Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Zhao Hui hurried over after receiving a call from Jia Tianlong.

When Li Long opened the door, he saw that Zhao Hui was wearing thick clothes and holding two bundled cardboard boxes in his hands. From Zhao Hui's expression, he could tell that the boxes were quite heavy.

"Hello, Comrade Li!" After seeing Li Long, Zhao Hui put down the box, breathed a sigh of relief, adjusted his glasses, then held Li Long's hands with both hands and said with a smile:

"Long time no see, is everyone all right?"

Zhao Hui was quite enthusiastic. Li Long was also a little surprised. He smiled and said:

"Everything is fine. Come in, come in. It's winter and it's cold outside... Come, I'll carry it."

The two boxes weighed about 20 kilograms each. Li Long bent down to pick them up and led Zhao Hui into the house.

The fire was blazing, and it was warm as spring. Inside and outside the house were two completely different worlds, and Zhao Hui's glasses were immediately covered with steam.

He took off his glasses, wiped them with a cloth and put them back on, then he sighed to Li Long:

"Although I have lived in northern Xinjiang for seven or eight years, I still can't adapt to the winter and summer seasons. As soon as October comes, I go back to my hometown. Although my hometown is humid, it is not this cold."

"Come, have some water." Li Long put the box on the side of the coffee table, poured some water and handed it to him, saying with a smile, "Then why are you back again?"

"I heard from Lao Jia that you received some good leather. I was itching to get one. So I bought a ticket and came here."

This time it was Li Long's turn to feel surprised. Is it worth it just for a few skins?
"As for that, of course." Zhao Hui saw what Li Long was thinking and said with a wry smile, "Don't think that Lao Jia and I look glamorous, but in fact we both have our own difficulties, and he is better off than me. At least he can receive medicinal materials all year round.

But if I want to get good leather, I have to travel all over the southern and northern Xinjiang, and sometimes I may not be able to get top-quality leather even after traveling for several months. "

"I heard that there are many rare wild animals in Northeast China and Qinghai, and there are also many skins there." Li Long poured himself a cup of tea and said while drinking, "You can travel around the country."

"Alas, it's not that easy." Zhao Hui shook his head. "I was able to gain a foothold in the southern and northern Xinjiang because I have an uncle in the military corps here, and he showed me the way. He has some connections in the military corps in the southern and northern Xinjiang, and I was able to gain a foothold with this connection. What would happen if I went to other places?"

What can be done?
A question mark appeared on Li Long's face.

No matter in his previous life or this new life, his range of activities was relatively small. At most he went out for a trip, and all he saw were the prosperous times, with nothing negative.

"Let's not talk about the Northeast, that's not something we can afford." Zhao Hui shook his head and said, "Everywhere has regional protection, there are people doing this over there, if we rush in rashly, there's a lot of land and sparsely populated there, to be honest, if we die in some desolate mountain or wilderness, no one will know."

Li Long felt that what he said was… After all, that was the industrial base of Northeast China, and the population was much larger than here. It would be more appropriate to say this in the Northwest, right?

But if you think about the Fourth Master or something like that, it's possible.

"In Qinghai...it's even easier. Many people there have this..." Zhao Hui gestured, and Li Long immediately understood.

As for whether it was Hualong or Longhua, not many people know now. After all, information dissemination was not as developed as in later generations. However, many materials deciphered in later generations showed that the folk customs in some areas there were quite tough and xenophobic.

It’s normal that you can’t run.

Well, it turns out that you need to have a following wherever you go, otherwise it will be difficult to get things done.

It’s okay to go there for fun, but even if you’re just going there for fun, you have to choose a good place.

Although a batch of people were beaten, they are still like mushrooms after rain. This is the time when all kinds of order are being re-established, and some chaotic situations still exist.

Otherwise, Yusup would not have encountered such a situation.

Li Long stopped talking. He had lived two lives. Although his life in the last life was not very good, at least it was a peaceful era. In the Fourth Squad, including the area of ​​Ma County, he saw a peaceful and prosperous country. In the short videos he saw in his later life, he had never seen fights in the countryside over homesteads, vegetable plots, etc. in the Fourth Squad.

