Chapter 570: Reaching out to help relatives and friends

The compound had been cooking for this period of time, so the ingredients were still very rich.

Liang Yuemei and Sister Yang were together, with two stoves, plus the three stoves in the house, the cooking speed wasn't slow.

Today at noon, they steamed rice and stir-fried vegetables. It was mainly because Du Chunfang couldn't eat pulled noodles, feeling they were too hard. And this time Li Jianguo pulled a bag of new rice over, saying it was newly milled.

Actually, the new rice Li Long brought back last time hadn't been eaten much. The rice at this time was truly very fragrant. When the rice was steamed and the pot was opened, the whole house was full of the fragrance of rice.

People at this time had a big appetite, so the portion of stir-fried vegetables was also large. There was a lot of oil rendered in the kitchen here, so Liang Yuemei was willing to put in a lot of oil. Sister Yang wasn't used to it at first, but seeing Liang Yuemei put in so much oil when stir-frying, she followed suit.

"Ever since Little Long could go into the mountains to hunt, the oil and meat used for cooking at home have increased," Liang Yuemei explained while stir-frying, "He said it's not fragrant if you use too little, and besides, it's not like we don't have it.

Little Long has truly grown capable in these two years."

"Yes, Uncle Li is truly capable. Ever since I grew up, I really haven't seen anyone more capable than him," Sister Yang sincerely agreed with this sentence.

Stir-fried meat with mushrooms, stir-fried meat with dried beans, stir-fried meat with chili skin, plus a stir-fried egg with chili.

Four dishes, plus rice soup, were very rich when placed on the table. Li Qing Xia joked:

"This is like a festival, it looks fragrant."

Li Juan and Li Qiang had been hungry for a long time. They had already become familiar with Han Fang. At this time, the three children washed their hands and helped serve bowls and dishes. For a time, the kitchen was also very lively.

The dining table in the compound's dining room wasn't large, so the women simply ate here, and the men went to the house to eat. Liang Yuemei and Sister Yang were also quick, directly dividing each dish into two plates, and one plate was served into the living room of the main house.

The three children ate in the dining room, the women chatted about family matters, and the four big men were also chatting while eating in the living room.

"Quite a few people bought agricultural materials this autumn," Gu Bo Yuan already had his own purchase channels, and he sighed while eating, "The enthusiasm for planting land after the household contract responsibility system is truly high. The seeds aren't enough to sell."

"That's simple. Next year, there will be more people planting melon seeds in our team, and some melon seed seeds can be put at your place to sell," Li Jianguo had some business sense, and said while eating, "Currently, more and more people know about your agricultural materials store, and more and more people know that you sell seeds. Naturally, people will come to ask next autumn."

"This is not bad," Gu Bo Yuan nodded, "This is good for both sides."

"Actually, we can also get some land specifically to plant seeds, but it's just a bit troublesome," Li Long thought that currently, there were relatively many people planting grain, and actually, the self-sufficiency rate of grain was already enough.

What wasn't enough was vegetables. Currently, there were relatively few people specifically planting vegetables. Later, village teams around the county seat with relatively little allocated land would start changing from planting grain to planting vegetables, and finally started building greenhouses on a scale.

But initial large-scale vegetable planting required seeds. For example, vegetables that were resistant to storage like bamboo shoots and carrots were actually quite popular at this time.

But the seeds on the market simply weren't enough for those who wanted to plant vegetables to share.

It was just relatively troublesome that these seeds, except for bamboo shoots which could bear seeds in the same year, others required two years. Plant them out in the first year, dig them out in the autumn and bury them in the sand of the vegetable cellar, dig them out again in early spring of the second year and plant them in the land as seedlings, and wait for them to bear seeds in the autumn.

Sugar beets were also like this, so they were considered relatively troublesome.

Li Long had once thought that this was a way to develop the economy, but the time cycle for collecting benefits was too long.

Li Jianguo listened to this matter, pondered slowly, and then said:

"Can try with a small piece of land. Large-scale is not worth it."

"Can also plant some sunflower," Li Long continued to analyze, "Didn't a private fried goods factory come to look for goods in the autumn? They couldn't just want melon seeds, right? They must also want sunflower seeds, right?"

