Chapter 736: Opening a New Path to Wealth in Advance

Having two shops that could supply steadily, Li Long didn't go looking for more. He only needed to go to the shops to collect goods regularly and then send them into the mountains.

The shop in Beiting had better quality saddles, but the old man made them slower. The shop in Maxian had average quality saddles, but they were made in larger quantities and faster. And it was clearly visible that not many people came to this shop to buy saddles.

Li Long was considered the largest fixed customer. He fed back the news about saddles he got from Halimu and the others to this shop owner, and the owner would also actively solve it.

The service attitude was still very good. Li Long ordered some matching things through their shop. The old man's side had sets of saddles and such, but here there were only saddles. Li Long felt that he had to treat them equally, right?

Fortunately, there were few ethnic people in the county, and these craftsmen all knew each other, so it was easier to contact them.

The person selling saddles was also inspired by this. Not long after, he placed those horse whips, halters, and pads with various complex patterns woven on them in his shop.

It actually really attracted quite a few people to come and look.

Business didn't say how much better it was, at least the pedestrian flow was larger.

So the shop owner was very polite to Li Long. He felt that it was Li Long who brought him good luck.

At this time, ethnic comrades and Han comrades didn't have any estrangement, and the relationship was generally quite good.

They were all people living on the same piece of land. Small problems and bumps were normal, but in major aspects, how could there be so many contradictions? Later, weren't they all instigated by people?

Li Long sent saddles into the mountains two more times, and then heavy snow struck again.

The snow at this time was relatively heavy, and a snow of thirty or forty centimeters was very normal. However, in his previous life, people didn't have the habit of going out to chase rabbits at this time. If it weren't for Li Long trapping rabbits and collecting rabbits, there would only be two or three people in the team who would have ideas about rabbits outside.

Being able to eat their fill, letting them go out in mid-winter to do things that might not have a harvest, most of them wouldn't do it.

It was like knowing that smashing ice holes might catch fish, but most people wouldn't do it. First, it was cold, and second, they didn't think about how to eat or sell the fish after catching them, but first considered whether they would lose out if they smashed an ice hole and didn't catch fish?

So basically, they wouldn't do it.

Li Long could be considered to have created a new path for them.

Actually, in later years, there were people smashing ice to catch fish every winter, but because the Little Haizi collapsed in later years and could hardly store much water, after others caught fish by smashing ice, the others in the village were left with envy.

Because they felt that since someone caught them, there were no fish inside.

Most people didn't realize how many changes Li Long had brought to the village in the past two or three years.

Not only leading them to work and make money, including now after the heavy snow, quite a few people in the village ran out to the snowy wilderness to chase rabbits and foxes.

Were there any in the past? Basically, there were none.

After this heavy snow, the ice surface of Little Haizi froze solid, and quite a few people pulled sleds onto the ice surface, smashing ice holes to start digging for fish—after this period of time underwater, the fish were already starting to lack oxygen.

However, those who came over were mostly middle-aged and elderly people, as well as women. Because the young people were all taken by Xu Chengjun for militia training, and occasionally one could hear gunshots from the side of the Big Haizi to the north.

Li Long came to the team, one was to see his father and mother, the second was to see these fattened cattle and sheep, and by the way, to steal some bullets from Xu Chengjun.

To be honest, our country produced too many 56-type bullets, and the militia warehouses at all levels destroyed a large number of such bullets every year. The rumor that the East produced so many of these things was really intended to challenge the whole world at the time.

Otherwise, why would the whole country organize militias?

So Li Long took a few bullets from various places, and he didn't have any psychological burden at all.

After all, forty years later, there were still a large number of expired bullets and hand grenades that hadn't been destroyed.

"These cattle and sheep are growing quite fast," Li Long looked at the fat sheep at the corral gate. "I feel they are a circle fatter."

"Fat is good," Yang Laoliu no longer feared Li Long. He had already received his first month's salary.

When he received his salary, Yang Laoliu went to the retail department that day to buy two bottles of wine, and also bought some pickles and such. Old Luo Shu joined in the fun, cut some air-dried meat, stir-fried some pickles, and these people in the old horse corral had a gathering.

When Yang Laoliu was drinking, tears streamed down his face. Although the money he got was less than when he was a school officer, this was his own real salary again.

Only then did Old Luo Shu know that Yang Laoliu actually didn't want to be a farmer in his bones and had always been quite unwilling.