Of course, there are also cases where two brothers fight over their parents’ land, or lose the family property in gambling, but generally speaking, as long as you don’t do anything stupid under the general order, you can live a very good life.

There is no such thing as village tyrants. If there is any problem, villagers will think of reporting to the Xinguang Public Security Hotline, or go to the county or Beiting to file a complaint.

The channels are unobstructed, so at least in Li Long's opinion, those messy things have never happened around him. He also laughed at those things like those who cut off contact with neighbors because of building houses, and those village tyrants occupying other people's residential land.

How is that possible? One family gets one acre and seven mu. That is very clear. For such a large piece of land, no family would fight with others for such a small space. What is there to fight for?

Later I found out that not all teams in the fourth group had such a large area. Every inch of land is valuable and it does exist in some places in my hometown.

After Zhao Hui said this, Li Long nodded.

"Once the market is opened up, everyone knows that you can make money in this business. One good piece of leather is equivalent to ten years of work. Just think about it, aren't there a lot of people who want to do this business? If I don't rush over, someone will get the news and come to buy the leather from you, then I will lose money, right? This business is not easy to do these days."

Zhao Hui sighed after he finished speaking:

"To be honest, Xiao Li, I think you are a very lucky person. This year, I traveled in southern Xinjiang for half a year, and later in northern Xinjiang, I heard Lao Chen say that you have good leather. I came over to take a look, and I found that you did have some, but you didn't sell it, so I thought it was a pity.

But later, Lao Jia called me and said that you got two good skins. To be honest, I didn't believe it. There are old hunters in southern Xinjiang. I have seen them. They hunted tigers when they were young. But I have been collecting skins for a few years. In recent years, he has only got one bear skin at most. The others are wolf skins or something. It's rare for someone like you to get bear skins and snow leopard skins every year!"

Li Long smiled and thought to himself, I can't say that I have a good relationship with other tribes now, so I have my spot in the deep mountains, so I can take what they hunt, right?

"By the way, where are your two children? I didn't bring anything for the children last time, so after I got home this time, I asked someone to buy two things for them." Zhao Hui took out a small cloth bag from his pocket, and after opening it, there were two silver bracelets inside.

Li Long smiled and said:

"Thank you for taking the trouble to make these bracelets for the two children." He was not dissatisfied because the silver bracelet Zhao Hui gave him was not as good as the gold padlock Jia Tianlong gave him.

A big part of the reason why Jia Tianlong gave the expensive gift was because he was surprised. He didn't expect that the stone would really coincide with his wife's pregnancy. He felt that the Li family had brought him luck.

Zhao Hui and Li Long had no relationship, but the other person made the silver bracelet with good intentions. It was a token of affection, and Li Long was of course very grateful.

Sister Yang was inside with the child. After Li Long said something, he and Zhao Hui went to see the child.

Two silver bracelets were worn on Mingming and Haohao's hands. The diameter of these bracelets could be enlarged or reduced. The two children were very curious. They put them on and started playing with them with a smile.

Seeing that Zhao Hui was not interested, Li Long said:
"Are you almost warm now? Come on, I'll take you to look at the leather, and you can take it if it suits you."

"Okay, okay." Zhao Hui was waiting for this sentence.

When Zhao Hui left the house, he pointed to the two boxes he brought with him and said:

"This is bacon and sausage made in my hometown. It's a specialty of our place. I'll give it to you to try."

"I'm so sorry." Li Long said with a smile, "Thank you for sending it all the way here... Thank you!"

"What are you thanking me for?" Zhao Hui was relieved to see that Li Long didn't despise him. "You can give me a chance to see such good leather, I should thank you."

He believed that this deal should be easy to make.

Li Long took Zhao Hui to the east wing, where leather was everywhere.

After Jia Tianlong left that time, Li Long tidied up the things here and put the leather in a special room to prevent other things from being exposed, which would be inconvenient.

After all, there are some tiger bones, ibex horns and other things here.

