Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

"Fuck it, I'm so tired!" After seeing off the last guest, Gu Boyuan slumped down in his chair and wiped the sweat off his face. It was unclear whether he was mocking himself or complaining:
"I'm so old now. When I was young, digging canals didn't feel so tiring!"

"Today's work is really not as tiring as digging a big canal." Li Long half-sat on the counter and said with a smile, "Digging a big canal, especially when clearing the bottom, I don't even want to talk about how tired I am. Uncle, you can still talk now, which means you are better than you were then..."

He had worked in canal cleaning, which was a far cry from canal bottom cleaning. Canal bottom cleaning was to remove the silt from a canal that was two to two and a half meters deep. It was a very difficult job, requiring both skills and physical strength.

When working, each person is divided into sections. For example, each person works about ten meters in the morning - don't underestimate these ten meters. At the beginning, the two sides of the dry canal were just mud, and there was no cement board (cement board) to protect the slope. After a year, the mud on both sides of the slope was washed down by the water, and a thick layer of mud and sand accumulated on the bottom of the canal.

The standard for main canals is that they must be at least two meters deep, and no grass is allowed on either side. In fact, after one year of use, a two-meter-deep canal may only be one and a half meters deep. In order to fully utilize the canal in agricultural production and ensure the completion of the watering task, the silt in the canal must be cleared before spring sowing. Therefore, the first task for each production team at the beginning of spring every year is to clear the canal.

To clear the canal, you need to dig the mud and clear the grass on both sides of the slope protection. Clearing the grass is the easiest, and the hardest part is to dig out the mud underneath and spread it on both sides of the canal. People who have never done this job or don't know the skills will be exhausted in a day, not to mention blisters on their hands and feet, and may not be able to finish the work until dark.

Dig, carry and throw, there are only three steps, which can take many people a long time to practice before they can get the hang of it.

Those who know how to do it will use the force and make it easier, while those who don’t know how to do it will use brute force and get tired.

Let’s take the example of Xue Gang pulling the iron cart on the training ground. He would use inertia to shovel up some mud with a shovel, and then use the momentum to throw it up, and it would stick steadily to the edge of the canal, looking very powerful.

When Li Long was clearing canals in his previous life, his skills were average, but Gu Boyuan was a master, so Li Long said this.

"Hey, digging a canal is hard work, but it's nothing like today's scene. Not only does it require hard work, but it's also very tense. If you make a mistake in the calculation, it will be troublesome. And this scene is so big. Who would have thought that so many people would come in one day?"

"I didn't expect that either." Li Long nodded and said, "Today's traffic must be two or three times the usual amount."

"Two or three times? More than five times!" Gu Boyuan shook his head. "Let me tell you, just today, nearly 20,000 yuan was spent. What does that mean? Two millionaires in one day, gone!"

"We are here to make money, aren't we?" Li Long said with a smile, "Okay, everyone has dispersed, let's go, lock the door, and go back to eat first."

"Then you have to take the rest of the money." Gu Boyuan hurriedly put the account book and the rest of the money into the black bag that Li Long bought for him, turned around to lock the door, then carried the bag and followed Li Long to get in the jeep.

The jeep was already loaded with six or seven bags of Fritillaria, which were to be transported to the large yard. There were also a large number of Fritillaria and other medicinal materials, leather and other supplies in the warehouse of the purchasing station. It would take too long to transport them there, so they simply gave up.

"You brought these people here, didn't you?" Gu Boyuan finally had time to ask, "How did you get them here?"

While driving, Li Long recounted what he had done yesterday and today.

"That's good." Gu Boyuan didn't think that Li Long was wrong. He nodded and said, "To be honest, the purchase price given by those places is really low. This way, it's a bargain for us. Look at how clean these Fritillaria are. They don't need to be cleaned at all. Some people have even screened them... For these Fritillaria, it's no problem for that boss Jia to raise the price."

"Yeah, this is the first time I've seen Fritillaria treated like this." Li Long also sighed, "I thought I did a pretty good job before, but I didn't expect someone to be more ruthless than me."

"That's because life forces them to do that." Gu Boyuan sighed, "Otherwise, how could they do this? It's just to make more money."

This is the volume.

The internal environment is too competitive, and I can’t find a better external environment, so I can only continue to be competitive.

Those purchasing station bosses may have united together, hoping to use the monopoly environment to force those who sell Fritillaria to accept it, but they didn't expect that they would open a loophole and release a lot of money!
"Do you think it's possible that so many people will come to buy Fritillaria the day after tomorrow?" Gu Boyuan asked Li Long while sitting in the passenger seat holding a black bag.

