Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 986 Let the Bullets Fly a Little Longer: They'll Come Begging Me
In September, the watermelon harvest began, and people gradually came to the purchasing station to sell watermelon seeds.

At the dinner table, Gu Boyuan asked Li Long about the purchase price. Li Long told him that this year's purchase price for melon seeds was 1.5 yuan if not flattened, and 2 yuan if flattened.

Gu Boyuan buys at this price, but the standard is quite flexible. For example, if it is cleaned more thoroughly, the price will be slightly higher by 18 cents. If it is not cleaned very well and has more impurities, the price will be lowered.

By the end of September, nearly 50 tons of watermelon seeds had been harvested, less than last year, but Li Long felt it was a suitable amount.

Last year's high yield of watermelon seeds was due to the good prices the year before. Prices of three or three and a half yuan drove many people crazy. The profit from planting one mu of watermelon seeds was better than planting ten mu of wheat. Who wouldn't want to plant them? Even if the land wasn't good and the harvest wasn't much, even half a harvest was still better than planting grain.

So last year we planted a lot and harvested a lot too.

However, the price suddenly dropped last year. To be honest, if Li Long hadn't been buying them continuously, many people would have been stuck with their melon seeds and wouldn't have been able to sell them.

A price of just over one dollar is not so attractive compared to grains and other cash crops.

Therefore, the area planted with watermelons this year has decreased significantly. Taking the fourth team as an example, the area planted with watermelons this year has decreased by more than half.

Most people switched back to growing grains and cash crops like sunflowers and sugar beets.

Although the price isn't high, it's not so high that it won't sell.

After experiencing ups and downs, most people still choose to play it safe and preserve their capital before thinking about making money.

Li Long wasn't in a hurry. He took the collected watermelon seeds to the Fourth Team and had Xie Yundong and the others take them back, flatten them, dry them in the sun, and then collect them back.

The labor cost remained at ten yuan per sack. There was a flattening machine, which was very fast, and Li Long was already familiar with the process.

That evening, in Xie Yundong's courtyard, Li Long, Tao Daqiang, and others sat together chatting and drinking.

Li Long hadn't had a meal with his close teammates in a long time. Today's gathering was organized by Xie Yundong after they finished harvesting melon seeds.

For this, Xie Yundong specially slaughtered one of his own goat lambs, made hand-pulled mutton, stir-fried goat offal, and got a few bottles of Gucheng Laojiao liquor, saying that the brothers should have a good drink together.

His actions made Tao Daqiang a little embarrassed. He was supposed to be closest to Li Long, but he had gotten used to eating and drinking at Li's house over the years and didn't feel the need to invite everyone to his home for a meal. In fact, if you were to calculate based on family wealth, he would at least be in the top five in the fourth team.

But I just couldn't remember.

Looking back now, it was actually quite simple: slaughter a sheep, prepare some dishes, notify everyone, and buy a few bottles of wine.

Most of the team members have available time; the only one whose time is uncertain is Li Long. This is easy to handle. Go to Li Jian's house and call Li Long. If you don't mind the trouble, go directly to Li Long's house in the county town, tell him about it, set a time, and then the others can be gathered.

It's not just him; even 20 or 30 years from now, many people will still find this kind of thing troublesome. But many things are actually quite simple once you understand the steps and implement them one by one.

Why do people find it difficult? Because they're afraid of trouble and lazy.

Or perhaps they've never done it before and have a fear of difficulty.

Just like four or five years ago, Li Long dared to go into the mountains to haul timber all by himself. Who else would dare? Tao Daqiang went with him once and found it wasn't difficult.

Li Long dared to go to the wintering grounds to ask others for food, and even wanted to trade for deer antlers. Would anyone else dare to ask for that?
Li Long dared to break through the ice and drag his sled to sell fish door-to-door. Didn't others have the strength? Weren't they just afraid that even if they broke through the ice and caught fish, they wouldn't be able to sell them?

Thirty or forty years later, why do those old fishermen still buy boats and go to deeper places to cast their nets even though they can't sell the fish they catch? If they can't sell their fish, they go to restaurants and negotiate prices with other people. If one restaurant doesn't sell, they go to another.
It's just that the path has been paved for you, and others have already covered the first ten kilometers. If you're not even willing to pave the last five hundred meters, then you're destined not to make your fortune.