Sunflower is relatively common in the market in later generations, and then horse-tooth melon seeds emerged, which are actually special white sunflower seeds. This is also not bad.

It's just that the white sunflower seeds and sunflower seeds at this time are about the same size, and everyone in this stage can't quite accept the thin appearance of horse-tooth melon seeds, feeling that there are too few kernels, which is not worth it.

They analyzed while eating. Soon, the vegetables were eaten, and the rice in the bowls was also eaten.

Eating two years ago, there was little vegetable and much rice, so they needed to eat more rice and less vegetable. Currently, this situation didn't exist. Even the few children were eating slowly, not fighting or grabbing, and none were lacking.

It looked quite good.

The three children were all very well-behaved, so whether it was Liang Yuemei, Sister Yang, or Gu Xiaoxia, they were all very happy looking at them.

After eating, chatting for a while, feeling a bit relaxed, Gu Bo Yuan and Gu Xiaoxia went out one after another, and Li Long also drove the tractor chugging out at the same time.

He intended to send the things from the Supply and Marketing Cooperative over right now.

The reason he wanted so many *kelangzi* sheep was to send them to the leaders and various divisions of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative.

As a temporary worker at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, Li Long had done quite a few things in the name of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and had earned quite a bit of money.

He couldn't take all the good things for himself. Although Director Wei and Li Xiangqian supported him, there were many others below.

Li Long intended to take advantage of this end-of-year opportunity, in the name of the herdsmen, to send some mutton to each division as a benefit.

Actually, he believed that although he was in the name of the herdsmen, everyone knew the mutton was obtained by him, so they had to owe him this favor.

The tractor chugging into the courtyard of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and then Li Long saw Li Xiangqian walk to the gate.

"Why did you think of coming over today? Didn't I hear you went into the mountains?" Li Xiangqian should have just arrived too.

"Herdsmen friends in the mountains asked me to pull some meat over to send to everyone. They are very grateful for our cooperative's support and help to them," Li Long said official words, his voice very loud, "So they sent some mutton and asked me to distribute it to everyone."

"Yo, these herdsmen friends are quite righteous," Li Xiangqian immediately understood his meaning, "Let's go, let's go find the Director; the Director also just arrived."

Director Wei actually heard the movement outside, but he was the Director and wouldn't easily leave the office unless a leader came or something big happened.

After Li Xiangqian and Li Long entered the office and reported this matter, Director Wei's eyes lit up, and he said very excitedly:

"Herdsmen friends are truly very righteous. We only did some insignificant small things—by the way, Little Li, do you know if they have any difficulties?"

Director Wei had big ideas; this was not just a matter of face.

Li Long immediately thought of that matter. Should he mention it? (End of chapter)

Gu Xiaoxia was stunned for a moment; she really hadn't expected Sister Yang's background to be so... pitiful.

"Fortunately, Xiao Fang's father was good to me. When he was around, I felt I lived quite well. It's just that there wasn't much land at home, and with many mouths to feed, we couldn't get enough to eat, so he followed people to the Northern Frontier. Who would have thought..."

Gu Xiaoxia already knew or had guessed most of what happened next.

She couldn't help but say:

"Then don't go back in the future. Later, find Brother Han and have him transfer your household registration over. See, life in the Northern Frontier is better than back home anyway."

"That's for sure!" When Sister Yang heard Gu Xiaoxia say this, she truly smiled. "Life here is really good. Of course, it's also thanks to her uncle; otherwise, I don't know where the two of us would be freezing right now."

Li Long didn't know what the women were discussing; he drove the tractor, chugging along, to the entrance of Liang Donglou's house.

Although Li Long had been here more than once, the chugging sound of the tractor still drew quite a few people out to watch, just like ten years later when a car entered a village, people would come out to see whose relative's car it was.

Liang Wenyu had long heard the sound of the tractor. Seeing it was Li Long, he immediately smiled and opened the gate, letting the tractor drive into the courtyard.

The snow in the courtyard was swept very clean, and things were arranged very neatly, neater than at his eldest brother's house.

To be honest, Li Long actually wanted to complain a bit after making this comparison. His eldest brother and sister-in-law were both the type who would rather work than tidy up the house, so the Li family's courtyard could barely be considered clean, but it was a bit hard to call it neat.

