Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Before Li Long asked, Gu Boyuan spoke:

"Brother, where did you dig out this money? It doesn't look like it was stored, it looks like it came out of the ground."

"Hey, boss, you have a good eye." The man who brought the money was about fifty years old, with yellow teeth and a slightly hunched back. He smiled and said to Gu Boyuan:

"I am a shepherd, and my home is in Letuyi. Some time ago, when I was herding sheep, I found that a flood had washed out a stone slab where I usually herd sheep. Under the stone slab were piled up these hemp coins. If they were not rotten, there would be several sacks of them! I picked them up, and these are all I can use."

Hey, it’s really a money cellar!
Letu Posthouse, also known as Camel Posthouse, is a traditional posthouse with many years of history. It has been mentioned in the travel notes and notes of ancient celebrities such as Lin Zexu, Zuo Zongtang, and other celebrities who have visited northern Xinjiang.

Where there is a post station, there are residents. The northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains in northern Xinjiang is different from southern Xinjiang. It is not as vast as people imagine, with Gobi desert everywhere. There are rivers flowing down from the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains, and there are swamps and oases everywhere, so it is relatively easy to survive.

When the Corps first reclaimed the wasteland here, it was mainly swamps and wasteland with wild grass. Even in the 1980s, few people touched the saline-alkali land because they could not grow anything.

The situation changed after cotton came out.

In the 1980s, Letuyi was known as the number one township in the northwest - this was stated in the Northern Frontier Daily and recorded in the Annals of Ma County. Whether true or not, this shows how wealthy it was.

Of course, it is impossible to say what life was like in ancient times, but the existence of money cellars is not surprising.

The people queuing at the door also gathered around to listen. After hearing what the old man said, they all envied his luck.

"It's really lucky to dig out such a big pit of money!"

"It can't be just coins, right? There should be gold ingots inside, right?" Some people think it is unlikely to have just a money cellar.

"I thought so too." The old man listened and said calmly, "I uncovered the stone and looked through everything inside. It was full of hemp coins and rotten ropes, but nothing else. There are still piles of rotten hemp coins there. It's a pity that they were lost. If they hadn't rotted, these hemp coins alone could have sold for hundreds of dollars, right?"

This person spoke frankly, and although others had doubts, they did not ask any more questions.

After all, you can't ask where the pit is, right? Even if you ask, even if there are gold in the pit, it must have been dug away long ago.

The old man enjoyed the attention, baring his yellow teeth as he watched Sun Jiaqiang smashing the rusty hemp coins. Li Long simply joined in, breaking the coins that many people in later generations used to gamble on their luck, and felt a sense of accomplishment.

Sun Jiaqiang moved quickly. After smashing the coins open, he put the unbroken ones on one side and the broken ones on the other side - this was garbage.

Li Long's movements were slow. He picked and chose the coins to see what era they were from.

Most of them are from the early Qing Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, and the most are from the Qianlong and Kangxi periods. Li Long picked out some of the better-looking and thicker ones and put them aside.

"Young man, what are you doing?" The old man didn't know Li Long's identity. Seeing him single out some people, he felt a little unwilling. He thought Li Long was taking advantage of them.

"This is my boss." Sun Jiaqiang explained, "Don't worry, the money will definitely be paid for you."

The old man nodded and said, "Boss, it's okay then."

Li Long smiled and continued picking.

The old man picked out more than 42 kilograms of hemp money to use, and he had to remove the impurities.

"You remove 20% of the impurities? All right, all right, that's better than that state-run scrap collection station." The old man was satisfied. "They removed 30% of the impurities right away, and they picked out even more than you did... It's really a big loss."

After asking, Gu Boyuan found out that the old man went to a state-owned scrap collection station yesterday to sell a sack of scraps. He felt he had lost money, so he followed other people's advice and came to Li Long.

I didn't expect to sell it for so much more money.

The old man finally took the money and left. Li Long helped Sun Jiaqiang sweep away the rotten copper coins on the ground, and asked as he swept:

“Has anyone come to collect mushrooms these days?”

"No, we didn't buy any, but we sold quite a few." Sun Jiaqiang said, "There are about 500 to 600 kilograms of dried mushrooms in the warehouse, and that's just the two or three kinds of wild mushrooms you mentioned. If we buy straw mushrooms as well, that would be too much."