Tao Daqiang was thinking that he would slaughter a sheep in a while and then treat everyone to a meal.

This sheep was brought from the livestock market on the west bank of the Ma River last year with Li Long. It's been raised for almost a year now, and the lambs have all grown up.

"In September, we eat kojima," Xie Yundong said, bringing a plate of stir-fried tripe to the table. "Come on, have a taste, it tastes great!"

He told everyone to eat, but he opened a bottle of wine first and poured a drink for everyone.

At this time, some elderly people in the village still insist on using a porcelain cup about the size of a thumb to drink wine, and they want to drink it warm.

Young people no longer use them; they just use drinking glasses or 50-gram glass goblets.

A 50-gram cup, a young man downs it in one gulp, that's powerful.

"The year is almost over," Xie Yundong said with a smile. "The harvest was good, and we all made quite a bit of money. Let's have a toast. Life is getting better and better, and I think it will only get better in the future!"

"Let's have a bang!" There were six people at the table: Xie Yundong, Li Long, Tao Daqiang, Jia Weidong, Liang Dacheng, and Liang Shuangcheng.

Two of the three Liang brothers came. The younger one couldn't drink, so he went to play in the reservoir by himself.

Xie Yundong suggested that everyone put down their chopsticks, take a sip from their cups, down the drink in one gulp, wipe their mouths, and then some quickly drink tea to counteract the spiciness, while others eat food with their chopsticks and drink the wine.

This grain liquor just tastes different.

Li Long would sigh with emotion every time.

"Daqiang, how much sunflower did you harvest this year?" Liang Dacheng asked Tao Daqiang.

"Twenty mu of land yielded less than three tons," Tao Daqiang said. "It sold for over five thousand yuan, which is enough."

He was quite pleased with himself.

Li Long wasn't often in the village. At the beginning of the year, unsure of what to plant, he went to Li Jianguo's house to ask for advice. Li Jianguo still planned to plant sunflowers in addition to grains; while sugar beets were grown in the alkaline soil, he planted sunflowers.

Although the sunflower harvest wasn't high, the price was stable, so I still made some money.

“My family grows watermelons,” Liang Dacheng sighed. “It’s only thanks to Xiaolong that we still collect the watermelon seeds. Now I hear some families have been growing watermelons for two or three years in a row, and they only get less than 100 kilograms of seeds per acre. This stuff really depletes the soil’s fertility quickly!”

“As the old saying goes, you can’t plant the same watermelon twice, so the harvest will definitely be the same,” Jia Weidong interjected. “Alright, that’s good enough. At least we have a lot of land, so we can make some money no matter what we plant. Back home, each person has only a few acres of land, and the grain they grow is just enough to eat. Some people from my hometown are even planning to go out to work—some want to go south to work in factories, and others want to work as farmhands here.”

"Work as a long-term laborer? Is that allowed by the government?" Xie Yundong asked. "Isn't that unlikely?"

As soon as he said that, everyone's eyes turned to Li Long.

Li Long, carrying the identity of a county people's congress representative and having national honors, was considered successful by everyone, and naturally people would ask him for advice when they had questions.

"Yes, I can still do it." Li Long actually quite liked this atmosphere; he didn't have to think about anything, just eat and drink. He hadn't felt this relaxed in years. His mind was completely blank just now, and he didn't even notice the spiciness of the alcohol—this was 52 proof!

"A few years ago, when private individuals ran small businesses and hired workers, it was the same as when we couldn't manage to farm all the land and had to ask for help. Now that we're developing a market economy, the government has said that economic development is the central task. What does that mean? It means that we should get rich first."

"We have so much land, how do we get rich? Just farm it well, right? But mechanization isn't widespread yet, so we need to hire people to help with the farming. Hiring long-term laborers isn't illegal, of course we have to find reliable ones."

Of course, you have to find a reliable one. There have been cases where hired farmhands have abducted people's daughters to remote mountain villages in Gansu Province. We have to be careful about these kinds of things.

“Hey, that’s true.” As soon as he heard that he could hire workers, Jia Weidong became interested. His family had a lot of land, which they could manage to cultivate, though it was quite hard work.

"How much do you think is appropriate to pay a long-term worker?"

