Chapter 880: Paving a path for mechanization

From the third day, Li Long used a tractor to pull watermelon seeds to the county one truckload after another.

Because the quantity wasn't large, hiring a truck wasn't worth it. Each time loading half a truck was worse than not loading. The fourth day was fine. Song Ming came to deliver sugar dregs, so he simply loaded the watermelon seeds accumulated that day and pulled them to the county seat, storing them in the warehouse of the acquisition station.

It was also thanks to the big sun these days, the temperature outside was very high, and the soaked watermelon seeds could be dried in two days.

On the fourth day, Bai Xiu Ming didn't come, but Factory Manager Du called, telling Li Long that the machine he wanted was made, and asking him to come over and take a look when he had time.

Li Long replied that he would go over in a while, he was temporarily busy.

Factory Manager Du knew Li Long was busy, so he said he would adjust it with a bag of watermelon seeds there. Actually, the main business was that the inter-tillage machine was produced, and he found a small four-wheel tractor to test it in the experimental field of the Agricultural Research Institute, and the effect was not bad. Of course, there were also places that needed improvement.

Factory Manager Du told Li Long that this inter-tillage machine had customers as soon as it was produced, and the Agricultural Research Institute thought this thing was good and ordered five units—of course, they were the adjusted and improved ones.

This was also why he took the initiative to call Li Long—the corn planted by the Agricultural Research Institute wasn't very high now and was just right for inter-tillage. For crops that were relatively high like corn and oil sunflowers, inter-tillage was best before they grew tall. When they grew up, weeding wouldn't be an urgent job.

It was just right now.

Originally Factory Manager Du also felt that this inter-tillage machine should be accepted, but the degree of selling hot wasn't as good as the harvester.

But looking at it now, it should be okay—after all, there were more small four-wheel tractors, and some small agricultural machinery could also come in handy.

The most important thing was that the cost of this inter-tillage machine wasn't high, and the selling price wasn't expensive either. One unit was one hundred and fifty yuan. For those who could afford a tractor, this thing really wasn't expensive.

For Factory Manager Du, selling an inter-tillage machine, the factory had a profit of fifty to seventy, which was not little.

This machinery itself didn't have high technical content, and imitation was extremely easy. Right now, it was just to get a head start and occupy the market first. He said that those who came to buy harvesters would almost all buy an inter-tillage machine as a set—because Factory Manager Du listened to Li Long's suggestion, buying as a set could be discounted.

Even if it was a discount of ten yuan, for people now, it was very attractive. Of course, the most important thing was that these two machines were very useful.

After talking about quite a lot, when he hung up the phone, Li Long felt the receiver was hot.

"As soon as you can get a phone line installed over there, hurry up and get one," Li Xiangqian said in his office with a hint of disdain. "You have the nerve to keep mooching off the phone every day. You're considered a boss now, at least; you need to have some initiative."

"I had ideas long ago, the county won't pull it for me." Li Long spread his hands and smiled, "Or do you help me solve it, Director?"

"It's not that it's impossible..." Li Xiangqian touched his chin and said, "You are a representative, and Director Qian also said that this path you paved for our Prefecture Federation to sell materials abroad is a good one, so you should be praised. When the time comes, I will mention this matter to County Mayor Tan, maybe it will be approved for you."

Li Long originally just mentioned it casually, not expecting that there was really a door, so he immediately smiled and arched his hands at Li Xiangqian:

"Thank you, thank you, thank you Director... If you can really pull a line, Director, you have helped me a lot this time."

"Don't be so polite." Li Xiangqian waved his hand, "What inter-tillage machine were you talking about just now? Are you helping them make other machines again? You have quite a lot of goods in your head?"

"Haha, I am a farmer myself," Li Long smiled, "Our land plots in Northern Xinjiang are large, and farmers are hard-working. If we rely entirely on manual labor, there is no way to plant so much land.

Now grain isn't worth much. If you want to live a better life, you have to plant more land. The way out for planting more land is to use machinery, so I thought about which manual labor could be replaced by machinery. Thinking and thinking, I thought of it... Of course, there must be people like Factory Manager Du to help produce it; otherwise, I couldn't realize those ideas."

Li Xiangqian nodded as he listened. As someone who had been in the grain requisition team, he naturally understood the difference between using machinery to plant grain and using manual labor to plant grain.

Although everyone could eat their fill now, who didn't want to live a better life? Who didn't want to eat meat every day? If you want to live a better life, don't farmers have to plant more land?

In his eyes, Li Long was a peculiar person. Many people who came out of those farmers, as long as there was a chance, desperately wanted to stay in the city, even if they didn't want a job, doing a small business, they also wanted to stay in the city.

