Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Jia Tianlong's arrival gave Li Long some confidence. Since someone was buying melon seeds, he could first clear the inventory at the state cooperative, and then wait until the melon seeds in the county were harvested before buying the ones in the village.

"How much can the other party offer for the purchase?" Li Long asked the most crucial question.

"If he comes to buy it, it's 2.5 yuan per kilogram. If you send it over, it's 3 yuan."

Li Long understood, that is to say, the fifty cents was the shipping fee.

This price is a bit low.

The melon seeds I sold before were three dollars and fifty cents—

But Li Long figured it out immediately. He didn't know what the melon seeds in the warehouse of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative looked like. But most likely they were the kind that were not flattened, the natural kind, and it was unlikely that others would bid high.

Li Long thought for a moment and said:

“Is this the final price, or is it negotiable?”

"Final price." Jia Tianlong said, "Originally, they offered a lower price, but I said, brother, the things you got are of good quality, and it's a long-term contract. If the price is lower, I won't grow them here. The snack factory over there also needs this kind of stuff, so I raised the price."

"Thank you then." Li Long smiled, "I'll treat you to lunch at noon."

"Of course, but let's weigh the things first. I guess you have a lot of goods here, right?"

"Not much. There aren't many Fritillarias now, but I have collected a lot of Codonopsis, Saussurea, Cynomorium songaricum, Deer antlers, and other miscellaneous things."

"Okay, good. I see that your purchasing station has really stabilized. There are so many customers on any weekday, and these people are carrying goods in large and small bags - it has become a big business." Jia Tianlong said with emotion.

"It's not as big as your business, but it's okay in this small county." Li Long said modestly.

I don't know who I heard this from, but if you want to maintain good interpersonal relationships, don't tell others about your success and achievements. Invisible jealousy is very hurtful - Li Long felt that he needed to keep a low profile.

"Haha, that's right." Jia Tianlong smiled smugly. He had half a truckload of medicinal herbs in his truck, mainly Fritillaria.

Although the Fritillaria cirrhosa is out of season on Li Long's side, it is not yet completely out of season in the mountains of Yili.

Besides, there are many retail investors there. Some of them pick Fritillaria and keep them for one or two years, so they need to be harvested slowly.

There is no purchasing station like Li Long's over there, or many people have not seen this business opportunity yet, so it is very hard for Jia Tianlong to go there and collect medicinal materials.

Of course, I gained a lot.

There are quite a few red deer in the mountains over there, and a lot of antlers, antlers, deer penises and the like have been collected. There are also quite a few Fritillarias. Although the quality is not as good as the ones that have been cleaned and processed by Li Long, they are cheaper.

Of course, he still likes to buy things from Li Long. It doesn’t matter if they are a little expensive. Those sorted medicinal herbs are so comfortable to look at!
Li Long dragged over the scale, then opened the warehouse and pulled out the herbs one bag at a time.

In terms of quantity, Cynomorium songaricum is the largest, followed by licorice, and Fritillaria is only a small part. There are also antlers, roe deer horns, and dried deer penises - Li Long has some of these things, and they are just sitting there, so he might as well sell them.

Anyway, he could see that as long as this purchasing station was open, there would be no shortage of these things.

"Hey, there are a lot of good stuff here." Jia Tianlong picked up a deer penis and said with a smile, "It's of good quality and looks good. I'll give you 100 for each of these!"

It is said that red deer penis has the strongest medicinal properties, so its price is also the highest.

Li Long was naturally happy. He charged thirty yuan, which was much higher than the selling price.

The two began to sort out the items one by one, and Jia Tianlong gave the prices one by one. Licorice was the cheapest, even Liansuoyang could be sold for one yuan, but licorice was still 80 cents, and this was the result after Li Long and his team sorted it out.

"There's a lot of licorice in the neighboring Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan," Jia Tianlong told Li Long as he was piling them up. "It's almost free, except for the labor cost. They also use tractors to farm, and they plow out a lot of licorice - it's just that the customs clearance fee is a bit more expensive, otherwise you can really make a lot of money if you buy licorice from there."

Although they are neighboring countries and the climates are similar, the lifestyles are very different. Li Long learned from short videos and online information in later generations that many valuable things here are almost free there.

Can you believe that at one point in the next century, the most smuggled item was cow offal! That's cow tripe and stuff like that!

Smuggling this stuff... just think about it, even using human bodies to smuggle these things, tying them to people, tying a 30-40 kilogram vacuum-packed cow stomach to a person to pass through customs...

Do you know why? Because they don’t eat this stuff over there, and it’s free!

The two commanders of a border company in southern Xinjiang were sentenced because they assisted a businessman in smuggling this stuff here, truckloads of it.

