Chapter 693: It wasn

"One yuan and fifty cents per mu," Li Long said. "Of course, you can also trade with hides, deer antlers, jade, or things like that. Think about it, we work hard to drive the tractor up the mountain to cut grass, using up labor and fuel. Look over there..."

Li Long pointed to the diesel barrel still in the trailer:

"The amount of fuel used every day is not small. That barrel of fuel costs over a hundred yuan, and after cutting the grass for two or three households, we have to use up a whole barrel..."

These words not only shocked Tuerxun but also startled Halimu.

So it turned out that Li Long's tractor grass-cutting was this expensive.

Of course, he didn't know that Li Long had actually exaggerated by at least double. Furthermore, he had blurred the concepts. How big the grass fields of two or three households were wasn't fixed; it could be over a thousand mu, or it could be just a few hundred, as each household's grass field wasn't strictly divided by a certain quantity.

With him saying it like this, Tuerxun actually felt that one yuan and fifty cents per mu wasn't considered expensive—however, no matter what, the herdsmen couldn't afford this money.

But to have them go cut grass according to the original plan, Tuerxun couldn't bring himself to do it either. He had drunk with his tribesmen two days ago and had patted his chest to guarantee to others that he would definitely be able to get the tractor over to cut the grass, saving effort and trouble.

Now, it was awkward.

At this moment, the sound of horse hooves came from afar, and everyone looked over, which just happened to ease the awkwardness.

Two horses ran over from the mountain. Li Long could see that the one riding on the horse was Talihar, and the other was his good brother Zhate.

The two of them galloped toward this side one after the other. Li Long could see that Talihar's horse was also carrying something; it looked like a wild goat, and also like a roe deer.

Zhate's horse was also carrying one, and it looked slightly smaller in size.

The two horses ran over, and Halimu said with a smile:

"It seems Talihar is getting better and better at hunting. He's caught something for three days in a row; he's impressive."

"Zhate is not bad either," Li Long also praised along.

Zhate was a bit shorter than Talihar, but his build was more sturdy, and he looked a bit simple and honest.

Adili and Tuerxun were a bit confused, looking at them. They still had time to hunt?

But thinking about Li Long's tractor being placed here to cut grass, that was normal.

The two people riding horses arrived in front of them and saw Li Long, as well as Tuerxun and Adili.

After they dismounted, they didn't go to greet Adili and Tuerxun, but instead greeted Li Long enthusiastically.

"You two are impressive," Li Long said with a smile, "Where did you hunt these?"

He had already seen that both of them had hunted roe deer; Talihar had hunted a male, and Zhate had hunted a female.

"In the mountains south of our winter camp," Talihar said while moving the roe deer down. "In that gully, you can often see such things appear."

The two of them put the roe deer down and then began to skin them skillfully.

Tuerxun and Adili were a bit awkward. The herdsmen in their own team didn't greet them, but instead had a very good relationship with a Han person, which made them a bit unhappy.

Tuerxun didn't want to stay here anymore, and he said to Li Long:

"I feel that one yuan and fifty cents is still too expensive..."

"Then let it be. Anyway, those people on our team are quite busy now." Li Long saw that Tuerxun actually felt that this price was about right; after all, he had already said that other things could be used as substitutes, and if they really wanted to trade, it actually wasn't that expensive.

Cutting grass for herdsmen had one advantage: it was several hundred mu at once, without needing to move camps frequently.

There was also a disadvantage, which was that most of it was sloping land, which was a challenge for driving skills, and going uphill consumed fuel. If the grass field wasn't cleaned up, it was also easy to break the harvester's blades.

Putting these things together, it was a bit more troublesome.

Although Li Long wanted to take those few people of his to earn money, he didn't want to make them troubled. After all, those people weren't like Halimu and the others; it was impossible for them to clean up the things in the grass field so conscientiously, and the risk was not small.

Otherwise, Li Long would have called out one yuan—actually, for so many grass fields, even if it was one yuan per mu to cut grass, it would be worth it; after all, cutting grass wasn't as delicate as cutting wheat.

Now the initiative was in his own hands, and he wasn't nervous at all, so while Tuerxun and Adili were hesitating and discussing, he still had the heart to look at the two roe deer that had just been hunted.

Both roe deer looked quite young, weighing about thirty or forty kilograms. The skin was easy to peel, or rather, Talihar and Zhate both had very good skinning techniques, so they quickly peeled off the skin and then opened the chest.

"Do you plan to eat them?" Tuerxun asked.

"Take them back for Li Long," Zhate opened the chest without raising his head, and a burst of visceral gas sprayed out, which fumigated Tuerxun.

