Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1415 The design team had a methodical approach, and the villagers cooperated seamlessly.

When Liu Shanmin left Ma County, he said to Li Long:

"To be honest, I was also very nervous about this trip, but no matter what, it turned out well. I told Gao Lou before that you are my lucky star, and that's really true."

"Let me tell you, I came here to hand over some documents, which should count as doing a good job and putting in effort, but the real benefits I received were less than what I got from helping you get those people out of trouble."

Upon hearing this, Li Long understood. Liu Shanmin had probably reported the matter to his superiors in the past two days. Although their main task was to collect equipment and data, Liu Shanmin had accomplished something like this, and it would be unreasonable not to commend him.

He then said with a smile:

"No matter what, you really put in a lot of effort over there. Otherwise, these people wouldn't have been released so quickly, and they might have even died there."

"You put in the effort, so it's only right that you get the rewards. Our ancestors said that you shouldn't refuse recognition and benefits for doing good deeds. And don't say I'm your lucky star; without you getting things for me from over there, I wouldn't be living such a good life now. It's a win-win situation."

"Yes, yes, a win-win situation," Liu Shanmin said with a smile. "I hope we keep winning. Okay, I'm leaving now. Let's keep in touch if anything comes up."

After Liu Shanmin left, Li Long was in a great mood. On his way back to the drip irrigation tape factory, he hummed a song, "We ordinary folks are really, really happy today..."

The production tasks of drip irrigation tape factories are not as heavy as before. This is mainly because most people who want to use drip irrigation for farming have already bought the drip irrigation tape and planted their crops in advance. Some of those who are still buying now are following the trend after seeing others buy it, while others have hesitated for a long time before finally deciding to take a chance.

Li Long and his cooperative have already sown 3,000 mu of drip-irrigated fields and 1,000 mu of non-drip-irrigated fields, and now they are just waiting for the seedlings to emerge.

Upon arriving at the drip irrigation tape factory, Li Long felt a strong wind blowing so hard that his face was shaking. It must have been at least a level six or seven gale, and this was just a normal wind, not the kind of strong gust that could rip plastic film off.

Li Long hurried into the factory and heard the machines still roaring, knowing that Li Junfeng and Chen Qianjin were both in charge of production.

There are no cars in the yard, and no one is coming to pick up drip irrigation tape right now, so it should be relatively quiet.

He brushed his hair aside, feeling some dust on his head. The day looked sunny and the wind seemed clean, but it was clearly a lie.

Thinking he needed to wash his hair when he got home, otherwise the grime on his head would be too heavy, he walked to the warehouse door, took out his key to unlock it, and pushed the door open. A strong smell of plastic hit him.

Open both doors to let in some fresh air and check the inventory. Rolls of drip irrigation tape were neatly stacked in the warehouse, taking up less than a fifth of the space, making the warehouse seem quite empty.

There was an entry and exit registration book at the entrance. Li Long picked it up and looked at it. The total inventory was currently more than twelve tons, enough for planting on about a thousand acres of land.

Li Long closed the notebook, left the door open, and turned to go to the production workshop.

Li Junfeng and Chen Qianjin were at the feed inlet, where Li Junfeng was feeding materials with two temporarily hired young men, and Chen Qianjin was at the output outlet, watching the produced drip irrigation tape being rolled up and ready to adjust and cut it at any time.

Li Long went over to Li Junfeng and said:

"Junfeng, stop production for today. It's already mid-April, and the planting season is more than halfway through. I estimate that not many people will come to buy drip irrigation tape during this period. Let's stop production and clear out the inventory first."

"Okay." Li Junfeng nodded with a smile. He and Chen Qianjin had been exhausted lately. Although they had earned a lot of money, they were too tired and wanted to take a good rest.

They managed to avoid the hardship of plowing, and in terms of making money, this was actually faster than plowing. Plowing is hard work, with two shifts a day, leaving you covered in dust, exhausted, and dirty.

A few days ago, the same group of relatives surnamed Li who came from Koukou joked that they envied them for working in the factory, saying it was much better than them working the land in the fields.

But everyone knows that it's just a matter of changing workplaces.

The most exciting thing for them was that Li Long helped them register their household registration. This alone was enough to motivate them to work even harder.

Having lived in Team Four for a while, these people knew how difficult it was to obtain household registration here. During the cotton harvesting season in the fall, many relatives of farmers in Team Four talked about the same thing: how to get their household registration sorted out.

Unless immediate family members come to join them, it's practically impossible. It's extremely rare for a family like the Lis to be able to provide for five households at once.

But the villagers couldn't say anything. They had witnessed firsthand how Li Long's cooperative had successfully implemented drip irrigation for cotton cultivation. Even with subsidies from the autonomous region, the upgrade had cost a fortune.