Although Chen Hongjun said that other people also wanted dried straw mushrooms, Li Long did not collect them. Firstly, the price was too low and it was not worth it. Secondly, there were so many straw mushrooms in the local area that if they were collected freely, they might not be able to store them in both warehouses.

Apart from anything else, there are really too many resources at this time, and even if ordinary people get them, they don’t know where to sell them.

Since he didn't come, Li Long was not in a hurry. Chen Hongjun had already said so, so there was definitely hope for this matter, but the information transmission in this era was relatively slow. This was an era where communication was mainly based on letters, and the transportation was very slow. It took more than half a month for a letter to be sent back and forth.

Li Long has been here for three or four years and has adapted to the pace of this era. He is not in a hurry.

Back in the courtyard, playing with the kids. Haohao can now walk unsteadily, and when he sees Li Long, he walks over to him and asks for a hug.

Sweet family scene.

The day after the Li family bought farm machinery.

Li Long did not wait for the mushroom collector that Chen Hongjun mentioned, but he did wait for Zhao Hui to come.

This time when Zhao Hui came, he brought a truck with him just like Jia Tianlong.

They came here exhausted and it was noon, so Li Long invited the two of them to Tuanfeng Tower and talked while eating.

Zhao Hui and his team had just come from Yili. There were also more leathers there - if Zhao Hui hadn't only bought high-end leathers, their truck would probably be full by now.

After all, there are more herdsmen in Yili, and the cowhide, sheepskin and other products are much more abundant than in Ma County.

His relationship with Zhao Hui is slightly worse than his relationship with Jia Tianlong, but it is one step further than an ordinary buyer-seller relationship, and they seem like deeper partners.

So I didn't stay at home for dinner, but ate at Tuanfenglou. Tuanfenglou is the highest-end restaurant in Ma County, so it's OK.

"It's easier for us now that you're here. To be honest, we've received a lot of leather during this period," Li Long said as he ate. "Those leathers don't taste very good in the summer."

"That's right. Unprocessed leather has a strong smell." The driver agreed. "Leather smells worse in the summer than in the winter."

"The price is not good either." Li Long smiled. "The same yellow sheepskin is more than ten yuan cheaper in summer than in winter."

"That can't be helped." Zhao Hui shook his head. "Winter leather has velvet, summer leather has no velvet, and the fur is not good either, so the price is naturally different... But you should have a large quantity of leather here, right?"

"That's right. There are more than 100 yellow sheep skins, more than 30 red deer skins, more than 50 roe deer skins, more than 50 wolf skins, more than 30 wild goat skins, more than 70 water rat skins, more than 100 fox skins... Oh, and two bear skins and one lynx skin." The benefit of opening a purchasing station is that the things received are far more than what you can get by hunting. Although the profit of each skin is only a few yuan or a dozen yuan, but a little bit adds up to a lot, the profit is very considerable.

"There are bear skins and lynx skins? That's great." Zhao Hui's eyes lit up, "Then let's eat quickly and then go take a look."

Zhao Hui went to Yili to collect skins. He collected a lot of ordinary red deer skins, yellow sheep skins and roe deer skins, so he was not in short supply.

But special leathers such as bear skin and lynx skin are relatively rare. These leathers are of high value, and the quantity is small, so the furs made from them are also in great demand.

Because they had business to discuss, they did not drink at noon. After lunch, Li Long took Zhao Hui and the driver to the purchasing station first.

There were many people still selling things at the purchasing station. Li Long led Zhao Hui and the others to the back. The truck was parked in the backyard. Li Long led Zhao Hui and the others to the back door and opened the warehouse to get the leather.

"There are no bear skins or lynx skins here either?" Zhao Hui said with some disappointment as he looked at the skins in the warehouse.

"At my house, some of the skins have been transported home. Let's collect the skins here first, and then go over there." Li Long said, "My friend said that if there are more skins piled up here, it will be almost uninhabitable."

Although Sun Jiaqiang didn't say it explicitly, that's what he meant. The unprocessed leather does have a strong mutton smell.

Zhao Hui knew that he had to collect these skins anyway, so he might as well do it.

Li Long carried out bundles of skins and placed them outside. The driver and Zhao Hui also came to help.

After all the skins were moved out, Li Long and Zhao Hui began to grade and price them one by one.

Li Long brought a notebook, and so did Zhao Hui. They went through them one page at a time - this couldn't be taken lightly.

Fortunately, Li Long and his team had already classified the leathers into complete leather and damaged leather. Zhao Hui only needed to make minor adjustments to get a price in bulk.