“Just use the current labor prices.” Li Long said, seeing everyone looking at him. “An ordinary worker’s total salary for the whole year is only seven or eight hundred yuan. If he’s a good worker, you can give him a thousand yuan. If he’s not a good worker, you can give him five hundred yuan. But in your hometown, five hundred yuan a year is not bad, right? And you still have to provide food and lodging for him.”

Five hundred yuan is really not much for the people present.

Jia Weidong really did have this intention. After all, his family had few able-bodied men, and his own health wasn't very good. If he could find a long-term worker, it would help a lot. Although his net income that year wouldn't make him a millionaire, it wasn't too far off.

I'll just find one, that's fine.

"If you want to look for it, you'd better find out more details." Li Long said immediately when he saw that someone was really interested. "Don't attract any bad guys. They might corrupt the children, or they might be traitors, thieves, or even hooligans. That would be troublesome."

Li Long's words were serious, and those who were interested, like Xie Yundong and Jia Weidong, became truly cautious. For a considerable period, the team had a habit of hiring long-term laborers. After all, there was a lot of land, and mechanization wasn't widespread; tasks like spraying pesticides, weeding, and spreading fertilizer all required manual labor.

There was a period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when there was a rush for short-term work. With more cotton planted, students from the third grade onwards had to pick cotton to earn money for their studies. Just imagine what that means.
Later, with the widespread adoption of mechanization, the need for manual labor decreased dramatically, and the labor market here gradually shrank, even disappearing in some places.

"Xiaolong, did you sell your watermelon seeds this year?" Xie Yundong changed the subject. "I heard that the watermelon seeds didn't sell well this year? If not, you might as well stop buying them."

When Li Long saw Xie Yundong say that everyone else was looking at him, he smiled.

When the melon seeds were first produced, he thought about contacting Bai Xiuming.

After all, the phone can be made now, so checking the other party's number is no big deal.

But when they called Bai Xiuming's food company, they were told that Manager Bai was not there.

Li Long made several phone calls but couldn't reach Bai Xiuming, so he called Dong Zhichao instead.

Dong Zhichao was found, but he was very calm, saying that the raw materials for making melon seeds were plentiful this year and he had no plans to go to northern Xinjiang to purchase melon seeds for the time being.

At that moment, Li Long was also quite anxious. Fifty tons of watermelon seeds would cost around 85,000 yuan.

To be honest, it's not that he can't afford to lose the money, but this doesn't align with his memory or market rules.

He even thought that he had bought flattened melon seeds in Yanjing.

Although Li Long doesn't like eating watermelon seeds, since they're not as easy to crack as sunflower seeds, eating too many sunflower seeds can cause internal heat.

On the contrary, watermelon seeds are rich in various trace elements and are not likely to cause internal heat, so some people like to eat them.

Even in another ten or twenty years, the sales of sunflower seeds will explode, impacting even the local sunflower market.

In terms of taste, flattened watermelon seeds are far superior to naturally crushed ones. After all, whoever buys watermelon seeds hopes that every single one will yield a whole seed, rather than having to crack them several times only to end up with broken seeds and unremoved skin.

Therefore, there is definitely a market for flattened watermelon seeds.

Based on these two points, Li Long felt that there were only two reasons why Bai Xiuming couldn't be found and Dong Zhichao didn't come to collect the goods.

Firstly, they've already developed flattened watermelon seeds over there, so local raw materials are naturally cheaper than those from other places. Secondly, it's possible they're colluding to hoard stock, trying to delay things so they can buy it at a lower price when things get too hot for them.

At first, Li Long thought the first possibility was more likely, so he asked Jia Tianlong to inquire about it. After all, Dong Zhichao was introduced by Jia Tianlong. Li Long also told Jia Tianlong to be discreet when inquiring and preferably not let Dong Zhichao know.

Jia Tianlong's relationship with Li Long was much deeper than his relationship with Dong Zhichao. After learning the details of the matter, he immediately took charge of it.

The feedback given to Li Long was quite unexpected—no one here had researched the flattening machine.

Jia Tianlong explained to Li Long that the raw material suppliers for the roasted nuts and seeds factories and food factories here are all small-scale individual suppliers, and there are no middlemen like Li Long who can collect tens or hundreds of tons at a time.

These individual farmers sell watermelon seeds to roasting factories for an average price of about two yuan, and they are too lazy to flatten the seeds.