Although he was just helping Old Luo raise cattle and sheep at present, he didn't have to farm anymore.

Most importantly, there was a salary!

So from that time on, Yang Laoliu was no longer afraid of Li Long, but rather wanted to get closer to him.

"Old Uncle Yang, you say this sheep, in this month or so, has it grown three kilograms?" Li Long looked at the fat sheep and asked.

"Yes, three kilograms is definitely there," Yang Laoliu said very definitely. "Sugar dregs and wheat bran haven't been broken every day, they are supplied with good food and drink, and they don't have to run around. How can they not grow meat?"

At least before the early nineties, everyone still liked to eat fat meat—fat meat had oil and could be utilized more.

At this time, when weighing meat, if you gave more lean meat, people wouldn't be willing.

But at this time, raising sheep rarely used feed, so it was very difficult to raise them to the situation where there was a thick layer of fat even on the ribs like in later generations.

Li Long felt that he might be setting this precedent. Although he didn't use urea and that kind of compound feed to raise cattle and sheep, keeping them in a corral and increasing investment in winter—sugar dregs were at most a transportation problem, which could be ignored after rounding off, so when they were slaughtered in the twelfth lunar month, the cattle and sheep would definitely have a thick layer of fat.

Perfect.

Old Luo Shu happily carried a basket of sunflower heads to the corral, poured them in along the wall, and those cattle and sheep ate them happily.

At this time, raising cattle and sheep, feeding grass in winter was normal, feeding sunflower heads and sunflower tails was considered adding ingredients. If they were fed some wheat tails and wheat miscellaneous heads, it was equivalent to giving cattle and sheep a big meal.

Li Long directly fed them sugar dregs and wheat bran, which were good ingredients used only for pigs. How could those cattle and sheep not be fat?

The treatment had never been so good.

These few people in the old horse corral were also quite optimistic about these cattle and sheep. At first, they were skeptical about Li Long slaughtering and selling them for money before the New Year, but now it was different.

Ma Jinbao drove his sheep flock over.

Heavy snow fell. According to reason, cattle and sheep were usually kept in their own corral to be fed. Letting them out wouldn't have much grass to eat. After all, the snow in the wild was so thick, what could they eat?

Ma Jinbao was relatively lazy. He didn't hit much grass in autumn, mainly relying on his own corn stalks. Sheep and cattle were different; they didn't eat wheat grass, so he would also drive the sheep out in mid-winter, mainly to the reed ditch and reed lake, letting the sheep dig open the snow to gnaw on dry reed leaves.

Of course, sometimes he drove the sheep over, and another idea was to gnaw on the grass stalks forked out of the corral by the old horse corral.

Those grass stalks were relatively disliked by the cattle and sheep in the old horse corral. They only ate the leaves on the grass stalks, and didn't even gnaw the leaves clean.

After all, there were sugar dregs and wheat bran, so the grass would definitely be disliked.

But these grass stalks were quite good things for Ma Jinbao. His sheep, driven to this grass pile, could actually eat them in big mouthfuls.

Yang Laoliu looked at Ma Jinbao driving the sheep over. In the past, he pretended not to see. After all, they were all in the same village, seeing each other with heads down, so it wasn't easy to just let people go.

This kind of thing, everyone had to have face. Although Ma Jinbao's face was thicker, Old Luo Shu felt that since his own cattle and sheep didn't eat them, letting others eat them was fine.

Anyway, leaving them until after spring was also firewood.

But Li Long was here, so Yang Laoliu couldn't stand here himself. His peripheral vision was fixed on Ma Jinbao, thinking that as long as Ma Jinbao drove the sheep to that grass pile, he would have to give a warning.

It was just that Yang Laoliu underestimated Ma Jinbao's shamelessness. This person drove the sheep to this area, and very simply ignored the sheep, walking to Li Long and Yang Laoliu, looking into the corral while saying:

"I say you don't know how to raise sheep. Cattle and sheep should be released, should be driven out to move, so that the corral is clean and easy to clean up."

His words stopped.

People who had raised cattle and sheep all knew that what Ma Jinbao said had some truth. If the warm corral wasn't big enough, and there were many cattle and sheep inside, the urine and feces of these guys could turn the warm corral into a swamp—of course, it was a bit exaggerated, the meaning was that meaning.

Ma Jinbao's sheep corral was like this.

Outside was naturally an ice beach.

He knew Li Long had obtained two or three hundred cattle and sheep, thinking that with so many cattle and sheep, the corral must be a mess.

