Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

(My waist hurts so badly today that I can’t sit or stand for long periods of time. When I get up, I lie sideways, so I can barely finish one chapter.)
Last year there were 8,000 brooms, and this year there are 30,000, nearly four times the number, which is a lot of pressure.

The purchase price of the state cooperative is still five yuan. Li Long estimates that this price will only increase a little in two years when prices soar. After all, ten years later, the big brooms on the market seem to be only ten to fifteen yuan a broom. It cannot go up any more now.

He vaguely remembered that the state society announced that the big broom was eight dollars, which was the price for transporting it to the mouth.

After all, the bamboo broom brought from the import and sold in the market costs five yuan - it seems that the original cost is three yuan?
Anyway, the 4th team does not have enough Achnatherum splendens and poles. There is Achnatherum splendens on the other side of Qingshui River, but if we want to harvest it from there, the 4th team might as well go north. If we continue north from Dahaizi in the north, we don’t need to go into the sand pit. There are scattered or large areas of Achnatherum splendens on the saline-alkali land.

As long as you can find a place, you can harvest it.

The village where Liang Wenyu lives is remote, with neither Stipa sphenanthera nor poles. The older generation knows how to make it, but it is difficult without the materials.

Each village requires different methods, and Li Long had thought it through before leaving the supply and marketing cooperative.

Anyway, he has already taken on the life, so he must do it.

He first went to Qingshuihe Village. After driving the jeep into the village, he went straight to Meng Hai's house.

Meng Hai was not at home, but his wife was there and said that Meng Hai was picking up the wheat tails in the threshing floor.

Li Long immediately drove the jeep to the wheat field.

"Comrade Li Long, you're here?" Meng Hai had already put the wheat tails into a sack and was putting it on the tractor. When he saw Li Long, he was extremely happy.

Li Long stepped forward and helped Meng Hai carry the sacks onto the tractor while explaining the matter of the broom.

"Three dollars and a half is definitely no problem." Meng Hai smiled, "This price is already very good. It only takes an hour to make a big broom, and you can make several brooms a day. One broom can be exchanged for seven or eight kilograms of flour, so I'm sure I'll be willing to do that..."

"This year's task is heavy." Li Long thinks highly of Meng Hai, so he decided to entrust him with an important task:
"How about you guys in Qingshuihe make 10,000 brooms by the end of August?"

"Ten thousand?" Meng Hai was shocked. "How can there be so many?"

"Regardless of this, can it be pierced out?" Li Long asked.

"This number of poles is almost enough. We went into the mountains some time ago and cut more than 10,000 of them. Some of them cracked after being dried in the sun, but overall we still have 10,000." Meng Hai filled the sack and took out a cigarette from his pocket. He was about to take out one, but after looking around, he put it back in.

This is a wheat field, and the wheat straw in most people's homes has not been taken away yet.

"Is there enough Achnatherum splendens?" Li Long asked, "If there is, are there enough people?"

"There are still many, maybe even more, on the north side of Stipa Sinensis Mountain. But there may not be enough people." Meng Hai thought for a while and said.

"Can we call in people from other nearby villages?" Li Long said, "Old Meng, let me tell you, you know my situation, I want to leave this matter of Qingshui River to you. If you help me collect the brooms, I'll give you 50 cents in profit, how about that?"

"What? Fifty cents?" Meng Hai waved his hands hastily. "Comrade Li Long, let me tell you, we have already owed you a favor for this matter. Let alone fifty cents, even if you don't give me a cent, I will take the responsibility..."

"No, no, no, brothers should settle accounts clearly." Li Long said, "I have received this broom from you twice. You know the situation. I only have one requirement, the quality must be up to standard.

Let me tell you clearly that this batch of big brooms will leave the autonomous region and be delivered to people, representing the reputation of our autonomous region.

The quality must be good, so you just supervise and inspect, and I only care about the final result.

As long as the brooms you hand in are up to standard, I can do this job for a long time at 50 cents a broom. I just come and collect them, how about that?"

Meng Hai was shocked by the news.

He rubbed his face, thinking.