"They gave me what they hunted," Li Long said. "I teach them how to drive the tractor; this is a win-win."

"What is a win-win?" Tuerxun didn't quite understand.

"It means both they and I won," Li Long explained, and then went to help. After opening the chest, the heart, liver, and lungs were fine, but the stomach and intestines all had to be washed.

At this time, perhaps except for the blood which couldn't be collected, the rest couldn't be wasted.

After all, although the Li family could eat meat at every meal, others didn't have this treatment.

Tuerxun originally wanted to get close to Li Long, but seeing that Li Long was impervious to soft and hard tactics, he had no other way.

Since he had already agreed with his tribesmen, he gritted his teeth and thought about agreeing to it.

Even if they couldn't pay with money, it would be fine to let the tribesmen pay with hides and such things.

Anyway, although he had collected most of the hides, deer antlers, and such at low prices over the past two years, what he collected were all of good quality. He didn't look down on those of average quality, and this time they could be used to trade for the cost of the tractor cutting grass.

Since he had decided, Tuerxun didn't hesitate anymore. He walked over and squatted beside Li Long, not minding the visceral smell coming from the stomach and intestines, and said:

"How about this, Comrade Li Long, in principle, I agree with your idea of using mountain goods, hides, deer antlers, and jade from the mountains to trade for your people using tractors to cut grass. However, the price of these things..."

"Let both sides discuss it," Li Long said. "After all, the market price is changing, and the grade of the things isn't something we can decide. Fortunately, I have some experience, and I think those herdsmen themselves have a bottom line in their hearts. By the way, Captain Tuerxun, are you sure you want my people to take tractors to cut grass?"

"Sure, sure." Tuerxun was very decisive in this regard.

"That's good. Next, let's talk about the cooperation," Li Long said. "These things all have to be agreed upon beforehand. Once agreed, we will follow it later. Otherwise, it will be easy to argue later, and that would be troublesome."

"Fine, you speak." Tuerxun knew this was the main topic and didn't feel Li Long was troublesome. Having experienced many things, he knew that this was what was important right now.

"My people will go to your pasture to cut grass, and you have to provide lunch. If we can't come back on the same day because the grass field is big, then the meals for that day must be provided."

"This is no problem." Providing a few meals was no problem. Even if Li Long didn't say it, Tuerxun knew that the herdsmen wouldn't let the drivers go hungry.

"The second point, and also the most important one, is that the herdsmen need to go through the grass field in advance. The big rocks, shrubs, and such inside must be moved out or cut down. Otherwise, the harvester will break."

"What if some rocks are too big to move?" Adili knew that in some places in the mountain grass fields, there were indeed quite a lot of big rocks. "Then mark them out, at least let the driver know where there are rocks. Say it in advance, so that when cutting grass, we can go around them."

"Fine, this is no problem." Tuerxun knew that what Li Long said was all for the convenience of cutting grass. If the harvester was really broken, the driver would suffer a loss, and the owner of the grass field would also have to cut the grass by hand; it would be a lose-lose.

"Also, the money needs to be settled on the spot. That is, cut one piece of grass field, collect the money or goods for one piece of grass field. We can't settle the account all together at the end."

"Can do, this is no problem. I will go back today and tell them about these things." As a captain, once Tuerxun decided to do something, he had the ability to act.

The main thing was that the grass-cutting season had already arrived. If they couldn't cut the grass as soon as possible, there wouldn't be enough grass to eat when the livestock moved back later, and that would be a big loss.

If the loss was too big, he, as a captain, couldn't bear it either.

"Good, then shall we start cutting grass tomorrow? Where should I take people?" Li Long asked.

"You know the mountain pass over at Taxi River, right?" The herdsmen of the animal husbandry team were relatively scattered, and Tuerxun's own tribesmen were in that area, so he naturally had to prioritize his own tribesmen. "How many harvesters can you bring?"

"About three, not certain, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. How many do you want?" Li Long thought about the harvesters he still had: Xie Yun's, Tao Daqiang's, and Liang Dacheng's. Of course, he could also count Liang Wenyu.

"Let me think..." Tuerxun originally thought that it would be good if Li Long could get one more harvester over there, but he didn't expect there were more? Three? Then he really had to think carefully.

"Then let's make it three." Tuerxun actually wanted one more, but let's see the situation for now.

(Note: The text contains a repeating filler phrase here, which is ignored in translation.)

Li Long nodded and asked again:

"Are we all going to the Taxi River mountain pass tomorrow?"

"Yes, the grass field over there is big."

"Fine." Li Long knew that this trip would likely require staying for a few days, but since they could earn money, he estimated that Xie Yun and the others would be willing.