"I think there will be more tomorrow, but I don't know if there will be any the day after tomorrow. Some people should still be waiting and watching. When I went to the Beiting City Purchasing Station yesterday, I found that the customer flow there was still quite large.

To be honest, their normal daily passenger flow is three to five times that of ours, which means that with so many people here today, it is only slightly more than their normal passenger flow.”

"Is the purchasing station over there so profitable?" Gu Boyuan was a little surprised. He really didn't know the difference between over there and here. I thought that the purchasing station in Ma County had a dozen or twenty people selling goods every day, which was considered quite a lot. I didn't expect that Beiting had more people selling goods. It was worthy of being the capital of a state!
"When I bought that truckload of Fritillaria yesterday, I asked the dealer there, and they told me that they had been to Beiting, Miquan, and Huxian, and the prices offered by the purchasing stations in these places were all similar."

"Then why didn't you think of coming to our place before?" Gu Boyuan still felt a little regretful, "If you had come to our place before, how much more money would we have made this Fritillaria season?"

"Huhhot County is relatively close to Beiting City, about 30 to 40 kilometers away, and it only takes an hour to get there by tractor. But it takes two hours to get here, so it's still a bit far," Li Long said. "I think maybe after he went to Miquan in Huhhot County, he thought the prices in other places should be similar, so he simply didn't come here."

"Anyway, now that they know that the purchase price we offer is high, they will probably keep coming here in the future." Gu Boyuan guessed positively.

"That should be the case. Who doesn't want to make more money?" Li Long had already driven the car to the gate of the yard. When Gu Boyuan was about to get out of the car to open the gate, the gate had already opened, revealing Han Fang's little head.

When Li Long drove the jeep in, Han Fang pushed the gate and said, "Uncle Gu, Uncle Li, why did you come back just now? We are still waiting for you to have dinner!"

The windows on both sides of the jeep were open, so we could hear it.

"You haven't eaten yet?" Li Long parked the jeep and turned off the engine before getting out and asking, "What are you waiting for us for? I remember we said at noon, didn't we? We might be back late tonight."

"It's okay to wait. It's hot this summer, so the food won't get cold for a while." Sister Yang, wearing an apron, came out of the kitchen and said, "You guys are really busy today."

Gu Xiaoxia has also returned. She is looking at Mingming and Haohao. The two little guys cannot be hungry. Now they have eaten complementary food and drank goat milk, and are now excitedly lying on the canvas and having fun.

"There are a lot more people here today than usual," Gu Boyuan explained after getting off the car with a black bag. "Xiaolong went to Beiting for a meeting this time and told the people there that our purchase prices are high and reasonable. A lot of people came over to sell their products at our purchase station."

When Li Long came back for lunch at noon, he didn't explain in detail, but just said that there were a lot of people there and it was very busy. Gu Xiaoxia and the others didn't know the reason, so while eating dinner, Li Long and Gu Boyuan talked about this matter one by one.

After dinner, Sister Yang cleaned up the kitchen and Han Fang went to help. Gu Boyuan pulled Li Long into the house and used an abacus to calculate today's accounts.

Because he was busy receiving goods and paying, Gu Boyuan had recorded the individual accounts in the notebook and had not summarized them yet. Now he was adding up the accounts one by one in front of the desk, while Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia were there coaxing Mingming and Haohao to sleep.

When Mingming Haohao fell asleep, Gu Boyuan had almost added up the money, and then he took the account book and whispered to Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia:
"Hey! Today's situation is really a bit scary. Let me count for you. We collected 382 kilograms of dried Fritillaria alone. Most of them are of top quality and are cleaned very well. I even asked around for the few that are of average quality. Basically, they are sold by people from our county.

Today's net cash outflow is 19,832.6 yuan, of which 18,833 yuan was used to purchase Fritillaria. I roughly calculated that at least 350 kilograms of the Fritillaria collected are top-grade goods, which can be sold at 65 yuan per kilogram from Jia Tianlong.

And this is the remaining cash. I originally had 6,553 yuan. Xiaolong brought 10,000 yuan the first time and 30,000 yuan the second time. Now there is 26,720.4 yuan left.

Xiaolong, come and take a look. Oh, and here's yesterday's income and expenditure report, take a look at it and sign it as well."

This was a necessary step for Gu Boyuan since he took charge of the purchasing station. He asked Li Long to check the income and expenditure every day.

