Reborn in 1977

After circling the field, Chen Fan and Zhang Wenliang were invited to Zhong Zihong's house to sit and wait for dinner.

Besides Zhong Zihong and Wu Fengfei, those accompanying them today included Wu Fengwen, a student from the veterinary class, and Old Peng, who had once been to the provincial hunting team.

He was specially invited by Zhong Zihong because he knew Chen Fan was interested in hunting.

Old Peng was very thin, almost skin and bones, but very energetic. It was impossible to tell how old he was. His face was dark and leathery, with some wrinkles on his forehead. He always had a smile on his face, smoking his pipe and not saying much, but he liked to size people up with his eyes.

It was unknown if this was a habit left over from his hunting days.

Chen Fan was very interested in Old Peng. Whether before or after the transmigration, he had never heard of a professional hunter in Yunhu City.

After all, Yunhu was mainly about water. Besides the few small mountains in the urban area, there were a few low peaks in the two counties below. This kind of place definitely couldn't produce excellent hunters.

But Old Peng was able to enter the provincial hunting team, which was extraordinary.

Provincial hunting team… what was that again?

Anyway, anything with "provincial" in its name must be extraordinary.

When in doubt, ask.

Seeing that Chen Fan was very interested in the hunting team, Old Peng wasn't stingy with a few words.

He smoked his pipe and said with a smile, "The hunting team is a unit under the jurisdiction of the Jiangnan Province Cereals, Oils and Food Import and Export Company…"

Hearing the first sentence, Chen Fan's eyes went wide.

In this era, the most important task of economic units was to earn foreign exchange for the country.

But not all units were qualified to earn foreign exchange. They had to have an import and export license. The higher authorities established a specialized import and export company responsible for foreign trade in various industries across the country.

For example, the 13 units that participated in the first Canton Fair were all state-owned professional import and export companies.

There were mechanical, chemical, agricultural, and cereal and oil categories. The first two mainly focused on imports, while the local specialties and cereal and oil categories bore the heavy responsibility of export and earning foreign exchange. With imports and exports, almost all foreign exchange was controlled by these companies and then used according to plan.

So, this provincial hunting team was also used to earn foreign exchange?

Then its level and power were not low!

Just as Chen Fan was in a daze, Old Peng continued, "There is a restaurant in the provincial capital that specializes in game. They are very skilled at processing game and have a good reputation among overseas Chinese, so our hunting team is under the name of this restaurant, specializing in hunting. The prey we hunt is then handed over to the restaurant for processing and export to earn foreign exchange."

Chen Fan looked at him curiously, "Do you only operate in the provincial capital? Or can you hunt anywhere in the province?"

Old Peng said with a smile, "Not only the whole province, but we can go anywhere in the country with a letter of introduction. Moreover, the members of our hunting team are not all from this province. Although they are mainly famous hunters from this province, if we hear that a hunter from another province is famous, we will also invite them over. After they come, they will mostly go to the mountains and forests they are familiar with.

So we have been to the old forests of the Northeast, and we have also been to the Shiwan Mountains in Guangxi. We have also hunted tigers in Hunan. If you want to know where the tiger infestation is most serious in the country, it is definitely Hunan.

In Leiyang alone, more than 100 tigers were killed in just a few years, all by a man named Chen Qifang and his son. In addition, Hengyang is also similar, and the hunters in Yanling County are also very good at hunting tigers, and are often invited to other parts of the country to teach tiger hunting experience.

Compared with the South China tiger, the Siberian tiger in the Northeast is more ferocious, but it does not form groups, so it is very easy to hunt."

Chen Fan swallowed. It was the first time he had heard someone say that the Siberian tiger was easy to hunt.

After a pause, he asked again, "Have you ever hunted a tiger?"

Old Peng took a puff of his pipe, exhaled a puff of smoke, and said with a smile, without any change in his expression, "Hunt, why not? A tiger skin can be sold for 3,000 US dollars, and tiger bones and tiger penises are also in great demand. Tigers have always been in short supply. We hunt and sell one at a time, and we also get bonuses.

It's a pity that there are still too few tigers. What we mainly hunt are other prey, pheasants, wild ducks, deer, roe deer, yellow sheep, wild boars, hares, as long as it's game, we hunt it.

I remember that the first place I went was Gu County, Henan. At that time, a team of 15 people could hunt more than 20 wild sheep and 5 wild boars a day, and occasionally they could hunt one or two leopards or wild wolves, and they could also hunt one or two hundred other small animals."

As he spoke, he pointed outside and said with a smile, "Just like the ones we hunted today, they used to be all over the mountains and fields, and they were very easy to hunt."

So in his eyes, foxes and weasels were small animals.

Zhang Wenliang also listened attentively, and asked curiously, "Have you ever hunted leopards? Are leopards easy to hunt?"