So he dared to say so.

However, seeing the sheep corral, he found that it was very clean here, grass stalks and such had already been cleaned up, the sunflower heads Old Luo just fed were poured along the wall, not affecting anything.

The door curtain of the warm corral was lifted to ventilate, and it looked very dry inside—mainly because it was big enough. Ma Jinbao couldn't say these words anymore.

Yang Laoliu originally wanted to save some face for Ma Jinbao, but didn't expect him to come over intending to slap his face, so he wasn't polite either, a mocking smile on his face, saying:

"You think everyone is as lazy as you? This new horse corral is so big, we clean the grass stalks inside five or six times a day, cattle and sheep go out to frolic, drink water, and urinate twice a day. How could the corral become a thin paste?

Besides, that little bit of sheep-raising experience of yours is useless! Look at those sheep of yours, thin as hemp stalks, look at these sheep in the corral, the spines are all flat, so fat! How good is this fat?

Compare and see if you are still embarrassed to say it? Drive your sheep away! Later, if that pile of grass is trampled down, see if I let you pile it up again!"

Yang Laoliu could also be considered to have performed special tasks, observing six directions and listening to eight sides. When scolding Ma Jinbao, his peripheral vision had already seen the sheep of the Ma family run to the grass stalk pile outside the horse corral to gnaw, so he immediately changed the topic.

If Li Long scolded Ma Jinbao, he could still argue a couple of sentences. After all, he was older than Li Jianguo.

But Yang Laoliu was older than him, and that mysterious profession could also suppress Ma Jinbao, so he had to smile sheepishly and go to drive the sheep.

To be honest, his sheep really couldn't compare with those in the corral. Those sheep were almost twice the size of his sheep.

Thinking that the sheep ate like that, how much fat must be on their bodies!

Ma Jinbao drove the sheep while thinking, should he also take time to get some sugar dregs from the sugar factory? Does this raising cattle and sheep really produce so much meat?

!

Li Long was still very satisfied with the cattle and sheep in the corral. If fed like this, the sheep slaughtered before the New Year could almost all reach more than thirty kilograms, which was at least ten kilograms heavier than when bought.

This concept of corral-raising and fattening was at least not available in this area of Maxian at present. Li Long got this up, and it was just the right time.

After all, thirty years later, everyone wanted to eat lean sheep or sheep with just a little bit of fat.

Like roasted meat, three or four pieces of lean meat with one piece of fat meat, the taste was very good.

But if there were two pieces of fat meat, it was a bit too much. By then, fattened sheep were no longer the sheep demanded by the mainstream market, they were too fat, and it was very normal for a sheep to be thirty or forty kilograms.

But thirty years ago? It was considered big for a sheep to be twenty-something kilograms, where was there so much fat? Li Long had eaten mutton for so many years, and it was only around the first decade of the 21st century and later that he ate very fat sheep.

In the past, he didn't buy mutton to eat outside, there were people raising sheep in the team, and that sheep wasn't said to be particularly thin, at least there was almost no thick fat on the ribs, at most just a thin layer.

But now, in the eighties, this kind of sheep with thick fat was the most popular. Fat meat could be taken back to be rendered into oil, and if the meat was sealed, it could be eaten for a long time.

And sheep that ate grass in the alkali land had no mutton smell, and those who bought meat would definitely like it.

So Li Long had confidence that when slaughtering sheep before the New Year, he would make a good profit—even if a kilogram of mutton sold for 1.5 yuan, a sheep had ten kilograms more meat, two hundred sheep, several thousand yuan in hand.

What was his contribution? Sugar dregs, labor wages, adding up to less than five hundred yuan in these two or three months.

This profit was really big!

So it was said that there were really many opportunities at this time, it just depended on whether one could grasp them and whether one dared to take action.

There was still a long time before the New Year. Li Long saw that Old Luo Shu and the others were doing quite well, so he didn't interfere, took the bullets, and the rabbits sent by Jia Weidong, as well as the fish sent by Liang Dacheng, and returned to the large courtyard.

In the afternoon, Li Xiangqian rushed to the large courtyard. When he came in, seeing Li Long was piling a snowman in the courtyard, he complained:

"Little Li, I tell you, it's normal for you to rest in winter, but shouldn't you do some serious business when necessary? The snow has fallen for several rounds, look, shouldn't you run to the west and take a look at the situation?"

As soon as Li Long heard this, he knew Director Qian must have called Li Xiangqian.