Li Long kept all his remaining jade and other things in another room. He also kept some antiques and cultural relics he had collected in recent years, as well as things his father brought back from his hometown and the strange statue he found in the stone buildings in the mountains.

As for those pieces of gold, and some more valuable things, especially the fine mutton-fat jade, they are not here, but in the room east of the bedroom.

When Zhao Hui entered the room and saw the leathers, he suddenly became excited.

There was no stove in here and the temperature was relatively low, but Zhao Hui didn't feel it at all. He grabbed the snow leopard skin in his hand.

The snow leopard skin felt a little hard because it had not been tanned, but Zhao Hui was an expert and knew that it was original leather. He gently pulled the hair on the skin, then spread his hands and found that the hair had not fallen off.

The hair feels soft, with some hard hairs in between.

This is a snow leopard skin from early winter, when the fur is at its best. Winter fur is more expensive than spring fur because it has a layer of fluff inside.

Why is Tibetan antelope skin so expensive? Isn't it because those ladies want to scrape the hair from it to make scarves?

"This is the best snow leopard skin." Zhao Hui sighed, "I have been collecting skins for several years, and I have collected several snow leopard skins, but none of them is as good as this one... As expected, winter skins are good, and this snow leopard is quite big, and its fur looks smooth. Oh... What a good thing!"

He looked at Li Long and said:
"Three thousand five, how about that?"

Didn’t you say it was three thousand before? Why did it increase again?
Li Long naturally didn't mind the money, he smiled and said: "As long as you don't lose money, I'm willing to do it."

Gu Xiaoxia didn't have any idea about snow leopard skins and didn't want to wear fur, so there was no point in keeping these skins.

At present, these skins can still be sold openly and no one cares.

In a few years, there will be an animal protection law, and if you want to sell these skins again, you will have to do it secretly.

Li Long has been an upright person in both of his lives. He might go hunting in a few years, but he feels that some things should be sold if possible to avoid being targeted.

Zhao Hui's mood suddenly improved when he saw Li Long agreed. At least this time, he was sure to make money.

He picked up another bear skin to look at. Bear skin was much larger than snow leopard skin. The bear skin he picked up was made by Li Long. There was no scratch on the whole skin. It was also winter skin. Although this skin was smaller than Talihar's, it was intact.

There were two bullet holes on the belly of Talihar's bear skin, and another one on the left front leg. Although it was not very obvious, for a professional like Zhao Hui, the skin was definitely affected.

"This intact one is 2,200 yuan, and this damaged one is 1,800 yuan. What do you think?" After looking at the leather, Zhao Hui discussed the price with Li Long.

"Okay." The price was higher than Li Long's expectations, so he had nothing to say.

"Those skins..." Zhao Hui looked at the other skins again.

Red deer skin, wolf skin, wild goat skin, roe deer skin, etc.

They are not the skins of domestic animals, and there are enough of them.

Zhao Hui felt like a mouse falling into a rice jar.

Although these leathers are not rare, they are available in large quantities and are all winter leathers with good fur and leather, so they are all good stuff.

All together, Zhao Hui paid Li Long 10,700 yuan for these leathers.

"Hey, I brought a total of 12,000 yuan, and this trip is almost not enough." Zhao Hui said with a smile, "Xiao Li, to be honest, I really didn't expect that you could come up with so many good things in just over a month... Not bad, not bad."

Li Long put away the stack of money and said with a smile:

"Well, I'm lucky."

It was indeed good luck, otherwise I would not have met Halimu and his family when I first entered the mountains, and then started such a wonderful life.

Of course, his attitude of treating others with sincerity also determined everything that happened later.

Zhao Hui was anxious to get the skins back, so he didn't stay at Li's house for long.

There were so many skins, filling three sacks, it was difficult for Zhao Hui to handle them all by himself.

When Li Long drove him to the station, he told Li Long that someone would pick him up in Wucheng, so he told Li Long not to worry.

On the way, Zhao Hui asked Li Long if there would be so many leathers every year. If so, he planned to open a processing workshop.

