Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1208 Searching for Leather Jacket Suppliers
The brick floor in the Li family's backyard was swept clean, and a large plastic sheet was laid on it. Every day, the cotton they collected was emptied from the cotton bales and spread out on the plastic sheet to dry.

This plastic sheet is very long and wide, almost covering most of the yard. Now it's covered with white cotton, and it looks quite pretty.

Du Chunfang leaned against the cotton bolls, holding a winnowing basket, picking out the dirty leaves and other things from inside the cotton.

Not only did she pick them up, but several elderly women also joined in, chatting as they picked them up.

Du Chunfang doesn't like to go out, but the elderly ladies in the neighborhood like to come to Li's house to chat with her.

Except for those planting cotton, most families have finished their farm work this season and are just waiting for winter. In the fourth team, most families have also brought back their coal and are finishing up in the fields.

The old men and women didn't have much to do, so they liked to gather together. They didn't go to the big elm tree at the village entrance, and they weren't interested in what the women there talked about.

When the old ladies get together, they like to reminisce about the past and compare it to the present. The old people at this time are really different from those thirty or forty years later. They are genuinely full of confidence in their current lives and grateful to the government because they have truly come from that cannibalistic society.

“This cotton is really good…” Grandma Wang said while picking up the leaves. “My husband’s cotton-padded jacket is made from cotton that was stuffed many years ago. The cotton is almost black… No, we have to plant cotton next year too.”

"I just don't know if growing cotton is troublesome," the old lady from the Zhang family hesitated. "I've heard there's a lot to do, and you're busy from beginning to end all year round..."

Everyone else looked at Du Chunfang.

“It’s troublesome, how can it not be troublesome?” Du Chunfang said. “We’re busy from beginning to end all year round. Look, the wheat has been harvested, the rice has been harvested, the corn has been harvested, and now we still have to work on the cotton for another month or two…”

"It's really busy, but I heard it's profitable too. Look at this cotton, so white, it's said to be worth two yuan per kilogram... a mu (unit of land area) can yield a hundred or so kilograms, that's great!"

The other elderly women were also tempted, thinking of going back to persuade their own family members to grow cotton as well.

"Your two sons, Juan's dad and Mingming and Haohao's dad, they really have foresight." An old lady envied Du Chunfang, "Look at this big family, they can see ahead of everything that makes money, you're living such a good life!"

Du Chunfang just grinned, but didn't actually say anything.

Other families packed their cotton into bags and put it in their houses, planning to sell it together. Li Long suggested to his older brother that they dry the cotton in the sun so that it could be graded higher.

After all, the cotton picked in the morning will be a bit damp. If it happens to be this cotton during a random inspection, it's quite unlucky. Anyway, you have to accumulate a certain amount before selling it, so it's better to dry it first.

In the following days, although Li Long also went to the fields, he was no longer needed for morning pick-up and evening drop-off. Since Li Junfeng no longer needed to drive Kangmaiyin, Li Jianguo asked him to take the day laborers back at night and also take Li Long back. The next day, he would drive his van to the day labor market early in the morning to pick up the workers.

That way, Li Long won't have anything to do. He can go to the fields to watch over the cotton if he wants, or stay home to watch over the cotton if he wants.

Li Long took some time to visit the cotton and linen company, where people were already selling cotton.

These people drove tractors carrying large and small bags of cotton to the cotton and linen company's drying yard, where they would conduct random inspections, weigh the cotton, issue invoices, and receive payment.

Each tractor that enters the site will be given a bucket to cover its chimney, so that sparks from the sputtering tractor won't ignite the cotton.

Li Long just looked around the drying ground and found it was pretty much the same as before. At this time, selling cotton required several strong laborers to carry the cotton bales off the cart. After random checks, when weighing the cotton, the bales, weighing over 100 kilograms, were particularly large, and one person simply couldn't handle them.

The Li family has this advantage.

On September 24th, the Li family had collected nearly five tons of cotton. Li Long drove the truck from the purchasing station to the fourth team to load the cotton and sell it.

Li Jianguo didn't plow the fields today—he wasn't needed for the time being. He and his nephews had already packed the cotton into bales, ready to load them onto the truck as soon as Li Long arrived.