Of course, putting basic things in their place was no problem, but one only had to look at the spare room to know that things there were piled in one heap here and another there, not as neatly planned as here.

The tractor engine cut out, Li Long got off, and Liang Donglou and Chen Xiuzhu also walked out of the house.

"Why did you come, Without Xiao Long?" Liang Donglou asked. "Come inside and warm up."

"Alright." Li Long went to the tractor trailer and lifted out the sheep. "This is a sheep I got from the mountains. My eldest brother took the ones from their side, and since I was free, I brought this one over for you."

"Hey, Without Xiao Long, you keep bringing these things; you've spoiled our appetites." Liang Donglou knew he couldn't refuse, so he made a joke.

"If you hadn't sent things to my eldest brother and sister-in-law back then, Uncle Liang, I would have been starving," Li Long also said with a smile. "Compared to that, what is this?" What he was doing now could at best be called adding flowers to a brocade, while that was truly sending charcoal in the snow.

"You keep bringing that up. What we sent back then... sigh, it was just some coarse grain."

"That saved lives back then."

The sheep carcass was placed in the spare room. An iron hook hung from the roof beam, and Li Long easily threaded the sheep's leg onto the hook. Liang Wenyu wanted to help, but didn't expect Li Long to finish the hanging so easily.

"Without Xiao Long, you really have a lot of strength." Liang Wenyu was a bit surprised. This sheep looked to be over twenty kilograms, yet Li Long held it up to his head with one hand and used the other to jab the iron hook into the frozen meat, and he just easily jabbed it in!

"Heh, I just practice when I'm free." Li Long joked.

The mutton was hung in mid-air because there were many rats here, and he was afraid of it being bitten.

Right now, it was just house mice. In another dozen years or so, as the exchange and transport of materials between the frontier and the interior became frequent, the train cars bringing goods would bring the large black rats from the interior, and they would soon run rampant here.

There were many small rats here, and many people in the countryside used rat poison, which caused some dogs and cats that ate the poisoned rats to die as well.

These large rats were not afraid of people, nor were they afraid of cats or dogs; they even dared to confront people, cats, and dogs.

Most pet dogs and cats raised in cities were no match for these rats and would be scared away. For a time, the Li Hua cats in the countryside were extremely rare, and these rats were particularly rampant.

There was no other way; to protect their grain and goods, people in the countryside began using large rat traps, as ordinary rat traps were useless.

!.

Of course, the kind of sticky rat boards for house mice seen in short videos were also of little use.

Fortunately, later on, the Li Hua cats slowly increased in number. After all, there was less grain being grown, the rats' natural enemies increased, and there was less food—small rats would even become food for large rats—so as the Li Hua cats increased, the ecology slowly balanced out.

After hanging the mutton, the two entered the house, and Chen Xiuzhu had already poured tea.

"How have you been lately, Without Xiao Long?" Liang Donglou asked.

"Not bad. My wife is pregnant. A while ago, I went into the mountains to deliver some grain and daily necessities to some herdsman friends who had returned from transhumance, and they gave me some pelts and mutton."

Li Long didn't bring pelts this time. After all, for the people of the Northern Frontier in this day and age, pelts didn't have much use; their greatest use was to be sold for money.

In Li Long's view, for a very long period, the people here in Ma County were actually somewhat disenchanted with fur products, including furs.

As for life in the wild, in the absence of protection laws, everyone hunted them, firstly to sell the pelts for money, and secondly to eat the meat.

Later, when pelts weren't worth much, no one hunted them anymore. By the 2020s in Little Haizi, water rats, or muskrats, began to run rampant. Why? Because they reproduced a lot and died little. Since the locals didn't hunt them, they had no natural enemies in the water.

"Then you must accompany your wife well later on," Chen Xiuzhu said.

"Mm, I basically won't go out in the winter," Li Long said. "I plan not to go to militia training either; I'll just rest during this time."

After chatting about daily life, Li Long began to talk about the main point.

"Uncle Liang, I want to say something and see if you are willing or not."

Liang Donglou then said:

"Go ahead."

"In the summer, I went to Kuitun and got a combine harvester, specifically for harvesting wheat."

"I know about this; your sister-in-law told me when she brought the melon seeds over. You made quite a bit of money, right?" Liang Donglou said with a smile.