Old Peng shook his head and said with a smile, "Leopards are not easy to hunt, even harder than tigers. The main reason is that leopards move quickly. As soon as they find something wrong, they run away, and you can't catch up with them. But if you can get close to a leopard, it's also very easy to hunt.

You all know about the 'Female Wu Song' Chen Chuanxiang in the Shennongjia Forest Area in Hubei two years ago, right? It was in the newspaper."

Then everyone had an awkward smile on their faces.

Zhang Wenliang, Zhong Zihong, Wu Fengfei, and Wu Fengwen didn't read the newspaper, unless they attended a team study session, otherwise they would get a headache when they saw the newspaper and would run away as soon as possible.

And Chen Fan didn't know because it had been too long, and he hadn't come over at that time.

Old Peng smiled while smoking, "It doesn't matter if you haven't seen it. It's about a woman in the forest area, 19 years old, who killed a leopard with her bare hands. At that time, the newspaper wrote about it in a flowery way, as if she had fought with Wu Song for a long time, but in fact, she took the opportunity to jump on the leopard's back from behind when the leopard pounced on a person, strangled the leopard's neck, kicked the leopard's waist, and then the others swarmed up and beat the leopard to death. If it were a tiger, she probably wouldn't be able to do it."

(Newspaper report)

After that, Old Peng told several stories about his time in the hunting team, either hunting tigers or hunting wild wolves.

What he was most proud of was that even the leaders of the provincial import and export company had to coax them at that time. A special car followed behind them every day, and every time a certain amount of prey was hunted, the car would pull the prey back, and then come back non-stop to serve them.

In this era, there were fewer cars than airplanes decades later. The car drivers were all arrogant and didn't care about ordinary county-level leaders, but they carefully served the hunting team. No wonder Old Peng looked so proud.

Old Peng chatted for a while, and finally said, "But the year before last, when I followed the team into the mountains, I accidentally broke my leg and had to withdraw from the hunting team. Originally, the import and export company wanted to arrange for me to help in the restaurant, responsible for processing the prey.

After all, we hunters have some skills in processing prey, and it wouldn't be a waste of resources to go there.

But when I thought about it, I decided to forget it."

He smoked his pipe, his eyes a little blurred, "I have hunted all my life, and I have killed at least fifty or sixty thousand prey. I don't know how much killing I have committed. Maybe that leg break was a warning from God.

I thought about it again and again, and decided not to hunt anymore, and not to kill anymore. Anyway, I have saved a lot of money after working in the hunting team for so many years, so I simply retired."

Zhong Zihong next to him continued his words and said, "So you followed your daughter and came here to retire?"

Old Peng laughed and said, "I'm the only one left in my hometown. What's the point of staying there? Anyway, it's not far from here, and my son-in-law is also a good person, so I simply followed my daughter over here to retire."

Seeing that Chen Fan and Zhang Wenliang were a little puzzled, Zhong Zihong smiled at them and said, "Old Peng is not from here, nor is he from Yunhu. He is from the neighboring city. His daughter's name is Peng Huixia. She married into our team three years ago. The two of them met a few years ago when our team's sideline team went to their place to earn money. Old Peng came over a few months later, and he recovered from his injury for a long time.

There are many mountains in their area, and the harvest is not as good as ours, so it is not uncommon for people to marry into Yunhu. Also, many people there can hunt. Hearing his daughter say that Old Peng can hunt and has worked in the provincial hunting team, I thought he was an ordinary hunter."

As he spoke, he turned to look at Old Peng and said with a smile, "But I didn't expect that you were hiding your skills. If Teacher Chen hadn't come over today, we wouldn't know your background."

Old Peng laughed and waved his hand and said, "What's hiding my skills? My leg is lame now, and I've lost half of my skills. Besides, there are no high mountains and deep valleys in Yunhu, and the weather is good every year, and it's a land of fish and rice. I can't use my hunting skills here. What's so good about mentioning it?"

At this time, Wu Fengfei asked curiously, "Master Peng, the house of Dajiang, I'm afraid you paid for him to repair it, right?"

"That's not it, that's not it."

Old Peng waved his hand repeatedly and said sternly, "My son-in-law's house was repaired with his own money. I just added some furniture for him, as a contribution to living here."

After a pause, he suddenly sighed faintly, "In the past, relying on my great skills, and it was still early to retire, I didn't consider things too far ahead. At that time, I took a salary of 90 yuan a month, and there was also a subsidy of 1.5 yuan a day, so I could have 135 yuan a month. As a result, in addition to the living expenses for the family, basically all the other money was thrown into the restaurant, and I ate it all up, and I didn't save much money.

Now that I can't hunt anymore, I can only rely on some skills to earn some small money to live on, which can't be compared with the past."