Even without Li Junfeng, he still had to stay in the cotton field to watch over the day laborers picking cotton.

After loading more than thirty large packages into the truck, the truck bed was full and had to be tied up with ropes. A small four-wheeled tractor also loaded a load, all heading to the cotton and linen company.

The neighbors all watched with envy, including the Lu family. The Lu family also grew cotton, but not much; all of it combined didn't amount to the amount of cotton the Li family had in one tractor. They hadn't finished picking it yet, and it would be almost the end of September by the time the first load was sold.

I may envy them, but there's nothing I can do. We don't have as many manpower or as good machinery as them. It's already pretty good if we can get a share of the profits by following in their footsteps.

The truck, carrying a tractor, went to the county and attracted a lot of people at the entrance of the cotton and linen company.

Everyone else was driving small four-wheeled vehicles, or even horse-drawn carts, to sell cotton. So when you suddenly arrive with a big truck, it's quite surprising.

Of course, they had to queue up obediently. Fortunately, there weren't many cotton growers at the moment. When the Li family's car arrived, there were four houses ahead of them, but by the time they got close to the door, there were already seven or eight houses behind them.

After all, most of the cotton sellers here come from Beiwucha and Liuhudi, which are far away.

After Li Long and his team went in, they conducted random checks as required. The staff members looked very displeased. They must have had complaints, considering that they were doing the same work all day long.

Li Long and his team didn't say much, letting the other party take away a large wad of cotton, and then waited for the sampling results.

Li Jianguo came over and whispered to Li Long that the cotton he had picked out had just been dried in the sun, and his mother and the others had also picked out all the impurities and leaves, so it should be able to get a high grade.

"More or less." Li Long also noticed this.

Li Long and Li Junfeng were already quite strict in inspecting the cotton picking workers, and Du Chunfang also led the old ladies to clean the yard twice a day, so the cotton looked different.

"Number 16, cotton impurities 0.09, Grade 1!"

As the quality inspector called out the numbers, everyone selling cotton nearby was astonished.

The main point is that this is the first level so far today!
"Hey, I've sold cotton three times already, and this is the first time I've seen grade one!"

"We have to see, let's see what kind of cotton they use..." Some people were naturally unconvinced and gathered around.

"Weigh them, weigh them." A staff member came over and said to Li Long and his group, "We'll weigh them first, then remove the skin."

At this time, things were different from later generations. In later generations, everything was done with tractors, and there were no horse-drawn carriages or donkey carts. When weighing cotton, the whole cart and the cart were weighed together first. After the cotton was unloaded, the tractor and the cotton bales were weighed again, so that the husks were removed directly.

It's not that advanced now. We just lift the cotton bales onto a scale and weigh them. After they're all weighed, we dump the cotton out on the drying ground and remove the husks from the cotton bales.

The staff who wanted to save time simply counted the number of packages, weighing only one skin when removing the outer packaging, and multiplying the rest by one.

The cotton from the Li family has been weighed. They brought a total of five tons this time, but some cotton couldn't be brought over because they couldn't fit it all.

After removing the impurities, the Li family began to pour the cotton onto the drying ground. At first, these people were really unconvinced, but after watching the Li family pour out the cotton, they all fell silent.

Their cotton is so clean; you can hardly see any black or yellow leaves, yellow fuzz, or any other messy stuff.

"See that? This is first-class!" The staff took the opportunity to promote, "Be careful when picking cotton, pick it cleanly, and the cotton will be graded higher! Its garment weight is also higher, forty-one! We've been picking cotton for so many days, and this is the first time we've picked up such a high garment weight!"

Li Long had already checked; first-grade cotton cost 2.23 yuan per kilogram, and this batch of cotton sold for over 11,000 yuan.

Quite a lot!
Although the cost was high, Li Jianguo, who was usually quite serious, had a smile on his face after receiving so much money all at once.

After finishing everything, it was lunchtime, so I ate out and then drove back.

Li Long didn't follow them. He drove the truck back to the purchasing station and told his father about the cotton sales that day.