At first, Li Long was puzzled when he heard the news. Wasn't it said that in the 1980s, smuggling was all about cigarettes, cars, color TVs, and even diesel? How could there be such a thing as smuggling?
I can only say it’s a regional characteristic. The price difference is huge.

While chatting and laughing, Jia Tianlong loaded all the medicinal material stocks in the purchasing station into the car, leaving Li Long with more than 16,000 yuan.

Although Jia Tianlong's truck was full, he was still not satisfied. He pointed to an unopened warehouse and asked:
"What's in here? Why don't you open it?"

"These are old things, not medicinal materials." Li Long waved his hand, "It's not within your business scope."

"Old stuff? Can I take a look?" Jia Tianlong became interested.

"You're not going to take it, so what are you looking at?" Although Li Long said this, he still took out the key and opened the warehouse.

The things inside are valuable, so only Li Long holds the key. Sun Jiaqiang has the keys to the medicinal materials and leather, and he is also responsible for cleaning them up.

Moreover, many of the things here will be moved to the big yard after a certain amount is collected.

There are also shelves in the storeroom, on which are placed jade, bronze, silver coins, and a small number of gold objects, mainly gold coins, gold-inlaid horse harnesses, gold-plated Buddha statues, etc.

There are also quite a few porcelains, mostly from folk kilns. There are a few pieces from official kilns, but most of them are cracked or missing.

In fact, there are still people selling wood carvings, but they are basically confiscated. These days, wood carvings are really not worth much.

In the 1980s, those who had the ability to hide their belongings did not dare to take them out at this time. Those who could take out their belongings to exchange for money were mostly not from their own families. They were either dug out, stolen, or collected in the countryside.

"Not bad, there are quite a lot of things." Jia Tianlong picked up a jade snuff bottle, looked at it and put it down again. "It's just that you have a lot of jade in the southern and northern Xinjiang. The carving of this snuff bottle is not very good, but the quality of the jade is really good!"

Li Long chuckled, the snuff bottle is a small item, the small seed materials in the river can't be sold at a high price, carving some small things can increase the price, maybe it's just the work of an apprentice, but it's worth some money because it's old.

"Have you found a buyer for these things?" Jia Tianlong asked.

"No." Li Long shook his head. "Anyway, I didn't bet much money, and the items weren't big, not comparable to those places I mentioned, so it would be great if someone came to buy. If no one comes, then I won't force it."

"You are quite free and easy." Jia Tianlong smiled, "I'll go back and see if I can help you find a buyer. Now that things have been reformed and opened up, there are more wealthy people, and this old item is slowly becoming more valuable. Maybe there's a good treasure hidden in it, and you'll become rich."

Many people have heard that gold is valuable in troubled times and treasure is valuable in prosperous times. Looking at the current hustle and bustle, who dares to say that prosperous times are not coming?

"I won't ask for it," Li Long smiled. "In the Northern Frontier, you may find some broken bricks and tiles, but no one will believe you if you say there are treasures." Of course there are, but ordinary people can't hold them.

If that saber were taken out, it would definitely be a treasure, but Li Long couldn't take it out.

Seeing Jia Tianlong taking another look at the snuff bottle, Li Long took it and put it in his hand, saying, "I'm giving it to you. It's not worth much money. Keep it as a souvenir."

"Okay, I won't be polite then." Jia Tianlong really liked this thing and he wasn't hypocritical. "I'll call them when I get back to Wucheng. They'll probably be here in three or four days. I'll bring them here then?"

"Okay." Li Long thought it should be okay. He would go to the state cooperative tomorrow to buy melon seeds. Anyway, there are many warehouses at the purchasing station, so it's no problem to store them for a few days. Now that the medicinal herbs and dried mushrooms have been sold, the warehouses are even emptier.

Jia Tianlong didn't eat in the end. He planned to reach Wucheng before dark, so he said he would treat us next time.

With a daily income of 40,000 yuan and a net profit of more than 20,000 yuan, Li Long was in a very good mood. He gave Sun Jiaqiang another bonus of 50 yuan, which made the young man happier and work harder.

After dinner in the evening, he gave 20% of the 4,000 yuan to Gu Boyuan, and this time Gu Boyuan did not refuse.

He has realized the money-making ability of this purchasing station and has slowly adapted to the fact that he earns more in a month than an ordinary worker earns in ten years.

"Tomorrow I will drive to Beiting and buy the pumpkin seeds from the Zhoulian Society." Li Long said, "This time, Lao Jia came to introduce us to a dealer who buys pumpkin seeds. The roasted nuts factory in Kou also wants them."

"How about the price?" This is what Gu Boyuan was concerned about.