Each pole costs 80 cents, which was agreed with the people who cut the poles in advance. Eventually, these poles will be sold to the team members. He cut less than 3,000 poles. Although the poles have not been sold yet, they are basically stable. Some people have come to his house to make an agreement that as long as the big broom job comes, they will take the poles.

That’s more than two thousand dollars.

Now that Li Long has given him the job of making big brooms, he certainly won't have time to make big brooms anymore, but the money he has to collect from this inspection alone is 5,000 yuan, which is the price of a tractor!

He harvested wheat this year and was able to pay off the money he borrowed to buy a tractor. Now he didn't expect that he would suddenly have enough money to buy another tractor before September.

Are you hoping to become a millionaire by the end of the year?

He knew it was a difficult job.

He has to check ten thousand big brooms one by one. Can he take care of it?

But if he had to say no, Meng Hai would never let go of this opportunity.

Why did Li Long look for me instead of the team leader He Yuqing? Firstly, he was closer to me, and secondly, as the team leader, He Yuqing had more other things to do.

If you let go of the opportunity right in front of you, you will end up hitting your head on the straw and die.

And this happens every year after that!

Five thousand dollars each... Such a good thing...

Going too far again.

"Then Comrade Li Long, I'd better tell you what you should pay attention to." Meng Hai said this, indicating that he accepted the job.

"The first is quality." Li Long reiterated the standard of the brooms, "The second is safety. If the brooms are piled together, they are prone to catching fire. I suggest that you use a tractor to deliver them to my purchasing station every time you collect two or three thousand."

The backyard of the purchasing station is big enough to store 30,000 brooms. Li Long will not store too many. He will send them to the supply and marketing cooperative if there are 5,000.

"Every time you send a batch over, I will pay you in cash, and then you go and distribute it to them. So during this process, you must keep a clear account and don't mix it up. This is also the key point. Mixing it up can easily cause disputes. After all, everyone is not very rich now, and some people will still fight over a few dollars."

Meng Hai nodded heavily, he felt deeply touched by this.

"That's all I have to say. If you don't have anything else to do, you can start now. If you feel you don't have enough manpower, mobilize other villages. Ten thousand is the base number, the more the better."

Qingshuihe Village has an advantage that the fourth team does not have, that is, it is closer to the mountain, so it is easier to cut poles. The fourth team has fewer poles, and the sedge is not unlimited, so it is estimated that only 5,000 to 6,000 poles can be cut.

If you want to continue tying the knot, you have to find Achnatherum splendens from other places.

But thinking about the future generations of team members riding electric tricycles and running around the towns to cut bitter beans and sedge, Li Long believed that if this matter was made public, more people would be willing to run to the edge of the sand pit in the north...

The edge of the sand pit?

Li Long suddenly thought of the company in the corps where his elder brother used to be. They also had resources, right? Although there were fewer poplar trees that could be used to make poles, there were more red willows and saxaul in Beishawo, which were also strong and durable.

The key point is that there are a lot of Stipa splendens. There are large areas of Stipa splendens on the edge of the sandbags to the north of the company.

The situation is similar with the company where Han Dachun is located.

If we could get them to make big brooms, then there would basically be no problem.

Thinking of this, Li Long felt that the pressure on his shoulders was suddenly relieved a lot.

Next he went to Liang Donglou's house.

Liang Wenyu was cleaning the tractor in the yard. He had made money from harvesting wheat this year and was going to pay off the debt he owed to Li Long. Liang Wenyu had already joined the village committee and became a role model for the young people in the village.

Not to mention the young people, his family was the first in the village to buy a tractor. This year, with the harvester, money came in like crazy, making others envious.

Some people say sourly that the Liang family has made a good in-law, but who could have thought of this in the first place?
Li Jianguo knew many people in this village. When he and Liang Yuemei were not married at the beginning, how many people in this village were willing to marry their daughters to him?

During the years when Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei were married, Liang Donglou's family was better off and he would help the Li family from time to time. There were people in the village gossiping about them, and even the Liang family's second son-in-law was gossiped about.

Of course, we won’t mention it now - the Li family has become rich. Not only that, they also haven’t forgotten to mention the Yue family. Now the Liang family has become the top family in the village.

The jeep drove into the yard and many people in the village saw it. Some people watched the excitement at the door, and some children even chased it into the yard.