Li Qingxia, the father, now handles thousands or tens of thousands of yuan every day. He doesn't feel the impact as much when he suddenly receives more than 10,000 yuan from his eldest son's cotton business, but he still thinks that this kind of cotton has potential.

"Is it feasible to plant cotton on that saline-alkali land next year?" Li Qingxia asked. "There's been a lot of fertilizer used on the saline-alkali land this year."

"The harvest is pretty good too," Li Long said. "These next few days, my brother will dig drainage ditches along the edge of that plowed saline-alkali land. When watering the winter wheat, he'll water the land thoroughly to drain the alkali. After that, he'll apply fertilizer when planting next year, and it should be successful."

Although the germination rate of the cotton on the saline-alkali land planted this year wasn't as high as other land, and the cotton yield wasn't great either, it was still better than planting wheat or corn. Based on the current cotton yield and price, the gross income per mu (unit of land area) is 300 yuan. Even with the cost estimated at 150 yuan, there's still a net income of 150 yuan.

This year, 280 mu of saline-alkali land was reclaimed. At this price, the net income for the year can reach more than 40,000 yuan. Only a fool would not plant it!
Now Li Long understands a little why some local landlords in his previous life were able to cultivate tens of thousands of acres of land in the end. Didn't they all grow their land piece by piece like this?
However, in that lifetime, some people were able to cultivate so much land because they had connections with banks and could borrow so much money. They had their own family wealth, enough money, and could afford the risk.

After that, Li Long stopped going to the cotton field every day. He had essentially gone through the entire process from picking cotton to selling it, and once he understood the procedures, he believed that both his elder brother Li Jianguo and his nephew Li Junfeng could handle the rest of the work well.

Li Long also had his own things to do. Liu Gaolou called and said that he hoped to bring a truckload of cotton shoes on this trip, and preferably some cotton-padded coats or something similar.

"It's already freezing in some parts of Kazakhstan, and there's a severe shortage of cotton-padded shoes and coats. My second uncle said that these things can be exchanged for money, US dollars, as long as you bring them over! They're selling like hotcakes! Even better than sugar!"

Li Long could only call Bai Xiuming to ask about the situation; he had no other way to get information.

"Cotton shoes are no problem," Bai Xiuming said. "We have them in stock, as many as you need. But we can't provide cotton-padded leather coats."

“It’s okay if the cotton shoes are a little ugly, but they can’t be of poor quality,” Li Long emphasized. “I’m here to inspect them, and I won’t accept any that are of poor quality.”

So far, no scandals involving substandard leather shoes and down jackets have been exposed in a certain area, so people don't really care.

It wasn't until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent large-scale export of these goods to Northeast China that the truth came to light, and it immediately damaged the reputation of these products in China.

It took more than a decade to recover.

With the cotton-padded shoes secured, the next step is the cotton-padded leather coat.

Although Ma County has no garment factories, it does have leather factories.

Li Long knew that the county leather factory would perform rough processing of leather products, that is, to process the collected hides into raw leather. As for whether it would perform fine processing to make leather clothing and leather goods, he was not sure.

Since he didn't know, he decided to ask. So Li Long drove to the leather factory.

Despite having held the title of National People's Congress representative and being recognized as an advanced individual nationwide, even though several years had passed, people still treated him with great courtesy and invited him in as soon as his name was mentioned.

Li Long originally just wanted to ask the sales manager where their raw leather materials went, so he could find the source factories for leather clothing and at least meet his requirements in terms of price and quantity.

“Comrade Li Long, we have cooperated before,” the factory director, surnamed Dong, who was in his thirties, said with a smile as he shook hands with Li Long. “Now we receive quite a few sheepskins from you every year.”

The cow and sheep hides from Li Long's old horse shop, as well as the rabbit hides collected by the purchasing station, are all sold to leather factories. The quantity is not large, but for leather factories, they are considered major customers.

"I heard that Comrade Li Long's purchasing station often receives large quantities of wild animal pelts, those pelts..."

"It's already been sold to them." Li Long also spoke frankly, "There's a boss over there who's offering a very high price, and the cooperation has been going on for a long time, so it's not easy to change it."

"I understand, I understand," Factory Director Dong said with a smile. "I mean, if our conditions improve gradually in the future, then... wouldn't it be possible for us to cooperate?"

