Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

In Qingshuihe Village, the team leader and several village cadres treated Li Long as a distinguished guest.

In the team headquarters, watermelons were being cut, apples were being laid out, and there was a plate of wild strawberries that Li Long had gotten from somewhere, which were rarely seen even when he entered the mountains.

Li Long could tell that the apples were probably plucked from someone's tree. One of them had leaves on it, which made it look quite fresh. However, local apples only become sweet after being hit by frost, and they taste sour now.

As for the wild strawberries, they are quite fresh. They are rare in the mountains, but it takes some skill to find them here.

It is not easy to eat some fruits other than watermelon these days, which shows that these team leaders are thoughtful.

"Comrade Li Long, you should be satisfied with these 1,000 brooms, right?"

"Satisfied, I am indeed very satisfied." Li Long nodded, to be honest, he was really satisfied. This side may have never received such a lucrative job, except for a few who wanted to get away with it, most of the tying was very standard, the quality was very good, and the average level even exceeded that of the fourth team.

"Look, our villagers cut more sedge and chopped more poles. We cooperate well. Comrade Li Long, can you give us some more? Even if it's another 1,000, no, 500 will do!"

The captain was also afraid of being poor. This village really had no resources, it was far from the county town, and the villagers were relatively conservative. No one in the village would go to the county town to set up a stall, let alone do any business.

Relying on the five mu of food-grain land per capita and the ten mu of contracted land, we can have enough to eat, but we can't get rich!
As the old saying goes, live off the mountain. Before the villagers could mature their idea, the county set up a forestry team. They caught so many people in one Fritillaria season and passed by the village every day. So the villagers' enthusiasm for going to the mountain to make some money was extinguished immediately.

Don't say they are timid. Having just experienced those years of chaos, no one dares to say they are not afraid. If they are really arrested and locked up, who knows when they can be released?
At least if I work hard at home and farm, I can at least have enough food to eat.

Just no money.

So Li Long's giving of the job of shoveling a thousand brooms really gave everyone a great opportunity.

The captain and the team cadres had discussed it. Li Long said that they didn't want the 100 yuan that was given to the team. As long as they could assign some more tasks to the team, they could also make some money. The captain didn't say anything, but the team cadres made dozens of yuan by making brooms these days!

This money is so easy to make!
Li Long calculated that he really needed more than a thousand brooms. Yesterday, it was announced on the loud speaker at Xu Chengjun's house that the task of purchasing brooms for the fourth team had been stopped and no more brooms would be purchased. The villagers should stop making brooms.

Actually, my elder brother Li Jianguo had finished tying up the Achnatherum splendens. Although there were still some unused poles in the yard, it didn't matter. Anyway, they could be used next year.

As for what Zhang Qiang thinks, what does that have to do with Li Long?

Yesterday he pulled the last two hundred brooms he collected from the fourth team back to the compound, and today he came to Qingshuihe Village.

Unexpectedly, when he arrived at the team headquarters, the team leaders were all there, waiting for him.

"Since you are so enthusiastic, I won't be polite. We do have a batch of work, 1,500 brooms, and no more." Li Long made it clear, "The requirements are still the same, the quality must be strict. The same goes for the quantity. If it exceeds the limit, I won't accept it, because I can't use it even if I accept it. I can't just keep it at home and wait for it to appreciate in value, right?"

This joke was a bit dull, and several team cadres didn't hear it, but they could hear that Li Long gave them 1,500 brooms to do. They all stood up at once, patting their chests and promising:

"Comrade Li Long, don't worry. We can absolutely guarantee the quality of this broom!"

"That's right! We will guard the first checkpoint, and we will make them take back those who fail to meet the standards!"

"I guarantee that the sedge and poles are all new, and there are definitely enough red willows..."

When the captain saw that everyone else had said all the good things, he also stood up and expressed his opinion:
"I don't need any other inspections or anything else... Don't bother talking about that. As long as you really want 1,500 brooms, we can absolutely guarantee the quality!"

Li Long was happy. Previously, all the work was done for the team, so he didn't feel much. Now, he occasionally gives some to outsiders, and he finds it smells so good!

"Okay, then starting tomorrow, I'll come here every day to collect brooms until I have collected 1,500."