"General merchandise is 2.5 yuan," Li Long said. "The state cooperative said the price is 3 yuan, I think I can still negotiate. It would be best if we can get it down to 2 yuan - 3 yuan is really hard to get."

"What if the state cooperative insists on asking for three dollars?" Gu Boyuan asked, "You can't just lose money to get the goods, right?"

"That's not possible." Li Long smiled. "I'll explain the situation to Director Qian. If it doesn't work, I'll buy it for 2.5 yuan, soak it and flatten it. I'll see if I can raise the price when people come."

As long as the roasted seeds factory purchases, there is no one who does not like flat melon seeds. Ordinary melon seeds are too irregular, and customers will definitely complain. But if the melon seeds are flat and easy to crack, it will definitely attract customers to buy again.

Everyone understands this principle - but just like that layer of window paper, currently no snack factory will flatten the harvested melon seeds.

Firstly, the people who harvest are different from the people who plant. They don’t understand, nor do they know that the fruits can be flattened after being soaked. Secondly, they don’t have the mindset to do so.

Li Long can break it.

Gu Boyuan thought the same thing was true. Why were Li Long’s melon seeds sold at such a high price before? Wasn’t it because the melon seeds were flat?

After breakfast the next day, Li Long went to the transportation company and hired a truck to go to Beiting.

This time he brought the truck into the supply and marketing cooperative compound - his work permit was still very useful.

Li Long first went to see Xiao Si and handed him the two packages he brought from home.

"The big bag contains dried meat, which is for you. The small bag contains the things for Director Qian." Li Long said to Xiao Si, "Take it with you when you send Director Qian home after get off work at noon."

"Sister-in-law has been talking about you these days." Xiao Si said with a smile, "You should take it directly to sister-in-law's house."

"No, it's not convenient to bring a truck with me today and have someone following me." Li Long said, "Next time, I'll tell the director later."

The gifts given to Director Qian were deer antlers and deer fetuses, both for men and women, as a token of my appreciation.

Li Long asked the truck driver to wait here at the small vehicle team while he went upstairs to find Director Qian.

Normal people cannot go directly to the director, except for Li Long. When he arrived at the door of Director Qian's office, he saw someone inside, Director Qian was talking to someone, and someone else was waiting outside with a folder. Li Long waited in line behind them for seven or eight minutes, and when the person inside came out and the person with the file went in, he moved to the front of the line.

Half an hour passed and it was finally Li Long's turn. There were several people queuing behind him.

I didn’t feel that Director Qian was busy before, but now I feel it.

When Li Long came in, Director Qian had just stood up and was about to take a break. When he saw Li Long, he was a little surprised, smiled and said:

"Xiao Li is here? Is there something wrong?"

"Hello, Director. I would like to report on the purchase of melon seeds from our cooperative."

"Okay." Director Qian smiled after hearing this. "Does this mean you have a channel?"

"Yes." Li Long said, "I got the news yesterday and came here to report to you."

"Okay, take your time." Director Qian pointed at the sofa and then shouted to the door, "Hey, who..."

Before he finished shouting, the person holding the documents at the door came in immediately. Director Qian did not call anyone else and said, "Pour a glass of water for Xiao Li and tell the person behind him not to come over for half an hour. What did you hold?"

"A report on our company's high temperature subsidy this summer," the man said. "Your signature is required."

"Put it on the table first." Director Qian said, "You can come over later when Xiao Li and I finish talking about this."

After pouring the water, this man glanced at Li Long as he handed it to him. This young man is amazing. Director Qian attaches so much importance to him, he must remember this.

After the people left, Li Long briefly explained the situation.

"You said they charge two dollars and fifty cents?" Director Qian frowned when he heard this.

"Yes. I think we have some in our warehouse, but I guess we should buy whatever the melon farmers sell. But when I was growing melons at home last year or the year before last..."

Li Long talked about his experience.

There is no need to hide anything with Director Qian.

Director Qian was also a little surprised: "How much can it sell for?"

"Yes. As long as it's a snack factory, there's no one who doesn't like flattened melon seeds." Li Long said, "I heard from Boss Jia that the snack factories want a lot. If this route can be stabilized, farmers will be more motivated to grow this in the future - after all, it's more profitable than growing grain!"

There are too many people and too little land, and there is not enough food to eat, so it is impossible to think about growing cash crops.

The northern Xinjiang has long since left the realm of "having enough to eat", and the first priority is to grow a variety of crops and make farmers rich.

So Director Qian was thinking, is this approach still feasible?

He felt that it was necessary to give it a try!
So, what price should I give to Li Long for the melon seeds in the warehouse? (End of this chapter)