Liang Wenyu looked envious. Right now, he was still using a horse-drawn carriage, the number 76 one that his sister-in-law had led over.

Who wouldn't want to drive a tractor?

"I made quite a bit. In one summer, one wheat season, I made about the price of a tractor," Li Long said. "It's just a bit tiring."

"Hey, that much?" This time even Liang Donglou was surprised. "Can it be that much?"

"Yes," Li Long said. "Look, one tractor with a combine harvester can harvest 150 mu of wheat a day. At two yuan per mu, that's 300 yuan..."

"That much?" This time it was Liang Wenyu who exclaimed.

"And that's because the tractor can't be used all the time, otherwise the engine can't take it," Li Long said. "People can't take it either; it's too hot, the sun is unbearable."

"Three hundred a day, in a month..."

"You can't harvest like that all the time. Nearby is fine, but for far places, plus the road, you can only harvest 80 or 100 mu a day, sometimes even less," Li Long said. "And you have to deduct fuel costs. Fortunately, fuel is cheap now."

"That really adds up to a lot." Liang Donglou nodded, then asked:

"What are your plans? Are you planning to come here to harvest when the wheat is harvested next year? That's no problem; I'll have Wenyu introduce you when the time comes."

"No, no, no," seeing that Liang Donglou had misunderstood his meaning, Li Long said, "My idea is that I will lend Wenyu a sum of money so he can buy a tractor with a combine harvester, and then he should be the one to harvest the wheat for the commune here."

"What?" Liang Wenyu was stunned.

Such a good thing... was it his turn?

"Then... then what are you after?" Liang Donglou was also stunned for several seconds before sighing:

"You let us do all the money-making work, then you... hmm, I see. How about this, look, harvesting wheat is two yuan per mu, how about Wenyu gives you one yuan? Of course, the money for the tractor and combine harvester is still yours."

Liang Donglou didn't want to feel guilty about making money.

Li Long hurriedly said:

"No, no, no, that's not what I mean. Actually, I'm going back to the team in a day or two, and I plan to do the same with the people in my team, but Wenyu doesn't need to. We are our own people. My thought is that if others are going to do this work, it's better to let our own people do it. Since our own people can clearly make this money, why not make it?"

"That won't do, I can't take advantage of you for nothing," Liang Wenyu couldn't take it first. "Whatever you do with your team, we'll do the same."

"Can that be the same? Those people in the team are outsiders, we are our own people," Li Long stopped him:

"Wenyu, I'm not short of this money. I just think that since I have some money here, and my eldest brother's side is developing well, and you, Uncle Liang, are not in my team, I can't just ignore you, right?"

The topic was dropped, and the matter was basically settled.

Li Long left 5,000 yuan for Liang Wenyu, and he would deliver the combine harvester when the time came.

Li Long left, and the Liang family looked at the 5,000 yuan, all somewhat speechless.

"Dad, I plan to give Li Long a share of the money earned from harvesting wheat after I buy the tractor," Liang Wenyu suddenly said. They no longer used the terms "older brother" and "younger brother" with Li Long; both had gotten used to it.

"Mm, that's the right thing to do." Chen Xiuzhu agreed first.

"I'm just afraid he won't accept it." Liang Donglou saw further. Currently, there wasn't a single family in the team capable of buying a tractor, mainly because the production team itself had little land and currently had no cash crops to grow.

Next year, if they grew melon seeds themselves, bought a tractor, and used a combine harvester, they would directly leave ordinary families far behind.

If this continued, as long as they maintained it, they would become richer and richer in the village and always occupy a leading position.

He really hadn't expected Li Long to have such great ability before.

"Go, chop off a leg of that sheep and send it to your second sister," Liang Donglou suddenly said to Liang Wenyu.

"Then this money, this tractor..."

"Buy it next spring," Liang Donglou said. "Let your mother keep the money for now. The tractor isn't needed in winter and is easily damaged. Buy it in the spring, and when you're free, go learn more from Li Long, otherwise, you'll make a fool of yourself if you break it."

Liang Wenyu didn't resist this at all. After all, young people still had some vanity. He went to chop the sheep leg, but his mind was already thinking that next year, when he drove the tractor, the looks the people in the team gave him would be completely different. (End of chapter)