Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 945 Li Long is about to do something big!
After Lu Yingming and his wife left, Li Long solemnly said to Li Jianguo:
"Brother, I have something to tell you."

"Go on," Li Jianguo said, seeing Li Long's serious expression. He guessed that what Li Long was talking about was probably important, and stubbed out his cigarette. "What is it?"

“I was thinking that after the Spring Festival this year, we should do something big. I want to compete to see if I can be selected as an advanced individual for ethnic unity nationwide.”

"What? What do you want to do with that?" Li Jianguo was a little confused. Li Long had told him about the things that happened a few years ago. Whether it was the advanced individuals in the autonomous region or the prefecture, it was all because Li Long did something that was reported in the news, and then they took the initiative to award Li Long the title.

In other words, neither of these honors was something Li Long actively sought out.

He's suddenly saying this now, so he must have something on his mind.

“We’ve already bought a courtyard house in Yanjing, so now that we have one, we should go there to visit often, right? If something really happens over there, we can’t rely on Xiaoyu, can we? If I don’t have any reputation, I definitely won’t be able to handle it if something happens over there.”

Beijing is the capital city, and people from all over the country flock there. If you don't have a reputation there, things can get really complicated when you run into trouble.

Therefore, Li Long felt that if he really wanted to have a foothold there, he needed to have a legitimate name and go there at least once or twice a year so that he could protect the property.

Li Jianguo nodded slowly after hearing what he said.

Yes. It's thousands of kilometers away. If someone really takes over that yard, even though he has that piece of paper, will they even recognize it?
"So what are you planning to do? This is not a good idea." Li Jianguo didn't have any good ideas for the time being.

"I plan to wait until spring, before the fieldwork starts, and then our tractors will go into the mountains to build a road for my friends," Li Long said, explaining his plan. "First, we'll build the road from the winter pasture to the outside, and if we have time later, we'll also build the road from the winter pasture to the summer pasture."

"Don't widen it; even just enough to make a tractor-friendly road will do."

"It's not simple," Li Jianguo said, shaking his head. "That road must be at least several tens of kilometers long, right?"

“Let’s just start and see. There’s no rush. We can work as we go, and if it can’t be done in a year, we can do it in two.” Li Long had considered the difficulty of the project. He said, “This national reputation isn’t easy to come by. If the road could be completed in a year, people would think it’s simple and easy, and they’re unlikely to give it to me, right?”

“That makes sense.” Li Jianguo thought his brother’s line of thinking was correct.

Neither of them mentioned the cost of road repairs. They had their own tractors anyway; a Dongfanghong 70 tractor with a bulldozer blade attached to the front became a bulldozer, which would be very useful.

As for building roads into the mountains, the biggest difficulty is leveling some slopes and widening some of the original narrow roads.

Of course, some trees also need to be cut down and some shrubs cleared away.

Li Long is temporarily unable to build bridges in the mountains, but he can construct some simple water crossing surfaces.

"Sigh, there's a lot of work to do in the fields this year. We've opened up some more land, so we'll have to use the off-season for road construction," Li Jianguo sighed.

Li Long thought for a moment and said:

"Not necessarily, we'll see. Maybe I'll need to buy another tractor to build roads in the mountains. Brother, your tractor is with the team, and we still need to make money by working the land."

Li Jianguo never expected that Li Long planned to take a multi-pronged approach, ensuring that the work in the mountains was not neglected, and that the team's land reclamation would also proceed.

“We’ve cleared so much land, we can’t possibly cultivate it all,” Li Jianguo said. “Although Professor Luo’s formula allows us to grow most common crops on the cleared wasteland, we can’t grow too much of it. We can’t grow cash crops either; we can’t grow sunflowers or watermelons.”

"Then let's plant cotton." Li Long felt there was no need to wait until seven or eight years later when the history of cotton planting truly began. "Let's clear the land first and try planting cotton... Forget it, let's wait and see. Clearing the land isn't urgent."

Li Long originally planned to clear land and plant cotton this year, but then he thought that there were only his elder brother and sister-in-law in his family, plus his elderly parents who could barely help. They were already farming three families' land. If they cleared more land, farming would be very tiring before mechanization was sufficient.

