, saying that he hopes to reconcile with you and suppress the matter."

"How to reconcile?" Li Long was waiting for the other party's attitude.

In fact, if this kind of thing really gets out of hand, both sides will suffer at most. If the other party admits his mistake and expresses his opinion, then Li Long really has no intention of pursuing the matter further.

"They said they would give you 100 yuan to make up for your losses. They promised not to do such things again and will not embarrass your purchasing station again."

"Okay." Li Long answered readily, which surprised Guo Tiebing.

"Is this okay?"

"Let's be merciful when we can." Li Long smiled. "Even if we don't, what can we do? If we catch someone, the most we can do is apologize. Can we lock him up?"

"That's impossible. After all, it didn't cause any bad effects. You actually understand that this matter itself can be big or small, depending on the impact."

Li Long naturally knew that he had a halo above his head. Although this halo was from two years ago, it still had some effect.

It’s at the autonomous region level and it’s not so easy to fade.

When it comes to official matters, Li Long doesn't know how powerful the other party is, but he doesn't want to cause trouble. In the past, he might have found out more and taught the young man a lesson, but now he has a wife and children, so there are more things to consider.

Why is it that thirty or forty years later, those companies find it easy to target middle-aged employees? Isn’t it because they have elderly parents to support and young children to take care of, and the pressure is too great to take risks?

"Okay, that's settled. I'll go back and take care of it now, and you can go to the office this afternoon to collect the money."

"What about those two second-rate guys?"

"This matter could be big or small, but these two guys have stolen other people's things before, and they confessed it at the first trial this morning, so they will be detained for fifteen days."

Well, it can be considered as getting rid of harm to the people.

In the afternoon, Li Long went to the police station, signed and received the money. The other party did not show up, but Li Long did not care. The matter was exposed, but it also left a foundation at the police station. If the other party wanted to make trouble again, the public security department would lose face.

After leaving the police station, Li Long continued to go to the purchasing station, where he would stay for the next few days.

Different from the original purchasing station, Li Long here also buys common leathers such as sheepskin and dog skin.

A week later, Li Long drove a tractor with a full truckload of hides to the leather factory. They were all sheepskin, rabbit skin, dog skin and other common skins. Although there were already more than a hundred yellow sheepskins, Li Long did not sell them for the time being. He planned to wait for Zhao Hui to come over and compare prices.

"Xiao Li, you are amazing. You have put a lot of effort into getting so many leathers in the early spring." Lao Zhang, a technician at the leather factory, held the cigarette handed to him by Li Long between his ears and said with a smile, "Although the quality of the leathers is average, the quantity is relatively large. Our leather factory rarely buys so many leathers from individual dealers."

"Brother Zhang, do you accept yellow sheep skins? What's the price? Oh, and we also have red deer skins and the like."

"Of course we do. We are a leather factory, so we will definitely buy leather like this. And leather like this is much more expensive than sheepskin. A complete yellow sheepskin can be sold for 70 yuan, while red deer skin is more expensive. If it is torn or has holes, we may have to sell it at half price, 60% or 70% off, depending on the situation."

Li Long nodded to show that he understood.

"Why, Xiao Li, do you have yellow sheepskin?"

"I have a few, but not many. I'll try to save some more." Li Long said vaguely, "This leather is really not cheap."

"Of course, they are wild, so they are different from cattle and sheep. Now our leather is made into leather jackets and other things for export. Those foreigners like the skins of these wild animals very much, so the price is naturally higher."

Li Long understood and felt relieved. Even if Zhao Hui didn't come, he could still sell his yellow sheepskin and red deer skin.

After selling these skins today, he made more than 1,000 yuan after deducting the cost. Of course, this is just the skins - the yellow sheepskins are not included, which are another thing.

He opened the shop a little later the next day and went to the herbal medicine company to ask about the prices of the herbs.

The price offered by the county medicinal materials company was not high. The price of Fritillaria was only three to five yuan higher than their purchase price, and the price of licorice was only more than one yuan higher.

Li Long drove his jeep to the medicinal materials company in Shicheng. The price offered there was a bit higher, but only slightly higher than that of the medicinal materials company in Ma County.

If it is sold at this price, he can make some profit, but it will not meet Li Long's expectations.

Then let’s wait until Jia Tianlong comes over to take a look.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, which was March 6th, the second day of Jingzhe, Li Long waited for Zhao Hui.

Zhao Hui was wearing a leather jacket, sunglasses, carrying a briefcase, and wearing leather shoes, looking very showy.

When Li Long saw him dressed like this at the purchasing station, he immediately laughed:
"Boss Zhao, aren't you cold?"

"It's a leather jacket, there's fur inside. I'm wearing a sweater and woolen pants too." Zhao Hui said, patting himself.

"I mean your feet! Won't your feet get cold if you wear leather shoes in the early spring?"

"Hehe," Zhao Hui laughed, squeezing past a few people selling things and entering the purchasing station. He pulled a chair over and sat next to the stove, warming his leather shoes close to the stove. "It's really a bit cold. The heater in the car I was riding in wasn't hot enough, and my feet were frozen all the way."