"Okay, okay, Comrade Li Long, can you collect them today? Many people in our village still have some big brooms left. If you want to collect them today, I will use the loudspeaker to call them over now."

"Okay." Li Long smiled. These people are really flexible.

"Comrade Li Long, please finish collecting the brooms and having lunch before leaving. I will ask my wife to kill the chicken now..." said the captain.

"Captain, you can't entertain us today. Comrade Li Long is here, and we should all show our appreciation. Let's go to my house today! I have geese at home! I will slaughter a goose today..." said the militia company commander.

"Come to my house, come to my house. My child caught two rabbits in the field yesterday. It's just right to eat rabbit meat..."

"What's so delicious about rabbit meat? It's so skinny and full of bones. I'll just kill a chicken at home!"

……

In order to entertain Li Long, they actually had a quarrel!
Li Long raised his hand and said:

"Everyone, please stop arguing. Let me tell you how to do this. I'll pay for two chickens. We can go to whichever house has a bigger place and better cooking skills. I haven't chatted with you all yet, so we can eat and talk together to deepen our relationship..."

"No, that won't work." The captain rejected the offer directly. "How can I ask you to pay? Captain Meng, your yard is big, so we'll go to your house. I'll bring one chicken, and Accountant Liu will bring one chicken. Your wife is a good cook, so let her cook it, and my wife will go over to help. How do you think that is?"

"Okay." Captain Meng naturally had no objection.

"Then I'll provide the wine. I have two bottles of Gucheng at home. I'll bring them over later."

"Well, I've been coveting your bottle of wine for a long time. If Comrade Li Long hadn't come, you wouldn't have taken it out."

After much discussion, the matter was settled. The captain turned on the microphone and the loud speaker began to announce that the brooms would be delivered to the troops today.

Next, he asked the militia company commander to preside over the meeting while he had to go home to catch chickens.

These days, every household raises a lot of chickens. First, they provide nutrition for children and the elderly, and second, people often come to the countryside to collect eggs, which are sold for a few cents each. A family with a lot of chickens can collect 70 or 80 eggs a day, save a basket, and sell them once, which is enough for the family's pocket money for a month.

So it is normal to slaughter a chicken when relatives come over. Qingshuihe Township is close to the mountains and there is a river next to it. There is plenty of water and grass, so it is quite convenient to prepare chicken feed.

As soon as the loud speaker announced it, someone came over with a cart to deliver a big broom in a few minutes. Captain Meng and Li Long conducted a strict inspection. It can be said that everyone was really enthusiastic and took it very seriously.

Among the fifty-five brooms brought by this group of seven or eight people, not a single one was unqualified!

Li Long is very happy.

The captain came back and asked Captain Meng to go back. Captain Meng asked the captain and found out that the chicken had been delivered and his wife had also gone to help. Then he said:
"What am I going to do? Helping Comrade Li Long check the brooms is my real job!"

"Why don't you go back and make some yourself? You still have a lot of Achnatherum splendens left, right?"

When Captain Meng heard this, his tone paused. He thought about saying hello to Li Long and decided to go back.

Making money is also important.

The captain’s surname is He, and his name is He Yuqing. He thought to himself, I can’t deal with you anymore.

He had the 100 yuan that Li Long had given him twice as a foundation, so he was confident and naturally did not need to rush to make the big broom. He accompanied Li Long here to inspect the work.

Li Long also wanted to give He Yuqing an acceptance fee, but He Yuqing refused. When no one came to deliver the broom, he said seriously:
"Comrade Li Long, I didn't feel comfortable taking the money I received earlier, but you later gave us a job to make 1,500 brooms, and I finally felt relieved.

As the team leader, I am unable to lead my team members to become rich. In fact, I am quite anxious about this. Now with your job, at least our team members can live a more comfortable life this year.

So I won’t take the money, I just hope that if there is such work next year, you can think of us, I will be very grateful! ”

These days, at least in Ma County, the village cadres Li Long has seen are really serious and responsible. It is possible that some have strong personal authority, but in their hearts they are still loyal to the collective and the villagers.

Some of them may not be able to lead the villagers to wealth, but they manage the team well and nothing goes wrong.