This time, Li Jianguo unusually didn't take on any extra work. He knew his own capabilities. Now, with so much land to cultivate and tractors to plow and sow, he was pretty much done for. Unless he hired a full-time worker, he definitely wouldn't be able to do the work in the fields well.

After the two brothers finished discussing the matter and set a general direction, the rest was up to them to see the details when it came to implementation.

Since it has been basically decided that we will not be making tractors this year, the period before and after sowing will be considered the off-season for farming. At that time, Li Jianguo can drive his tractor to work in the mountains.

Li Long thought that a tractor might be too slow. Even if the original pastoral trail was widened, it would still take a considerable amount of time to travel dozens of kilometers.

Of course, the first priority is to open up the roads leading out of the wintering grounds. Currently, only the wintering grounds of Halim, Yushanjiang, and Talihar have direct access to the outside; the others are still quite difficult to access.

The project is quite large, but Li Long is confident that he can complete it in two or three years.

Both for his own sake and for his own personal reasons, he hoped to make this happen.

After having dinner at his older brother's house, Li Long drove his jeep back to the county.

His next task was to go to the photo studio to get the photos taken during his trip to Yanjing developed.

Two days later, the photos came out, and it was almost the Little New Year here.

Li Long took the photos directly to the purchasing station, intending to show them to Gu Boyuan.

As the Lunar New Year approached, the workload at the purchasing station finally decreased. When Li Long arrived, he saw only two or three people waiting to sell their goods.

And very quickly, the things these people brought were sold out. After Gu Boyuan washed his hands, Li Long showed him the photos and explained them to him as he looked at them.

At this time, the photos taken by Li Long's camera were still only in black and white. However, even so, Gu Boyuan was still very envious when he saw the photos that Li Long and his friends took in Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall.

"I'll keep these photos of Xiaoxia and Xiaoyu. I see you've developed a lot; are you going to send them to Xiaoyu as well?"

“Yes, we need to send it,” Li Long said. “Uncle Gu, do you have Xiaoyu’s address? Write to her when you have time. I noticed she wasn’t very happy when we came back.”

"Do you even need to tell me?" Gu Boyuan glared at him. "Alright, alright, go do your thing."

Li Long smiled and went back to the courtyard. The New Year was approaching, and Sister Yang was busy preparing food for the celebrations.

Li Long then began cleaning the various rooms. There were many rooms in the courtyard, and he needed to tidy up the miscellaneous items in the side rooms. A batch of vegetables in the greenhouse at the back also needed to be harvested, and he needed to prepare couplets for the house. In the afternoon, Li Long went to the Fourth Team again, first to Old Ma's house to show Uncle Luo and the others the photos of his family taken at Tiananmen Square, and then he delivered the photos of his elder brother and his family.

Upon returning to the county, Li Long went to the market and bought some onions, potatoes, cabbage, and other vegetables, as well as other daily necessities. The next day, he drove into the mountains.

The roads in the mountains were easier to travel than in previous years. As Li Long ventured deeper into the mountains from Qingshuihezi, he was surprised to find tire tracks all along the way.

I don't know if it's because the market has been opened up and people are turning their attention to the mountains in order to make money, get rich, and live a better life, or if there are some new developments in the mountains.

He drove his jeep into the mountains following the tire tracks, but the tracks soon turned into other gullies.

Li Long ignored it and continued driving towards the ravine where Halimu and the others were.

There were also tire tracks here with Halim and his group, but they were clearly made by Halim when he drove his tractor in and out. When Li Long arrived at the winter shelter, there was no one outside. When the dogs started barking, Halim came out of the winter shelter.

He first saw Li Long, smiled, then looked around and, not seeing anyone, shouted.

Soon, a response came from a place hidden by the woods in the distance. It turned out that Nathan and Sasken had gone to herd sheep, but the two children thought the grass nearby was not good, so they drove the cattle and sheep far away.

After exchanging greetings, Li Long and Halim unloaded the supplies from the jeep. Halim called out a few words to Nathan, who was herding sheep over in the distance, and then beckoned Li Long into the house.

"Kids, they're so naughty. They just want to run far away, but there are wolves in the distance!" Halim complained as he entered the house. "So? How was your trip in Yanjing? Was it crowded with people, cars, and buildings?"

Li Long entered the house, greeted the old lady and Halim's wife first, and then said:
“There were indeed many people and many cars. I brought photos of Tiananmen Square; we took pictures there. Would you like to see them?”