"If I resell these furs, I can make two to three thousand yuan," Zhao Hui said, "If I process them and sell the semi-finished products, I can make ten thousand yuan. If I have a fur shop, I can make even more money. You don't know that in some places now, rich women like to wear all kinds of furs..."

Zhao Hui was somewhat conflicted, but Li Long did not dare to give him any guarantees. Tianshan was not his own backyard, so how could he often get these good things?

It's luck if you meet him, but don't be disappointed if you don't meet Li Long.

He sent Zhao Hui to the station, helped him buy a ticket, and sent him on the train - the main thing was the sacks, which Zhao Hui definitely could not take care of by himself.

Li Long helped him move the sacks onto the roof rack and tied them up before coming down. Then he watched the car drive out of the station and drove the jeep back.

One block of the room was cleared out, but he had more than 10,000 yuan in his hand. It was hard to say which one was more valuable, but Li Long certainly did not regret it.

In winter, people's activities are much smaller. Li Long insisted on going back and forth between the fourth team and the big yard every week. The villagers didn't move much. The ice of the small lake was not very solid at the moment. Li Qingxia had nothing to do, so he asked Tao Jianshe, Li Jianguo and Tao Daqiang to break the ice hole, but they didn't get many fish.

The ice had only been frozen for a short time, and there was still a lot of oxygen in the water. The fish were not short of oxygen, so they did not go to the ice hole.

We didn’t catch many fish, so we couldn’t sell them all, but it was enough for our own consumption.

Li Long also went fishing and brought back some fresh fish, which he stewed and had for a meal.

When Li Long returned to Team 4 in late November, Xu Chengjun approached him.

Gu Xiaoxia took her two children to play in the house in the front yard. Li Juan and Qiangqiang played with them. Du Chunfang sat on the side and watched with a smile.

Li Jianguo, Li Long and Tao Daqiang were chatting in the east room. When Xu Chengjun came over on his bicycle, they were discussing what to plant in the fields next year besides crops.

At this time, wheat, corn, and sunflowers must be planted. After all, the payment of public grain continued until 2006. Although people no longer planted grain in the early years of the 21st century and the public grain was purchased, grain still had to be planted at least until the end of this century.

It's impossible to persuade them. How many years have we been able to eat fine grains every day? If you tell the villagers not to grow grains and to grow cash crops, it will be more profitable. It would be strange if they don't call you a spoon.

If you have food at home, you won't be worried. This saying, at least at this stage, is deeply rooted in people's hearts. Every household grows grain, and in addition to paying the public grain and selling the negotiated grain, they must leave at least enough food for the family to eat for a year.

Later, when grain became more abundant and sold at a lower price in the market, the villagers began to slowly convert all their land to growing cash crops.

The phenomenon of buying food to eat is no less than a fantasy for ordinary farmers in the fourth team, at least for now.

Li Jianguo has decided to plant sunflowers next year. Although the price of sunflowers in the market is not as high as that of melon seeds, they are in great demand and not many people plant them. The income may not be as good as that of the melon seeds in the first two years, but it is worse than growing grain.

Li Long planned to plant sugar beets in the 20 acres of saline-alkali land. He believed that even if the sugar factory did not harvest the sugar beets, he had so many animals to feed and could use them as feed. At least he would not lose money.

Tao Daqiang, Xie Yundong and others were all hesitating. Some were still thinking about whether to plant melons, while others were thinking about whether to plant sunflowers or beets.

In the past, they just had to follow the two Li brothers, but now that they are planting separately, they don’t know what to do.

Beets are easy to grow and take care of, but hard to dig. Sunflowers are easy to harvest, but I don't know how to sell them.

While they were discussing, Xu Chengjun knocked on the door.

"You're all here?" Seeing everyone cracking melon seeds and talking about Chuan Zi, Xu Chengjun was a little surprised. He smiled and said, "It's a good thing that you're all here. Let me tell you what's going on."

Li Long stood up and found a stool and handed it to Xu Chengjun, and then handed him a plate of sunflower seeds: "Come on, Captain, crack some sunflower seeds."