A good feature of the rural areas in northern Xinjiang is that it is not easy to form village tyrants like those in some places in the interior - because most of the villages were formed by people who came from the mainland in the past two or three decades, so it is impossible to form the large-scale family-style groups like those in the mainland.

Then there is no way to become a village tyrant, after all, there is no such foundation.

Of course, there are also some places like this, some of which involve ethnic issues, so I won’t go into details.

Before lunch, Li Long collected more than 200 large brooms, and the tractor bucket was full and piled high. He Yuqing helped Li Long tie it up with ropes and said enviously:

"It's still more convenient to have a tractor. It will take you to the county in a short time. Unlike us, there is no other machinery in the village except the Dongfanghong 75 for plowing the fields. It takes two or three hours to go to the county by horse carriage, which is very troublesome."

"It will be soon. In two days, everyone will have saved money and someone will buy a tractor." Li Long could only comfort them. At present, farmers can only grow food crops. No one can guarantee that anyone will harvest cash crops and that they will be sold at a price that will make them rich.

The melons I told my elder brother to grow haven’t been marketed yet.

After finishing the big broom job, he had to help find a market for his products. Of course, it was easy to find a market, such as a seed company or a roasted seed factory. If that didn't work, he could go to Wucheng.

One advantage of a big city is that as long as you are willing to look for something, you can sell anything.

At noon, we had chicken at Captain Meng’s house. Captain Meng’s name was Meng Hai. He was a retired volunteer soldier. He used to be a scout, which was actually the predecessor of the special forces in later generations—the 21st Army.

While eating, they talked about things in the army. They said that when they were new recruits, the old soldiers gave them a warning. When they were looking for a spot at night, they asked them to go to the cemetery and find a spot next to someone else's tombstone. One of the new recruits was so scared that he burst into tears and insisted on going home, saying he didn't want to do the job anymore.

Li Long had heard of such things in his previous life. At that time, the distinction between veterans and new recruits in the army was quite strict. Moreover, the Two Mountains Rotation War has not yet ended. To be honest, it is really possible for scouts to participate in actual combat.

Anything can happen on the battlefield, not to mention going to a cemetery, it's even possible to look for intelligence among a pile of dead bodies.

I’m afraid that if I fail to complete my mission, I won’t be able to be a soldier anymore.

What use do you want?

Far away.

The chicken was stewed in a big pot. Li Long wanted the women and children to come over to eat, but Meng Hai refused, saying that the women and children should eat in the inner room and would not affect the drinking here.

Li Long refused to drink, and the others disagreed. He said he wanted to drive a tractor, and He Yuqing gave a compromise idea:

"Drink a little, then drink some honey water, then go to the team headquarters to rest for a while. It won't be too late to leave once you're sober."

Li Long could only drink two cups as well, but he was prepared that each person could only drink one cup at most and no more.

You really have to be prepared, otherwise these animals will come up with all kinds of excuses to clink glasses with you, and basically they won't stop until they get you drunk.

Although Li Long was prepared, he still drank more than 100 grams, which is more than 2 taels, and felt a little dizzy. Now he definitely couldn't drive the tractor.

Meng Hai's wife brought some honey water, and Meng Hai smiled and said:
"Pure mountain honey, harvested when the flowers are in full bloom, capped honey, fully ripe."

Hearing the terms he used, Li Long knew that the honey would not be bad.

Take a sip, it’s sweet with a hint of sourness, a little bit of astringency, and a very pleasant aroma.

"I'll bring you a cage when I leave. It's not much, but it's a token of my appreciation." Meng Hai said as he saw Li Long drinking very carefully and savoring the drink.

"No, no..." Li Long waved his hands hurriedly.

"Why not? I tell you, it's not worth much. You can see that I'm also making big brooms in the yard. I make them quickly. I can make 20 to 30 in the next few days. I can buy school bags, pencils, and tuition fees for my children. I have to thank you for this..."

"Take it, take it!" He Yuqing also spoke up, "It's Captain Meng's idea, Comrade Li Long, don't refuse it."

So I took it.

It was a plastic cage, the universal kind, with a five-liter capacity. When Li Long finished eating and left, he stuffed five dollars under the bowl.