"Definitely no problem," Li Long thought to himself. Who could turn down money?

Next up is Li Long and the sales department's business.

"Where does the leather go?" The sales manager, surnamed Mao, said, "We produce rough leather samples. After production, they are mainly sold to Shicheng and Kuitun, where there are two leather factories."

Oh, right, we also need to sell to Yili, where there are several well-known leather factories, and also Altay…”

Ili and Altay were too far away, so Li Long didn't consider them. After finding out more, he focused his attention on the Hongguang Leather Factory.

This was a leather factory belonging to the 7th Agricultural Division. It later grew and expanded, but according to Section Chief Mao, sales were not very good because the previous production process and the styles of the leather garments it produced were relatively outdated.

So there's a backlog? Hey, Li Long loves these kinds of backlog products.

The Kazakh republics don't need many fancy products; those are aimed at the upper and middle classes. For ordinary people, just keeping warm and protecting them from the cold is enough.

Therefore, there is no such thing as unsold inventory.

After learning the specific details, Li Long left the leather factory. Before leaving, he made arrangements with the factory staff that he could sell a large quantity of leather to the factory at a reasonable price.

We need good pelts here too, since we can't hunt freely these days, and the supply of good pelts is getting increasingly scarce.

Even a skilled cook can't cook without rice.

Li Long was thinking that once Liu Gaolou came over, he could directly allocate a thousand hides to sell to the leather factory. After all, it was a local enterprise, and although it was quite polluting, he should still offer some support.

A thousand pieces of leather are enough to repay the favor.

That evening, Li Long told Gu Xiaoxia that he would be going to the Seventh Agricultural Division for an inspection the next day. Gu Xiaoxia thought for a moment and said:
"If you want to buy something, you might as well bring Shuangcheng along. It would be best to drive a truck there, so if there's any goods, you can just pick them up. The two places are quite far apart, and even if you manage to negotiate and get their phone numbers, it won't be convenient for you to travel back and forth."

Li Long agreed with his wife; if things could be done in one go, it would be best not to make multiple trips.

The next day, Li Long went to the purchasing station, told his father about it, and then drove his truck westward with Liang Shuangcheng in tow.

Since joining the purchasing station, Liang Shuangcheng has hardly ever left the area. His activities are limited to the county town and the fourth team. Occasionally, he would go to Shicheng, which he would consider a long trip.

He's happy to be able to go to the Seventh Agricultural Division, even if it's to a more remote place.

Liang Shuangcheng kept asking Li Long, "Brother Long, where is this?" Li Long wasn't annoyed and explained to him while driving.

They drove all the way to the military post, and then randomly picked a restaurant nearby for lunch. Li Long treated them, and Liang Shuangcheng felt a little embarrassed.

"Since I asked you to come with me to calculate the official business, I'll naturally pay for your meals." Li Long noticed his embarrassment and explained, "Eat well, you'll have to get to work later."

Liang Shuangcheng then laughed and ate the mixed noodles with gusto.

Hongguang Leather Factory was originally a self-operated enterprise of the regiment, just to generate some small revenue and use up the leather produced there.

It then gradually developed, acquired an official name, and established sales channels.

Such factories usually have a relatively glorious history, but they may not be able to survive in the tide of development.

So when Li Long arrived at the leather factory, he found that it was quite well managed, with guards at the gate and the main gate closed, but he could hear the sounds of machinery inside.

However, no delivery trucks were seen.

When the security guard learned that Li Long wanted to buy a batch of leather jackets, a smile immediately appeared on his face. There was no telephone connecting to the inside, so he came out and shouted inside:

"Director Hong, Director Hong! Someone wants to buy our factory's leather jackets! We have a customer!"

Li Long was driving a truck; even without revealing his identity, the truck itself was enough to tell the story.

No wonder the security guard was a little agitated.

That shout actually brought out four or five people.

The factory was made up of single-story buildings; the offices were single-story buildings, and the production workshops were also single-story buildings. Li Long saw people peeking out from the production workshop, but they didn't come over; it was the people from the offices who came over.

Judging from this situation, Li Long had some doubts: Could it really work?
(End of this chapter)