Liang Donglou was sitting under the grape trellis reading a book, while Chen Xiuzhu was picking tomatoes in the vegetable garden, preparing to make sauce and keep seeds. "Xiaolong is here?" Liang Donglou saw Li Long get off the car. He took off his crystal reading glasses and put them aside, smiling and saying, "Are you done with your housework?"

"I'm not sure at home, but it should be soon. Mainly because I have a big job to do here, and I want to see if Wenyu and you guys are free to do it."

"What kind of work?" Liang Wenyu, who had greeted Li Long and entered the house to get water, suddenly became excited when he heard that there was an important job.

"Make a big broom." Li Long said, "I told you before that now the task has been assigned. See if you are busy recently. If not, do it if you can."

"Of course we can do it, but we don't have these Stipa sphenanthera and poles in our team." Liang Wenyu rubbed his hands.

There are certainly difficulties, but Li Long has already thought about it for him:
"Go cut the poles in the mountains, and cut the Achnatherum splendens in the sand pit at the back. You have a tractor anyway, so this job is not difficult. You can put the poles back and pull a cart of Achnatherum splendens back, which can make hundreds of brooms." Li Long said, "Then cut the poles. If you can't do it, you can divide it among others. Of course, if you can't do it, go to Qingshui River, where some people have already cut the poles. It's no problem to give you one or two thousand yuan, but each pole costs 80 cents."

"How much does that big broom cost?" Liang Wenyu asked.

"I'm planning to ask you to help me with the inspection." Li Long said, "You guys can't do it alone. We need to mobilize the villagers. A big broom costs 3.5 yuan. You organize and lead the inspection. I'll give you 50 cents for each broom. How about that?"

What? Of course!

Liang Donglou, who had been silent all this time, said:
"Xiaolong, how many big brooms do you think we need?"

The question hits the nail on the head.

If it's less, it's not worth the hassle.

"At least five thousand, right? Even if five thousand is not possible, three thousand will be fine. The more the better." Li Long said.

"Five thousand?" If it's five thousand, as long as it's handed over and falls into Liang Wenyu's hands, it will be at least two thousand five hundred yuan!
It only takes a month, and this job is much easier than harvesting wheat.

Of course, it also tests one's organizational and coordination skills.

"Come, Xiaolong, have a tomato." Chen Xiuzhu came out of the vegetable garden with a basket of tomatoes and handed a ripe one to Li Long. "It tastes delicious."

Li Long took it with a smile, wiped it, broke it in half, and handed one half to Liang Donglou. Liang Donglou waved his hand and said, "I won't eat it, you eat it. You are capable of this job!"

Persimmons are sweet and sour and very juicy.

Since he was capable, Li Long told Liang Wenyu the precautions, which were basically repeating the rules and regulations that Meng Hai had explained, but in more detail.

After all, Meng Hai has been doing this for two years, while Liang Wenyu has just started.

Li Long had just finished speaking when there was a voice at the door. Li Long turned around and saw that it was Liang Wenyu's second brother-in-law Du Haihua, second sister Liang Xingmei, and their child.

The two men brought the children into the yard, and the children immediately surrounded the jeep and didn't move.

Du Haihua and Liang Xingmei came over, and Li Long said hello and then said nothing more.

Now that the main things had been said, he could actually leave.

He could guess that Du Haihua and his wife came over because of him, and they hurried over after hearing about it to build relationships or see if there was any opportunity.

The market has become active these days, and it is understandable that everyone wants to live a better life.

It just so happened that Liang Wenyu needed someone to help him with this job, so of course Li Long didn't need to say this.

So when Du Haihua asked Li Long what he was currently busy with, he told Liang Wenyu about the task of making the big broom, including the tasks in the village.

Du Haihua's eyes suddenly lit up.

Li Long didn't stay here for long. After saying hello to Liang Donglou and the others, he left in a hurry as he still had a lot of things to do.

The Fourth Squadron was easy to deal with. When Li Long returned to the Li family, his elder brother was repairing the tractor. The wheat had been basically harvested, and the public grain that was due had been paid. What was left was some finishing work.