Just give the price and then check the assortment, which saves a lot of time.

Zhao Hui was very professional and checked each hide one by one. However, he was also impressed that Li Long did a very good job of sorting the hides, which was much better than when he went to other places to collect hides before.

After checking the hides at the supply and marketing cooperative, we were done loading them onto trucks and then heading to the big yard.

Those who came to sell things were very curious as they watched two cars, one big and one small, hurried over and then hurried away.

Sun Jiaqiang watched the car leave and said to Gu Boyuan with a smile:

"Uncle Gu, I can sleep well tonight. Once these leathers are taken away, the whole purchasing station will smell good."

"That's right. Even if those leathers are locked in the warehouse, they still smell really bad... Just take them away, just take them away."

There weren't many leathers in the big yard, but they were all good leathers. Except for bear and lynx leathers, the other red deer and wolf leathers were all full leathers, which made Zhao Hui very satisfied.

Li Long bought the bear skin for 1,100 yuan. It has two bullet holes, but is generally intact. This is a brown bear skin, quite large, but unfortunately there is no bear gall.

The man who sold the skins was also a middleman. He said that when he bought the skins, the people kept the gallbladders.

Zhao Hui offered eighteen thousand for the leather, but Li Long bargained and gave a whole number of two thousand.

The lynx skin is a bit damaged. In addition to the three bullet holes on it, there was also a hole when peeling it. Fortunately, they are all in the corners, so the impact is not too big.

"I'll give you 1,200 yuan for this lynx skin..." Zhao Hui sighed and said, "If it's a complete skin, I can give you 2,500 yuan now..."

"Such a high price?" Li Long was a little surprised. "Lynx skin is so expensive now?"

"It's rare. Scarcity makes things valuable." Zhao Hui said, "Now the rarer the skin, the more expensive it is. We don't have much of this stuff here, and we can get even less. After the reform and opening up, there are more and more rich people. For those people, fur itself is a symbol of wealth. If you want a tiger skin, I can give you 10,000!
The snow leopard skin you sold last year can now be sold for three or four thousand yuan - the price of skin has gone up!"

Li Long didn't notice this. At the leather factory, the price of sheepskin seemed to have increased by one yuan. In fact, he collected quite a lot of sheepskin, which he collected and sold to the leather factory.

Gu Boyuan bought this lynx skin for three hundred yuan - mainly because the skin was in tatters.

I didn't expect to double my earnings.

There were nearly 700 skins in total. Apart from the two more valuable ones, the other skins were priced between 20 and 70 yuan.

In the end, Zhao Hui paid Li Long a bill of 33,652 yuan, and Li Long roughly calculated that he could make more than 15,000 yuan out of the 30,000 yuan.

The profit from selling whole leather is not much, as the price is relatively transparent, and the money is mainly made from the residual leather - those who sell leather know that winter leather is more expensive than summer leather, and the value of residual leather is often half of that.

But now leather is in short supply, especially good leather, and the price is rising. Although there is a price difference between residual leather and full leather, it is not as big as you might imagine.

Li Long was very happy as he had made another profit.

After sending Zhao Hui and the others away, Li Long went to the bank again. Now, the cash outflow is basically around 3,000 to 5,000 yuan per day, and the daily profit is basically around 1,000 to 2,000 yuan.

It's quite scary at this time.

For Li Long, with this purchasing station, he has left more than 99% of the people in the county behind.

Although the tractor cost a lot of money, it was earned back within a month.

It’s the fourth day since the Li family bought the tractor.

The mushroom collector that Chen Hongjun mentioned finally came. He went to the purchasing station to look for him. Sun Jiaqiang ran to the yard and called Li Long over.

At the same time, deep in the Tianshan Mountains, Yushanjiang and Halimu looked at the "crime scene" in the forest with serious expressions.

The prey had been gnawed and its internal organs dug out and eaten. There were many claw marks nearby and blood had stained the grass leaves red.

This prey is a brown bear!
If this brown bear stood up, it would be as tall as a person, but now it fell to the ground miserably, dying with its eyes open.

What could have eaten a bear?
Both of them were very worried: Who else but a tiger could kill and eat a ferocious bear?
Is the injured tiger back again? Is he coming back for revenge?

This place is less than one kilometer away from the two families' pastures, which means that the big guy's activity range is nearby! (End of this chapter)