"Then you bake it for a while, I'll collect the things." Indeed, no one came to make trouble in the past few days, and Li Long ran back and forth between the purchasing station and the yard every day as if he was punching in at work.

The snow on the road has melted about 70% to 80%, with mud and water splashing everywhere, and the melted ice and snow water in the ditches on the side of the road flowing to lower places.

The main streets were relatively safe, as they were usually cleaned and the melting of snow had little impact on them. However, the alleys and country roads became muddy at this time.

The road leading to the fourth team from the village is better. After it was paved with sand and gravel last year, at least when the snow melts in the spring, students won’t have too much mud on their feet when walking on the road to and from school.

At that time, Li Juan and Li Qiang each had a bicycle and were considered wealthy in the school.

At this time, more and more people came to the purchasing station to sell things. After the snow melted, the land had to be prepared for farming. Everyone was now starting to prepare agricultural supplies for farming, and Gu Boyuan had also started work.

Li Long also became busy. The day before yesterday, Li Jianguo came to Li Long when he went shopping and told him that Li Jianguo had already bought the beet seeds for planting in the saline-alkali land next to the horse shed.

Li Long wanted to give Li Jianguo money for seeds, but Li Jianguo laughed and scolded him.

There were seven or eight people queuing in front of him. Li Long skillfully checked, graded, weighed, paid for, and then sorted and bagged the items. By the time he took care of Zhao Hui, Zhao Hui's feet had already warmed up.

"It seems that your purchasing station is doing well and is very successful."

"Not bad." Li Long nodded and asked, "How was your New Year? Are you out working so early?"

"Alas, a life of hard work." Zhao Hui shook his head, but there was a hint of pride in his expression. He was different from Jia Tianlong. He had a family and children and was very happy. He came out to earn a better future for his family.

"Boss, don't be so hypocritical. I have a lot of hides stored this time. Do you want to take them? If you do, you can't transport them back by yourself - it's much more than last time."

"Really? That's great, I love this winter leather!"

Winter fur is better, and the quality of fur used to make fur is much better than summer fur, so Zhao Hui said that.

"Then how do you transport it?" Li Long asked.

He didn't ask about the price - the price Zhao Hui gave last time was already very good.

"Don't worry, I'll rent a car - I have some connections in Northern Xinjiang." Zhao Hui signaled Li Long not to worry.

Li Long was no longer worried.

At about twelve o'clock, Li Long loaded the collected items into the car and returned to the courtyard with Zhao Hui. He was in no hurry to unload the items, but first took Mingming and Haohao out and put them on the bed cart outside to let the two children play in the sun, and then he took Zhao Hui to see the leather in the wing room.

The bed carriage was actually custom-made by a carpenter based on the structure of later generations. It has four small wheels and the wood of the four fences is polished smooth so it won't hurt your hands. The bottom board is nailed and covered with bedding and sheets, which makes it very comfortable.

The two children were crawling and playing inside. The slight spring breeze didn't make them feel cold, and they were quite happy - mainly because there were two little red deer walking around in the yard, and Xiao Hei was there too. As soon as the children came out, these three guys went to the bed cart, and the two children were very happy looking at the furry guys.

"Xiao Li, you are amazing!" Zhao Hui looked at the two rooms of yellow sheepskin and red deer skin, as well as a few wolf skins, and exclaimed:

"I thought you were bragging, but it turned out to be true... There must be at least 200 of these yellow sheepskins, right?"

"Almost." Li Long nodded. These leathers cost him nearly ten thousand yuan. If Zhao Hui could take them all, most of the funds would be recovered.

"The classification is quite good." Zhao Hui looked at the piles of dried leather and found that the whole leather was in one pile, the leathers with one bullet hole or tear were in another pile, the leathers with two bullet holes were in another pile, and so on.

He is satisfied.

"How about it?" Li Long said with a smile, "Let's talk about the price?"

"Don't worry, my price will definitely satisfy you." Zhao Hui said with a smile: "A full-length hide of an adult yellow sheep is 80 yuan, and a smaller one is 75 yuan. A damaged hide, like this one with a bullet hole, is 60 yuan, and a damaged hide with more than three holes is 40 yuan..."

The price was indeed very good, Li Long smiled.

He roughly estimated that he could earn at least three to four thousand yuan just from the skins in the house.

After looking at the leather, Zhao Hui expressed his intentions to Li Long and left in a hurry.

Li Long originally wanted to keep him at home for dinner, but Zhao Hui said he had to contact a car in a hurry. With so many leathers from Li Long, his plan had to be changed.

It seems that the resources in northern Xinjiang are very rich.

Li Long knew that Zhao Hui would make more money by buying these leathers and reprocessing them.

But he was not jealous. He was selling resources, and currently he was not involved in secondary processing, and he was not interested in doing this.

It was enough to accumulate the first pot of gold in a short time by relying on resources. As a farmer himself, he was worried that he would not be able to control such a large business.

Li Long still has self-awareness.

In the afternoon, Zhao Hui came with a truck.

This time, Li Long once again witnessed Zhao Hui's caution - he checked every piece of leather with his own eyes before he felt at ease.

Well, there is a reason why they can expand their business. This is worth learning! (End of this chapter)