It is not easy for others to keep bees. It is easier to make money by yourself. It is better not to take advantage of others.

After Li Long and his friends left, Meng Hai and his friends went to sleep - Li Long was the only one who drank the least at the table, while everyone else drank quite a lot, but fortunately no one got drunk and everyone went to sleep.

When Meng Hai's wife was cleaning the table, she found the five dollars. She could tell from the seat that it was left by Li Long. She didn't know what to do. Meng Hai couldn't be woken up at this time, so she had to keep it and wait for her husband to wake up.

Li Long took a nap in the team headquarters for a while, and the drunkenness soon wore off. More than an hour later, he drove a tractor to the county.

Back in the yard, I took down the broom, put the honey in the storage room, and started counting the inventory.

The day of handing over the big broom is still a long way off, but the big brooms are almost ready.

He no longer considered the more than 2,000 brooms from Zhang Qiang. Whoever wanted one could take it.

As for Qingshui River, he was really thinking about having a job there next year, so he wanted to see if he could take care of it.

Much better than those shaky guys in the team.

People are really grateful.

Zhang Qiang was really anxious.

Li Long said he would not accept it, so he did not accept it. He asked around and found out that someone sent a big broom to Li's house the next day, but the Li family refused it, saying that Li Long had said they would not accept it anymore.

In fact, Zhang Qiang was thinking of a second way. If Li Long really didn't want to accept his broom and he couldn't sell his broom, he would secretly transfer it to other people's homes and then deliver it to Li Long.

At least this will help digest some of the broom.

Even if I can just get my money back at the original price, that would be fine.

But Li Longzhen refused to accept it!

He has been asking around in the nearby villages these past two days, but hasn't heard of Li Long going to any village to collect the brooms.

When people heard him ask this, some even said sarcastically:

"Your team has already cut down all the nearby Achnatherum splendens. Even if someone gives us a living, we still need something to eat!"

Since it’s not from the nearby village, where else could it be from?

He calculated clearly that the number of brooms Li Long received in the village was definitely less than three thousand.

After all, the number of poles that Li Long has pulled back is limited, and the Li family still has quite a few poles stored.

So where does he get the big broom to complete the task?

Zhang Qiang actually understood that it was not important to find Li Long to complete the task at the moment. What was important was the more than 2,000 brooms piled up at home. If Li Long did not take them up, it would be a real blow to him!

Do you really need to take a big broom to the market to sell it?
He might not be so embarrassed as to do this!

Zhang Qiang had no choice but to go to Xu Chengjun. Xu Chengjun didn't care about this matter. After hearing what Zhang Qiang said, he shook his head:

"I wanted to settle this matter a few days ago, and I went to the Li family to ask. They also told you the conditions they offered, but you didn't accept them at that time. Who can you blame?

I tell you, this is all your fault, you are too greedy. If you had accepted this, Li Long would have definitely given you some hard work money afterwards, but you just wanted to make a lot of money from others. Now you haven't made any money, you have offended people, and the things... you can sell them yourself!"

"You can't just ignore it, you're the captain..."

"I'm the captain, not your father!" Xu Chengjun's temper also rose, and he cursed: "I originally planned to adjust you, but you were so arrogant at that time. Now you want to suffer a loss and come to me. I can't do anything about it!"

He was the captain of the militia. Although he had never been to the battlefield, he was really trained with real guns and swords in the army. With his glare and temper, he scared Zhang Qiang away.

There is a gun hanging in Xu Chengjun’s house!

This is no longer possible.

Zhang Qiang had thought about negotiating with the elders in the village.

But his brother Carpenter Zhang was determined to leave. If his brother went to find the old people in the village, maybe he would still have some face. He used to follow Carpenter Zhang and had no feelings for the villagers. Now he didn't know who to find for the time being.

He tried to find two people, and even found Uncle Luo, and directly had Uncle Luo kick him out.

"You coward, you don't do anything! Now that you've suffered a loss, you want to look for trouble. What were you doing before?" Old Uncle Luo chased Zhang Qiang to the front door with a stick, cursing:

"If you dare come over here again, I'll break your legs!"

This time, Zhang Qiang was completely at a loss.

This is not going to be easy! (End of this chapter)