Li Jianguo is now working with tractors, mainly to prepare for the next step of plowing the land - many families have come to say hello, hoping that their wheat fields can be plowed by Li Jianguo's new Dongfanghong No. 75 tractor.

The public grain that needs to be paid now includes wheat, sunflower seeds, and corn. The fourth team originally had the task of producing rice, but it was eventually cancelled because the planting area became smaller.

Li Long briefly explained the work of tying the big broom. He planned to let his eldest brother be in charge of the team's affairs.

Of course, like Meng Hai and Liang Wenyu, each broomstick would give the eldest brother 50 cents as “inspection fee”.

But this time, Li Jianguo firmly opposed it.

"I don't want the money." Li Jianguo acted like a big brother this time. "Don't worry about the job. I've done this job before, so there's no problem. I won't make them this year. I'll just collect them from each household and then check them."

"You have to accept this money, dear brother..."

"What's that? Not at all." Li Jianguo said a little arrogantly this time, "My family is not short of money, you can take the money. I make a lot of money by driving a tractor to harvest wheat. Okay, okay, I know you can make money, so I'll take good care of the money. You don't have to worry about this. I'm going to the team headquarters now to inform everyone. Many people have been asking me these days."

Li Long hurriedly called his elder brother and repeated the precautions.

Li Jianguo wrote them down one by one. In fact, he understood all these things.

We had lunch at my eldest brother's house. No one in the family had any objection to Li Jianguo not accepting the fifty cents for Li Long's big broom, including my eldest sister-in-law Liang Yuemei.

This made Li Long feel a little awkward.

It was similar to his estimate. The team could only handle 5,000 brooms at most, and the rest had to be found elsewhere. Li Long said he wanted to go to the company where his elder brother Li Jianguo used to be, and Li Jianguo supported this.

"There's a lot of Stipa acuta over there, and the old men in the company all know how to make big brooms. Tell Wang Mingjun about this, and he'll definitely take care of it."

"Should we go to Han Dachun's company and tell them?" Li Long asked.

"I think you should go to Wang Mingjun first and see how many they can fight. I don't know how many people are in his company now. If they can eat, then don't go to Dachun first. If they can't eat, we can talk about it later."

Li Jianguo thought for a while and said.

He had his own considerations. The Corps companies were now managed in a quasi-military manner. Some company commanders and instructors were easier to talk to, while others were harder to talk to. According to Han Dachun, the company commander of their company was a bit overbearing. Li Jianguo was afraid that Li Long would go and tell the other party about this, as the other party would think that Li Long was young and not conscientious enough to make the big brooms, and that the quality was not good, which would easily lead to conflicts.

Li Long was receptive to the advice and after dinner he drove his jeep to Shawo.

As soon as Li Jianguo notified the team, the people in Team 4 immediately took action.

Some people who were close to Li Long knew early on that they had to make big brooms. People like Tao Daqiang and Xie Yundong did not take much rest after harvesting the wheat, but drove tractors around to cut Sedge Grape - mainly to other places, not in their own team.

They have been following Li Long for the past two years, and their minds have become more flexible. They know that there will be more and more jobs for the big brooms, so the amount of Stipa sphenanthera needed will definitely be greater.

Therefore, we went to the wasteland to cut the Sphagnum Spinosa and dried it early. Once a notification was given by the loudspeaker here, they could start tying the weeds immediately.

Others who were slow to realize it or did not believe that Li Long could take on this job could only cut the fruits on the spot, and then dry them in the sun for a day or two before tying them.

Lagging behind.

When Li Long drove the jeep to the company, Wang Mingjun was inspecting the wheat handed in by the company's employees.

This is a big deal and cannot be taken lightly.

He was quite familiar with Li Long's jeep. When the jeep drove into the company compound, Wang Mingjun came to greet it with a smile.

He thought Li Long was still here to collect the skins. It just so happened that there were indeed dozens of skins in the company's warehouse. In the past six months, there were many herds of yellow sheep nearby. When passing by, if they saw any, they would organize a fight to improve their food.

In this way, we accumulated a lot of skins and even caught a few yellow sheep.

When Li Long mentioned the matter of making big brooms, and at least ten thousand of them, Wang Mingjun suddenly became excited.

You can take this job! (End of this chapter)