“Okay.” Halim was naturally eager to see.

Li Long took out a stack of photos and handed them to him, telling him to take his time looking at them.

The old lady asked a question, and Halim replied. The old lady looked a little excited and slowly came closer. Even Halim's wife came over with a bowl of milk tea, gave the milk tea to Li Long first, and then stood next to Halim and watched.

“We went to Tiananmen Square, visited the old man’s memorial hall, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and even bought a courtyard house there.”

While sipping his milk tea, Li Long said to them, "Later, maybe next year, you can come if you're interested. Oh, by the way, I also brought you some pastries this time, halal ones, bought from Yanjing."

Li Long remembered the pastries, so he ran back to the car and brought them in.

There weren't many snacks left, so Li Long took two boxes: one for Halim and one for Yushanjiang. He decided to put the rest aside for now.

"Tiananmen, Tiananmen..." the old lady murmured as she looked at the photo that Halim handed her.

These two words do not exist in the Kazakh and Uyghur languages, so they are pronounced in Chinese.

Many people who travel to northern Xinjiang in later generations, or those who watch videos posted by bloggers from northern Xinjiang, often see Chinese words mixed in with the ethnic languages. This is because these words don't exist in the original languages, so they simply use the Chinese words directly.

"That's great, that's great." Halim finished looking at the photos and said with a smile, "Your two sons are also very robust."

“They eat meat and drink milk every day, so they’re bound to be strong.” Li Long laughed. No parent is unhappy when others praise their children—unless they have psychological problems.

However, many parents in the 1970s and 80s still adhered to the old traditions. The more others praised their children, the happier they were inside, but they would still belittle their children verbally.

If the children weren't around, it wouldn't be a problem, but if they were, hearing this would definitely make them uncomfortable. There's no need to be so deliberately modest when things are perfectly fine.

While drinking milk tea, Li Long mentioned his idea of ​​building a road to Harim.

"You said you'd build the roads to the winter lodges first, and then the roads to the summer pastures?" Halim put down his milk tea bowl and said in great surprise when he heard Li Long's words.

"Yes."

"Do you know that the road to the summer pasture is tens of kilometers long, and if you include the turns, it might be over a hundred kilometers? Even if you use a tractor, it will take a very long time to repair..."

“I didn’t expect it to be fixed so quickly. I’ve noticed that you always use horses to carry the yurts and supplies when you move your livestock. If the road could be repaired, you could easily drive tractors up, which would make hauling things much easier,” Li Long said.
"It's alright, we'll fix as much as we can. If one year isn't enough, we'll do it for two years, if two years aren't enough, we'll do it for three. We Han Chinese have an old story called 'The Foolish Old Man Who Moved Mountains'..."

Halim thought for a moment and said:

"We could join in... Anyway, it's very difficult."

Li Long understood what he meant: this road was extremely difficult to repair.

"It's alright, we'll repair it as far as we can. Even if we only repair a section, it's better than not repairing it at all." Li Long was optimistic. At worst, he could just hire a bulldozer or excavator.

The tiger skin that Halim acquired, in its true value, could easily be exchanged for a Dongfanghong 75mm firearm. Therefore, Li Long felt it necessary to do more practical work.

Seeing that Li Long had made up his mind, Harim began to tell him the specific details of the pastoral route.

In his previous life, Li Long had driven along with those travel bloggers to places like the Jingyi Pasture Road and the Yisai Pasture Road. Back then, the pasture roads were already quite wide, and off-road vehicles could easily pass through them. SUVs could also get through if they were careful.

Therefore, he is relatively optimistic.

But after hearing the specifics of what Halim said, Li Long realized he had oversimplified the situation.

Entering the mountains from Dongwozi, the road is okay at first, but it gets narrower and steeper as you go further. In some places, it can only accommodate two or three horses. To widen it, a lot of machinery and resources are needed.

Fortunately, there are no cliffs along this pastoral trail, otherwise it would have been really difficult to repair later.

Even so, Li Long felt that his planning time might need to be more than doubled.

Of course, the difficulties did not deter Li Long. Once he had decided to do it, he would not change his mind easily!
At worst, we can implement a five-year project, or even two five-year projects!
(End of this chapter)