Gu Boyuan was not the only one who recorded the income and expenditure. Every time he received something, the seller had to sign it. If he didn't know how to sign, he would read it to the other party and then put his fingerprint on it.

The father-in-law had strict requirements, so Li Long was naturally happy to cooperate. He came over and took a quick look, and saw that every item collected in the account book was listed clearly, which was really rigorous.

Then Li Long signed.

"Here is the remaining cash. Please count some." Gu Boyuan said, "It's not safe to keep it with me, so I'd better leave it with you. I'll take some of it over to pick up the goods after breakfast tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow's customer flow should be just as high." Li Long took the cash and said, "I'll go too. Let's get through these busy days together first."

"If that Jia guy calls, tell him to come over quickly." Gu Boyuan reminded again, "At this rate, our cash won't last long."

"This situation won't last long, right?" Gu Xiaoxia, who was standing nearby, already knew what was going on. She speculated, "How many Fritillaria can there be in this mountain? How many tons have we collected? Other purchasing stations have collected a lot, right? Can there still be such a large amount in the mountain?"

"Then you underestimate our Tianshan Mountain." Gu Boyuan said with a smile, "This is Tianshan Mountain. Those who talk about running away from the mountain are all small. It stretches 600 kilometers from north to south, and this is just the width. The Fritillaria thunbergii these people have collected are at best just a little bit of the mountain. There are still many of these things in the deep mountains. Some places have never been entered by anyone - Li Long knows more clearly." "That's right. Fritillaria thunbergii and Codonopsis pilosula are all perennials. Just think about it, you can easily dig up decades of Codonopsis pilosula in the mountains, so how many Fritillaria thunbergii can reproduce? Many gullies in the nearby mountains are full of Fritillaria thunbergii. It's hard to say about those in the deep mountains. We can only guess."

Gu Boyuan was about to leave after settling the bill, so Li Long went to get him a shotgun:

"Uncle, we've made too much noise here today, so take this with you. I'm worried that some thieves might come after you at night."

"Okay." Gu Boyuan did not refuse. After taking the double-barreled shotgun, he opened it and took a look. Then he took a bag of bullets from Li Long and said with a smile:

"With this thing, I wouldn't be afraid of seven or eight people."

As he said this, he hung the shotgun over his shoulder, held the shoulder bag in one hand and the black bag in the other, and went out of the yard and back to the purchasing station.

Gu Xiaoxia was a little worried when she saw this situation. She asked Li Long softly:

"Is my dad in danger?"

"We might run into some thieves," Li Long said truthfully, "but I don't dare to go with them. It's a bit dangerous here too. I'm leaving. You are the only girls in the yard, and that's dangerous too.

But don't worry, your father has a gun, and the police station is close by, if there's any movement, he can fire a shot, and those people will either run away or be knocked down."

Only after Li Long said this did Gu Xiaoxia feel relieved.

She also knew that her father was a ruthless man, so she couldn't care less at this moment. If someone really dared to rob her, the first thing to do was to shoot and protect herself.

Despite this, Gu Xiaoxia and Li Long did not sleep well at night.
The next day, when it was almost dawn, Li Long got up and walked around the yard. Because the dog didn't bark at night, he saw Xiao Hei moving around when he got up early, which meant there was nothing wrong.

Li Long went out to the purchasing station again and shouted inside. Gu Boyuan opened the door and saw Li Long. He understood what was going on and took the initiative to say:
"It's okay. It was very quiet last night and I slept well."

The purchasing station's house is a closed one with locked doors at both ends. The only way to get in is to break the window, so no noise means nothing is wrong.

Li Long felt relieved and said, "Uncle, I'm going back now. I'll come over for breakfast later."

"it is good."

Li Long returned to the courtyard, went into the house and told Gu Xiaoxia, who was taking care of Mingming and Haohao, about it. Gu Xiaoxia smiled.

After breakfast, Li Long took the money and went to the purchasing station with Gu Boyuan.

They came early, and there was no one waiting at the gate. Gu Boyuan went over to open the gate, put the chain lock on it, and then went to open the door of the room, sorted out the things inside, and prepared to open the business.

Li Long went to the warehouse to put some of the things he collected yesterday in order to make room and prepare for today's income.

The first customer arrived at 9:40 in the morning. Li Long was quite familiar with this man, a local middleman who went from village to village collecting all kinds of leather.

"Old Joe, what good stuff did you bring today?" Li Long asked with a smile.