To be honest, life in the city was indeed very convenient. Even if there was no formal job, setting up a stall in the free market was better than the vast majority of people in the countryside.

Li Long was an outlier. He clearly had a better future, and quite a few leaders wanted to promote him and wanted to put him into the system, but he insisted on guarding that rural household registration and refused to enter the city no matter what.

Now it seemed that Li Long really had great ambitions and was really changing the face of the countryside step by step.

Just the harvester he made, plus the inter-tillage machine, could really make farmers not so hard-working.

Li Xiangqian had also harvested wheat and knew the hardship of harvesting wheat—people who hadn't harvested never knew the hardship.

"Not bad." Li Xiangqian was a bit emotional, "If you have any difficulties in the future, come to me. Anyway, you are still a person of our Supply and Marketing Cooperative. By the way, how is that watermelon seed matter of yours?"

"It will be almost finished tomorrow. Twenty tons, it should be delivered tomorrow. The person who came from the interior to buy goods tomorrow should go to my acquisition station to inspect the goods and pull them away."

"Good." Li Xiangqian nodded and didn't say anything more.

After Li Long left, Li Xiangqian also went out and rode his bicycle to find County Mayor Tan.

After riding in Li Long's Jeep several times, he found that riding a bicycle to handle things was really inconvenient. In this midsummer, it was too damn hot!

The next day, Bai Xiu Ming came to the acquisition station very early.

There were still quite a few people in the courtyard of the acquisition station. Compared to the previous two days, there were a few more wooden stools against the south wall in the courtyard—they were the long wooden stools that students in school sat on, and two or three people could sit on one. There were trees outside the south wall, and when the sun rose, there was shade under the trees. Sitting on

If thirsty, there was something to drink in the large barrel under the window—today it wasn't brick tea, but mung bean soup. Someone was currently holding a bowl, having scooped out half a bowl to drink, while others reminded him not to dirty the soup in the barrel while drinking.

Beside the barrel was a large basin containing water. After the person finished drinking, they scooped water from the basin to rinse the bowl, then placed it back on the bench beside the wooden barrel.

Bai Xiu Ming felt a bit moved; this was the true attitude of serving customers.

Li Long was in the courtyard chatting with an old second-hand dealer named Fan Mingcheng about some recent acquisitions in the countryside.

According to Fan Mingcheng, in the various villages now, there were actually quite a few miscellaneous goods in the homes of those who were idle. Not to mention antiques and such, they would collect all kinds of vegetable seeds, hides, and the like. Suoyang was also in its peak season now; this time, Fan Mingcheng had collected two sacks of Suoyang to sell.

"This stuff is hard to pack when fresh, and easy to break when dried and hauled over," Fan Mingcheng said helplessly. "When I come over, Old Gu doesn't give me any face either; the grade he gives is low, so I can't make much money."

"Stop playing poor with me here; in the last six months, the goods you've sold to me have totaled at least eight thousand yuan." Li Long exposed his words. "Of that, what you've earned must be at least three thousand yuan—enough to buy two courtyards in the county. If you keep at it for a year, becoming a 'ten-thousand-yuan household' is no problem. I'm not wrong, am I?"

"Hehehe." Fan Mingcheng, being exposed by Li Long, didn't explain, just laughed.

Actually, it was more than three thousand yuan. Some things the country folk didn't recognize, so he could collect them cheaply and sell them to the purchasing station for a higher price. What he said about Gu Bo Yuan giving a low grade was true—if the quality of the goods wasn't good, the grade would naturally be low.

But when the goods were good—for instance, three of the large items in that set of horse tack were collected by him; he bought them for one hundred fifty, and Gu Bo Yuan gave him six hundred. That was a satisfying profit!

So, although he would grumble, whenever he collected something, he would come here to sell it first thing. At least they knew their stuff, unlike the one in the market who sometimes just bluffed blindly, and whose service attitude was poor to boot.

Seeing that Bai Xiu Ming had arrived, Li Long said a word to Fan Mingcheng and took Bai Xiu Ming to the backyard.

"About twenty-one tons, I've collected it all." Li Long said. "Manager Bai, are you going to inspect and take it away today, or do you want to take a look first?"

"Let's take a look first." Bai Xiu Ming believed that seeing was believing.

Li Long took Bai Xiu Ming to the warehouse from last time. The warehouse was quite large; twenty tons of watermelon seeds only filled less than a third of it.

Li Long pointed to the stacked sacks and said:

"Manager Bai, these are all of them. Tell me which one you want to see."

Bai Xiu Ming pointed to a sack at random.