He was piling the snowman to increase the knowledge of his two sons, as for whether it was useful, he didn't know.

"Section Chief, no problem, I'll go over to the west tomorrow and take a look," Li Long said while jokingly carving the snowman's head with a wooden knife, "That bullet..."

"Rest assured, rest assured! Bullets are enough!" Li Xiangqian was a bit impatient, "I say, you are like a money-grubber, what are you hoarding so many bullets for?"

"I'm not hoarding, my herdsman friends in the mountains use bullets to hunt wolves. So many wolves, staring at those cattle and sheep every day in winter," Li Long said half-truthfully.

"That's true." Li Xiangqian had experience and knew that there were more households living at present. In the plains, wolves were no longer in groups, they all ran into the mountains. Before the production corps was established, when the supply and marketing cooperative grain collection team went to various points to urge grain, they could see groups of wolves in the plains, and they were very bold, daring to run ten kilometers behind the horse cart.

In order to let Li Long go to the no-man's land in the west as soon as possible, Li Xiangqian brought two hundred bullets for Li Long this time.

He collected one hundred, and stored one hundred himself.

Li Long accepted them with peace of mind. After sending Li Xiangqian away, Li Long drove the jeep to stroll around the market and bought four bags of rice and four bags of flour.

His sister's family didn't lack meat to eat, but they needed to buy grain. The rice produced here tasted good, Li Long prepared to bring two bags over on the way.

The remaining two bags were naturally brought for his second brother Li Anguo. As for Li Junshan and Yang Yongqiang, Li Long didn't know how they were living, so he didn't bring anything.

He didn't know if they could cook in the dormitory.

After buying the things, he went to the transport company to find a driver he knew to check the jeep, and went to the oil depot to fill it up.

Returning to the large courtyard, the next step was to maintain the guns. He definitely had to bring guns and bullets tomorrow.

That evening, Li Long told Gu Xiaoxia about this matter.

"Then when you pass by Shicheng tomorrow, buy a toy schoolbag or something for the second brother's two children," Gu Xiaoxia reminded, "Buy one for Hongqin too. Children aren't seen often, you are an uncle, you have to love them."

Li Long neglected this point a bit. He spent more time with Li Juan and Li Qiang. Although he was an uncle, he was actually existing as a child leader.

So when he had money, his first impression was to buy things for these two children first, letting them live better than other children.

As for Hongqin, Li Xue Qin, Xueping, that felt like a layer apart. After all, they hadn't spent a long time together. He liked them, but sometimes when doing things, he couldn't remember.

Li Long remembered this point. Even if he couldn't treat them equally, as an elder, he should express it.

Moreover, several children were quite sensible.

He solemnly expressed his gratitude to Gu Xiaoxia.

Gu Xiaoxia smiled, looking at the two children who were already asleep, and said:

"Later, Mingming and Haohao will have many older brothers and sisters to help them."

"That's true, if they don't help, I'll teach them a lesson," Li Long said as a matter of course.

If the atmosphere of a large family is good, it has this benefit.

After breakfast the next day, Li Long drove the jeep toward Shicheng.

He went to the Shicheng Department Store, bought three dolls, thought about it, bought another one, and also bought a set of standard whips and an old cow.

As for his own Mingming and Haohao, they didn't need toys here for the time being.

Also bought some candies, biscuits, and such, Li Long put these on the passenger seat and went to his sister Li Xia's house.

Li Xia was very happy to see Li Long. Hongqin wasn't there, she went to school. Li Xia wanted to keep Li Long for a meal, but Li Long refused—he had to rush to the no-man's land, and by the way, go to Kuitun.

So after unloading two bags of rice and flour, as well as the toys and snacks for Hongqin, Li Long drove away.

Kuitun was nearly one hundred kilometers away from Shicheng. The Wuyi road was flatter in winter, and there was ice on it, very slippery. However, Li Long felt it was nothing. There were fewer cars in winter, which could actually make him drive faster.

And with fewer cars, it was actually favorable for the appearance of yellow sheep herds.

Li Long was thinking that if he encountered them, he would hunt one or two like last year, and then directly pull them to his second brother's place.

Of course, Li Long wasn't that confident. This time was earlier than last year, whether he could encounter them was really hard to say.

There was a period of time when yellow sheep were hunted so much that they ran deep into the Gurbantunggut Desert, and were rarely seen.

Later, they were protected and slowly increased.

Hope there is a harvest this time. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 737 =====