"Yesterday I collected a few yellow sheep skins near Shaliangzi in the north," said Old Qiao proudly. "They are genuine winter skins. Take a look. Two of them don't have any holes. They are definitely good skins."

"Okay, let me take a look." Li Long was looking at the two skins when people started to arrive from behind.

Old Joe was standing by, looking at the newcomers one by one, and he felt something was wrong. What was going on? How come he had never seen these new faces before?

And as he saw more and more people coming, he felt something was even more wrong.

Approaching Li Long, Lao Qiao asked in a low voice:
"What's going on at your purchasing station? Why are there so many people here today? Normally there are only one or two or three people at this time, but there are more than a dozen people lining up here..."

"From other counties." Li Long explained, "Your two hides are indeed winter hides, full-skin yellow sheepskins of good quality, 46 each. These three hides are damaged, 35 each, how about that?"

"Okay, okay, it will definitely work." Old Joe knew the market price, which was about the same as his psychological price. He smiled and said, "If you don't trust others, how can you trust yourself?"

Gu Boyuan kept the accounts, Li Long gave the money, Lao Qiao counted the money and signed, then carefully put the money in his inner pocket and went out pushing his bicycle.

A man carrying a large bag came in at the door. Old Qiao was an expert in the industry and could smell that the bag contained leather. He pulled the man aside and asked:
"Brother, you have leather here, right? It smells like red deer skin?"

"Hey, brother, you are an expert!" The man was surprised and stood at the end of the line. He put down his big bag and said with a smile, "I have a few red deer skins and some other skins in this bag."

"Then this package is worth a lot of money." Old Joe said with a smile, "Where are you from? You don't look familiar!"

"The price offered by the purchasing station over there in the south slope of Hu County is low, so we don't make much money from selling the hides," the other party said with a smile, "We heard yesterday that the purchasing station here offered a high price, so we came here."

He really is from another county!

Old Qiao immediately felt a sense of crisis. People from other counties had all come here, so there were too many skins. Would the purchasing station lower the price in the future?

Of course, he also discovered that there was actually a business opportunity here. He only collected skins around his own county, so why didn't he think of going to the neighboring counties?
This old man said that the purchase price in the neighboring county was relatively low, so if he went to the neighboring county near the mountains and the Gobi Desert to collect the skins, there would definitely be a price advantage.

Well, that’s it!

Lao Qiao remembered that he had a fellow villager in Dafeng, Lin County, so he took a bus to ask him today! If he could receive some leather and establish a long-term and stable cooperative relationship, he could make more money this year!
The purchasing station started to attract more people around 10 o'clock. At first, people came from Hu County. At about 12 o'clock in the morning, people came from Miquan, Beiting City. At noon, people came from Fukang. Li Long was thinking, don't wait until the afternoon, people from the three eastern counties will come too, will my reputation spread far and wide? Several counties and cities in Beiting Prefecture have been affected.

Gu Xiaoxia brought lunch to them. When they were having breakfast in the morning, Li Long and Gu Boyuan had anticipated what would happen at noon today, and told Gu Xiaoxia that if they hadn't gone home by lunchtime, they would bring it to them.

Even when eating, they would eat by themselves while the other collected things, and they would take turns. The collection process was always going on, and this level of professionalism was praised by those who were selling things.

"Look at their attitude. They continue even when they are having lunch. Think about our purchasing station. They locked the door and left before the time came. They didn't even consider those of us who traveled dozens of kilometers to sell goods."

"That's right. It's the same at our purchasing station now. We leave work early and come to work late. Our home is far away, so when we get to the purchasing station it's just noon, and it's closed. We have to wait for an extra hour. I don't dare go to eat under the scorching sun, otherwise the line I have worked so hard to get in will be gone."

"That's right. Just for this reason, I will come here to sell things in the future even if I have to pay a little more for travel expenses."

"What's your travel expenses? The purchase price here is high. After a round trip, won't your travel expenses be paid?"

"Hey, I'm just stating my attitude."

At this time, Sun Jiaqiang was still in front of the wooden house, looking eastward. There were not many supplies in the wooden house, and several items were already missing. Some people came to exchange Fritillaria for supplies, and complained when they couldn't get anything in return.

Why hasn’t Li Long come yet?
The main reason is that he has collected a lot of Fritillaria here, and it is not safe to leave them here! Not only are there wolves active nearby from time to time at night, but those who exchange Fritillaria are also restless in Sun Jiaqiang's opinion.

If Bolati hadn't come to check on them every day, some people might have had bad intentions and were causing trouble! (End of this chapter)