Li Long went over, pulled the two sacks weighing down that one to the side, then took down the sack Bai Xiu Ming had pointed to, carried it over to Bai Xiu Ming, set it down, untied the mouth of the sack, and spread it open for Bai Xiu Ming to see.

Seeing Li Long lift the sack so easily, Bai Xiu Ming was suspicious—if the sack was so easy to lift, could the seeds be shriveled? He reached out to test the sack first, only to find that he couldn't lift it at all!

"This sack weighs over eighty kilograms." Li Long said with a smile. "When we processed them, we basically removed all the shriveled seeds and impurities, which makes it easier for your roasting factory to handle."

"Comrade Li has great strength." Bai Xiu Ming knew he had misunderstood. Being able to lift it was the other person's ability; as for this eighty-plus kilograms, let alone lifting it, he might not even be able to drag it!

"Haha, we're farmers, we've got a bit of strength." Li Long laughed.

Bai Xiu Ming didn't say much more, thinking to himself that ordinary farmers might not necessarily have this kind of strength.

He reached into the sack, grabbed a handful of seeds, spread his hand, and turned to look at the light coming from the window.

The seeds were very flat and very uniform. Although they weren't exactly the same size, they were all very flat.

Bai Xiu Ming put down that handful, reached in again, pushed hard into the sack, and grabbed a handful of seeds from the middle-bottom to spread out and look at.

The same—all flat and uniform.

Li Long went to the wall, pulled over a square iron sieve, placed it at Bai Xiu Ming's feet, and lifted the whole sack of watermelon seeds, pouring them all onto the iron sieve. He set the sack aside, then squatted down, reached out, and spread the seeds out for Bai Xiu Ming to see:

"Looking at them this way, you can see them more clearly."

With Li Long doing this, Bai Xiu Ming felt that this person was truly sincere.

He squatted down and looked first; these watermelon seeds were indeed all flat and uniform, not a single deformed or shriveled one among them.

He reached out and pushed a patch of seeds aside to look at the bottom of the sieve; there were no broken ones, nor any impurities like pebbles or grass roots.

Very clean.

Fearing that the seeds weren't dry, Bai Xiu Ming reached into the pile of seeds, grabbed a small one from underneath, and picked one up to crack open in his mouth.

It was very dry; he cracked the shell into two halves in an instant, and the seed inside was also very dry, coming out completely intact.

After cracking a few, Bai Xiu Ming nodded and said:

"Not bad, not bad. The quality is truly very good."

He was actually very picky, but even so, he couldn't find any faults now.

Li Long smiled; this should be satisfactory, right?

Using the standards of the future to benchmark against the requirements of Bai Xiu Ming and his peers now, while not quite "dimensional reduction," it was at least several levels higher. If this still wasn't up to standard, he might as well quit.

"Heh, very good, very good." Bai Xiu Ming finally put the seed shells into the paper box for trash placed at the door. The warehouse was swept very clean, and he was very satisfied—no dust kicked up, much better than he had imagined.

"Then when you bring a vehicle to haul the goods, we'll verify them again." Li Long said. "When are you bringing the vehicle? If you don't have one, our county transport company has vehicles; you can hire a truck. Do you want me to take you over?"

"Sure." This service attitude made Bai Xiu Ming very comfortable. He couldn't figure out why Dong Zhi Chao didn't come anymore.

Of course, it was better that he didn't come; otherwise, how would he have gotten this business deal?

Li Long drove the jeep and took Bai Xiu Ming to the transport company, hired a vehicle, and drove to the purchasing station, where Li Long let Bai Xiu Ming re-verify the goods.

Re-verifying the goods showed that Li Long was open and aboveboard; doing business required both integrity and transparency.

Li Long did this because he didn't want Bai Xiu Ming to have any misgivings. After all, when they both left, if Li Long had wanted his own people to do something in the warehouse, Bai Xiu Ming wouldn't have been able to see it even if he wanted to.

Bai Xiu Ming said there was no need, but with Li Long insisting, he didn't refuse in the end. Just like when Li Long sold fritillaria to Jia Tianlong, every sack of goods had to be verified through the iron sieve, then re-bagged, weighed, and loaded onto the vehicle.

All the watermelon seeds were weighed, totaling twenty tons and seven hundred sixty kilograms. According to the price of three point five yuan per kilogram agreed upon by Bai Xiu Ming and Li Long, the total was seventy-two thousand six hundred sixty yuan. Bai Xiu Ming watched as each sack of watermelon seeds was weighed and loaded, and he had checked every sack himself; he was very satisfied, so he paid the money very readily.

"Comrade Li," Bai Xiu Ming said to Li Long with a smile after paying. "I will transport these watermelon seeds I've hauled away to our factory as soon as possible.