After Tuerxun finalized these things, he and Adili were about to leave on horseback. Li Long pointed to the meat in the pot and asked:

"Not staying to eat meat?"

"Not eating, not eating." Tuerxun waved his hand. "There are things to do back there, and I still need to go to the herdsmen to tell them to prepare in advance."

Thinking about it, that was right. Their horses weren't as fast as Li Long's jeep, so they naturally had to go back to prepare first.

Li Long originally intended to stay in the mountains for a while longer, but now that he had taken on such a job, he couldn't stay for long.

After Tuerxun and the others left, Halimu walked to Li Long's side and said:

"I didn't expect the cost of tractor grass-cutting to be so high."

"No, no." Li Long hurriedly waved his hand. He knew Halimu had misunderstood and said with a smile, "It's not that high. We are cutting grass, so that's the fuel cost. Just like cutting a piece of grass field for you, the cost is only one or two hides.

Naturally, I have to say a bit more to them. We are friends, we are our own people, they are different."

Halimu then felt relieved.

At noon, the meat was cooked, and those herdsmen in Yushanjiang's grass field came back to eat meat. Yushanjiang himself also drove a tractor over, and by the way, wanted to refuel.

After Li Long finished eating and demonstrated the refueling process to them, he looked at the tractor and harvester again. There were no problems, it seemed Yushanjiang was still quite careful driving the tractor.

After saying a few more precautions, Li Long left with some roe deer meat—originally he didn't intend to take it, but Talihar insisted that he take at least one roe deer away, saying that it couldn't be stored in the mountains, and there were two of these things, and it wouldn't taste good if eaten too much—

Anyway, there were plenty of excuses.

Li Long took the meat of one of them away, as he was in a hurry to go to the Fourth Team to confirm the tractor grass-cutting matter.

The jeep drove out of the mountains. Li Long first went to the big courtyard in the county, dropped off a portion of the meat, told Gu Xiaoxia, and then drove toward the Fourth Team.

Sister Yang looked at the meat in the kitchen and said to Gu Xiaoxia with a smile:

"Her uncle is really impressive, he can bring back meat every day. In this day and age, being able to eat meat every day is much more impressive than the landlords and rich people in the past."

Gu Xiaoxia smiled, looked at the two children babbling there, shook her head and said:

"It's just that he's busy all day long..."

"That's a man, he's a rake for raking money, so he has to go out to earn money. A woman is a box for storing money, just store the money well and keep the house tidy," Sister Yang added.

"Hey, Sister Yang, you know quite a lot, it's all in sets."

"That's all from listening to those old aunts in the village when I was young."

Li Long first went to Tao Daqiang's house. He felt that Tao Daqiang should be interested in going to cut grass.

"Do we have to live outside?" Tao Daqiang asked.

"Yes, the possibility is quite high. People's grass fields are all of the three to five hundred mu kind, can't be finished in a day, and it wastes time on the road back and forth," Li Long said.

"Then I still won't go, there's a lot of work at home, and there are children." Tao Daqiang's refusal made Li Long a bit surprised.

"That's fine, then I'll go ask Brother Yun and Dacheng." Li Long didn't feel anything about this; it was normal for Tao Daqiang to have concerns, and putting his family first was not wrong.

As soon as Xie Yun heard that he could earn one yuan and fifty cents per mu and that it was a large piece of grass field, he immediately agreed.

There wasn't particularly much work at home now, so it was just the right time to take this opportunity to earn some more.

Liang Dacheng had no problem either. Li Long then drove the jeep back to his eldest brother's house.

He thought that since Tao Daqiang wasn't going, he would just let his eldest brother go. His eldest brother's harvester had been taken away by his own side, so he could use Tao Daqiang's harvester.

"One yuan and fifty cents per mu, just cutting grass?" Li Jianguo thought for a while and said, "How long will it take?"

"At most half a month," Li Long thought and said, "The grass-cutting season for these herdsmen is just this long. Last year I cut for them for half a month."

"That's fine." Li Jianguo felt that if he didn't earn money when it was right in front of him, he would really be sorry for the opportunity his little brother had found. He turned his head and said to Li Qing Xia, who had just returned from Little Haizi next to him, "Dad, then you have to go back a bit later. I'm going to cut grass in the mountains during this time, so you have to stay at home."

"Fine," Li Qing Xia said readily, "What's wrong with that? You can rest assured and cut grass. This job that earns money, it's hard to come by, so we must do it."

This matter was settled.

Li Long planned to tell them some precautions tomorrow morning when he took them to the Taxi River side. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 694 =====