Roasted nut factories and food companies also go to Ningxia and Gansu, which are even further away, to collect watermelon seeds. The watermelon seeds there are also collected from individual farmers, and the ones they collect are basically all-natural and unpressed.

Therefore, the flattened watermelon seeds available on the market now only account for about one-third of the total supply, and are considered high-end products.

"Some people who buy watermelon seeds want to eat flattened seeds but don't want to pay a high price, so they just eat the regular ones. They don't have a choice," Jia Tianlong concluded.

After learning the truth, Li Long realized that it was highly likely that Bai Xiuming's food company and Dong Zhichao's roasted nuts factory had joined forces to pressure Li Long on his price.

Then forget it.

Jia Tianlong said he would look for other roasted nut factories when he had time to see if they needed this kind of product.

Li Long said he would handle the matter himself, and that Jia Tianlong should focus on taking good care of his own child.

After Li Long thought that this matter was over, he would try to visit a few well-known roasted nut factories that he remembered.

With such a large market and so many Chinese people, if those two roasted nut factories refuse to buy, there must be other factories willing to take them.

It's a good opportunity for me to develop channels outside the region. Once I'm familiar with them, it will be easier to sell other products in the future.

Sigh, I'm destined to be a hard worker.

But he can't stay idle.

So when Xie Yundong asked, Li Long smiled and said:

"It's alright, don't worry. These flattened watermelon seeds are very popular. If those two factories won't buy them, there are other factories that will. Don't worry, when have I ever done business at a loss?"

"Right, right, Xiaolong definitely won't lose out," Liang Dacheng said with a smile. "Old Xie, are you going to beat the game or not? If not, I'm definitely going to beat it!"

Having obtained Commander Jiu's approval after clearing the level, Xie Yundong gripped the bottle tightly, shook his head, and said, "Why would I wait for you? I haven't even started yet!"

If you beat the game, then you can drink a round by yourself.

Li Long remained silent and ate slowly. The mutton stew was very tender today, the stir-fried mutton offal was also delicious, and the cold dishes were very tasty. He felt that as for alcohol, a little bit was enough; once he finished the game, that was it. He didn't want to waste such good food.

Deng Guilan brought up another plate of stir-fried sheep's blood. Seeing everyone eating and drinking happily, she put down the sheep's blood and said with a smile, "Eat more, the steamed buns will be here soon. Drink slowly, no rush."

"Sister-in-law, this food is delicious!" Li Long praised. "It tastes really good!"

"Hey, if you like it, eat more. I'll cook another one for you." Deng Guilan's smile widened after receiving Li Long's praise, and she turned and went to the kitchen.

"No more cooking, no more cooking, that's enough!" Li Long hurriedly shouted, but Deng Guilan did not respond.

"Don't worry about her, let her do it. She'll be happy if she makes money this year." Xie Yundong won against Tao Daqiang in a game of Tiger and Chicken. While Tao Daqiang was drinking, he said to Li Long, "She's doing better every year, so whatever we do is fine."

He said he wanted to play a drinking game with Jia Weidong, and Jia Weidong said he would give it a try. Then the two of them slowly started playing, and their voices went from being low-key at the beginning to shouting later, which immediately created a lively atmosphere.

The meal lasted until almost midnight. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Tao Daqiang drank too much, but Jia Weidong was fine—he was lucky and won several rounds of finger-guessing games.

"Maybe it's a newbie gift pack," Li Long thought as he walked away.

He drank too much and couldn't drive, so he stayed in his own yard that night.

The quilt had been aired out in the sun. It was late September, and the nights were still quite cool. The quilt was nice to cover myself with. There were no mosquitoes by then. Li Long hadn't drunk too much. He washed up and went to sleep. It was very comfortable.

Tao Daqiang said he would set up a table like this after October, and the others said they were waiting for him to do so.

The next day, Li Long had breakfast at his elder brother's house. When he drove back to the county, he heard that more businessmen had arrived.

To his surprise, the person who came to find him was Qiao Xing, the one who had bought the leftover melon seeds last year.

This guy had been asking around last year about how to flatten melon seeds. Although he didn't harvest much, Li Long thought he was a smart guy.

This year, with neither Bai Xiuming nor Dong Zhichao showing up, Qiao Xing suddenly appeared just as Li Long was about to take a trip to Kou Li to investigate. Li Long didn't believe it wasn't premeditated.

Let's meet them and see what they think.

(End of this chapter)