"Okay." Xu Chengjun was not polite. He grabbed a handful and sat down, knocking his head while saying, "The township has notified us that the militia training will begin in two days. Tomorrow I will take some people over to fetch the guns. Xiaolong, will you participate in the militia training this time?"

"I won't participate." Li Long waved his hand. "I have other things to do. There are many young people in our team, and the basic militia doesn't need someone like me. I won't participate."

"That's fine. By the way, this year I'm thinking of going to the uninhabited area in the west to hunt again. Do you want to go?"

"Yes, I'll go over in a few days. After two heavy snowfalls, a lot of grass has been covered. The yellow sheep in the sandbags in the north will probably run to the southern mountains again." Li Long said, "Anyway, there's nothing to do in winter, so I'll definitely go over to take a look."

Not only did he want to go and see, Li Xiangqian had actually asked Li Long when he would go to the west two days ago.

In fact, they could have gone there by themselves, but Li Long had a jeep and was more skilled in hunting than they were, so Li Xiangqian thought it would be better to go there with Li Long and the others.

Tao Daqiang must participate. Xie Yundong does not need to participate, as he is over 30 years old. There are many young men in their twenties in the team, so there is no need for people in their thirties to play.

It's not that they don't need it, but Xie Yundong and his people have participated in militia training for more than ten years and are old hands. To be honest, if they participate in the training, it may have a counterproductive effect.

On the contrary, the young guys are easier to manage, so Xu Chengjun didn't ask Xie Yundong and the others.

After talking about militia training, everyone's attention turned to winter hunting.

Except for people like Li Long who already have guns at home, everyone else can only train with live ammunition during this one month.

Both Xu Chengjun and Tao Daqiang were very happy to be able to go hunting openly with a gun. After all, except for the Li family, other families have not yet achieved the freedom to eat meat, so they are naturally happy to be able to eat meat for free.

"Captain, how about getting me some extra bullets then?"

"Okay, take some more tomorrow when you pull the gun." Xu Chengjun still didn't care about this request. "I still have some face in the village. I'll take some bullets and use them for training. No problem."

Li Long knew that in a few years, the training of the basic militia would not be organized by the village but by the township, and it would be difficult to get bullets at that time.

The more he can accumulate now, the better. Not only does he need it, but Halimu and his people in the mountains will also need it after the herders move to other pastures.

Otherwise, where would we get those dozens of skins?
In the past, at this time, the Nanshan State Ranch had already begun to collect weapons from the homes of herders in various pastoral teams. However, this year it had not started yet, and judging from the current situation, even if it started, these herders would not hand them in for a while.

In the past, they had guns but no bullets, and since no one supplied them with bullets, the gun was no better than a stick. Now that they had bullets, not only could they kill the wolves that threatened the sheep, they could also use the skins of the prey they hunted to exchange for the daily necessities they needed. How could they possibly hand them over?

When guns were strictly banned in the mid-1990s, you had no choice but to hand it in.

It's still a long time.

"There should be quite a few yellow sheep this year." Xu Chengjun was also thinking that if he could kill more, he could share some of the meat with the team members and then send some to the township armed forces department. In this way, he would have owed the favor and it would be convenient to ask for more bullets next year.

After talking about hunting, the next thing to do was to talk about next year's planting. Xu Chengjun didn't plan to leave, he also wanted to hear what others would plant next year.

The Li family has made it clear in the team that they will not plant melons next year, and he believes that Li Jianguo and his people are not lying.

But having tasted the sweetness of growing melons, Xu Chengjun also wanted to know what to plant next year to make money - it is not easy to make money by growing grain, and growing cash crops is too unstable.

He felt that Li Long was the most worldly-wise among the four teams, so it would be right to listen to him.

Although there are not many people in the team who have this kind of physiognomy, there are still some.

"You still have to be willing to use chemical fertilizers." Although Li Long does not plant, he hopes that everyone can understand this concept. "Use more chemical fertilizers so that more crops can be grown in the land. Otherwise, the yield will be low and everything will be wasted." (End of this chapter)