Once the quality inspection department over there finishes testing them, and these watermelon seeds are processed, packaged, and sold, I think it won't be long before I come back to you to purchase more."

"You're welcome, you're welcome." Li Long said with a smile. "Since Manager Bai says so, I naturally welcome it. Currently, we don't have much to entertain you with here, but when you come next time, the fruits here will be ripe, and I'll let you have a good taste of our local specialties."

"Hehe, then I'm already a bit impatient." Bai Xiu Ming responded, and then prepared to leave.

It wasn't lunchtime yet, and Li Long didn't keep Bai Xiu Ming for a meal, but instead loaded some specialties like raisins onto his vehicle, saying it was for him to take back for his family to eat.

Bai Xiu Ming was quite happy. Although these things could be bought at the Wucheng train station, the gesture was what mattered. He left Maxian happily, thinking that in a few days, he should be coming back.

The day after Bai Xiu Ming left, Li Long drove the jeep to the Prefecture Supply and Marketing Cooperative. He reported the situation of the transaction with Bai Xiu Ming to Director Qian, and Director Qian was quite satisfied upon hearing it.

"Director, I want to haul away all the remaining watermelon seeds in our warehouse; I'll process them as soon as I get them back."

"Aren't you worried that after that person from the 'inland' leaves, he won't come back to buy again?" Director Qian asked Li Long.

"I think he will definitely come back." Li Long was very confident this time. "After the first batch was sold, although that Dong Zhi Chao didn't come back, this Bai Xiu Ming came, which shows that these 'flat-mouth' watermelon seeds are very popular in the 'inland'.

I believe that even if this Bai Xiu Ming doesn't come, others will definitely come later. At least for now, we are the only ones who can produce these 'flat-mouth' watermelon seeds."

Director Qian greatly appreciated Li Long's confidence; he felt Li Long's analysis was quite correct. The twenty tons of watermelon seeds remaining in the warehouse were inherently difficult to handle. The roasted goods market in Northern Xinjiang was only so big, and selling at a loss was impossible, while selling to Li Long could still earn a profit. So, naturally, he had no objections to Li Long hauling away the remaining seeds.

After all, Li Long still held the title of an employee of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative; him being able to sell watermelon seeds to the 'inland' could itself be counted as a credit to the Cooperative. Why not do it?

After the remaining less than twenty tons of watermelon seeds were hauled away by Li Long, the Prefecture Supply and Marketing Cooperative was also quite happy. A warehouse was cleared out, and the watermelon seeds that were expected to remain on the books as potential losses were sold off; at least in the semi-annual or annual report, this data could look a bit prettier.

Li Long also struck while the iron was hot, hauling these watermelon seeds directly to the Fourth Team and distributing them again to those families with whom he had good relations.

There was less than half a month left before wheat harvesting, and this might also be the last time they could earn money before the harvest.

Tao Daqiang and the others happily hauled the watermelon seeds back home and began processing and soaking them, while Li Long drove the jeep to the Kuitun Agricultural Machinery Factory.

"In the last two days, we've made three improvements to this machine." As soon as he saw Li Long arrive, Factory Director Du enthusiastically introduced it to him. "The improvements mainly focus on how the seeds are spread flat when entering the machine, avoiding overlap and mutual squeezing, which leads to the watermelon seeds coming out broken or uneven.

Then there's the core material for pressing the watermelon seeds flat. This material can't be too hard—too hard and it easily breaks the seeds directly—and it can't be too soft either; if it's too soft, those deformed watermelon seeds won't have enough force to be pressed flat, and the design would be a failure..."

Listening to Factory Director Du introduce the characteristics and data of the machine, Li Long still admired this person quite a bit. Although Factory Director Du was a manager, he was more of a technical person.

One could clearly feel his preference for technology outweighed his responsibility for management. Even if this watermelon seed flattening machine wasn't a profitable project for the agricultural machinery factory, Factory Director Du still very seriously and responsibly designed, manufactured, and debugged it.

Now that the product was out, Factory Director Du himself was also very happy; this was the joy of success, and he was very willing to share this joy with Li Long.

"Take it back and try it out; I guarantee it will work."

"Alright, then I'll haul it back." Li Long said with a smile. "If there are any problems, I'll call you again. By the way, I'll tell you that our purchasing station will have a phone installed soon, so we won't need to go through layers of transfers to find me anymore."

"Good, good, good, that's good." Factory Director Du was also quite happy. He felt that although Li Long was a farmer, an outsider, and his theoretical level was greater than his hands-on ability—in the words of the future, a "keyboard warrior."

But those flashes of inspiration he had were a great inspiration to him.

So Factory Director Du felt that sometimes when he had ideas, chatting with Li Long was still very rewarding. (End of chapter)