Now, no family in the village owns less than 50 mu of land. With renovation costs of at least 200 to 300 yuan per mu, each household can save tens of thousands of yuan or even more.

These were all obtained by the Li family, so who would dare to say anything more?

Even Ma Jinbao, who usually had the most complaints about the Li family, grumbled a couple of times in the store after drinking too much, and then his son immediately dragged him back.

At this point, no one wanted to risk trouble. Team leader Xu Chengjun had spoken at the village representative meeting: anyone who dared to speak ill of the Li family now was truly despicable. Anyway, if he found out, he could use his power as team leader to put them in a difficult position; whether they could handle it was up to them.

What the villagers admired most about Li Long was that despite all the things he had done, he never said or showed anything to them; all he wanted was a household registration.

Compared to the multi-million dollar project, a few household registrations are nothing more than a few homesteads and a few dozen acres of land—it's nothing!

On this matter, the villagers reached a consensus, and no one had any objections.

In the afternoon, the constant rumbling of the drip irrigation tape factory's machines stopped. Many people, who had gotten used to the sound these past few days, found it somewhat strange when it stopped.

Li Long was calculating wages for Li Junfeng, Chen Qianjin, and the other young people who had been temporarily hired at the factory.

"Ten yuan a day, you guys have been working for seventeen or eighteen days, plus bonuses, I'll give you each two hundred yuan, how about that?" Li Long said.

"Great, great, that's definitely good!" The young people were all very excited; this was much more than the wages they earned in the factory in the county town.

"Uncle Li, when will your factory reopen?" a young man asked. He was about the same age as Li Qiang, and he called Li Long along with Li Qiang—he was getting the better deal, because if it were according to the seniority of his family, Li Jianguo's side, he would have to call him Grandpa Li.

"We'll see. You've all done a great job. If the factory really starts operating again, they'll definitely need you. Don't worry, I have some news for you. We're going to add a production line in the second half of the year, so we might have to work at least half the year. That'll be the time you can become long-term employees," Li Long said with a smile.

The young men immediately became excited. They gave Li Junfeng, Chen Qianjin, and Li Long two thousand yuan each.

They worked for a month and a half. At first, I was in charge of guiding them, but later I became a hands-off manager. I would either teach technical skills or do other things, or I would even disappear. The factory was mainly run by the two of them, so I couldn't pay them less.

Just as they were handing out the money, Uncle Luo strolled into the yard and, before even seeing Li Long, called out loudly:

"Xiaolong, why isn't your factory open? Are you planning to take a break?"

Li Long walked out of the office with a smile and said to Uncle Luo:

"Uncle Luo, it's not that we're not working anymore, it's just that the planting season is almost over, it's about time to end. Drip irrigation tape is a seasonal product, after the planting season, there will be fewer people who need it."

"That's true." Uncle Luo nodded. "This factory is doing quite well. The machines haven't stopped for the past month or two. They must have made a lot of money, right? But our cattle and sheep have suffered quite a bit in the past month or two. Lao Liu said that the cattle and sheep look thinner."

Li Long thought to himself, "Is this considered noise pollution?"

"Then you can tell Uncle Yang that from today onwards, those cattle and sheep can graze and sleep in peace."

"Actually, it's not a big deal that there's business. Who would have thought that our village would have a factory? And this factory is doing quite well!" Uncle Luo said with emotion. "They keep producing every day, and we old folks can feel that life is different now."

Li Long knew that what he meant was different; he meant that he had never imagined that there would be a factory in such a remote rural area.

He smiled and said, "Live well and enjoy life. You'll have many good days ahead. In the future, every household will have a car, and the team might even organize trips for you old folks, to visit Beijing and the seaside."

"Then we'll wait." Uncle Luo no longer thought it was impossible. Thinking about the changes from ten years ago to now, what was impossible?

The day after the drip irrigation tape factory shut down, Xu Chengjun received a notification that a design team commissioned by the Autonomous Region's Department of Agriculture would soon arrive at the Fourth Team to plan the transformation of the 10,000 mu of land.

Accompanying them was the project funding audit team. This means the team was responsible for simultaneously designing the project, planning the fund allocation, and conducting the audit.

Xu Chengjun called Li Long, who was at the purchasing station, and told him about it, asking Li Long to come with him to welcome the working groups.

“Your cooperative previously ran some support projects, and the people from the Department of Agriculture came to supervise these tasks. You must be familiar with this kind of work. You're the only ones in our team who have experience with this. I feel more at ease having you work with me.”

Xu Chengjun said those words, and Li Long replied, "No problem. Captain, don't worry. They're sending people over to plan and audit, so the project is definitely secure. We can take this opportunity to redivide the land in the team's area, and once it's settled, it probably won't change for decades."

"Won't change? Impossible! One round of land contracting will be over by 1997." Xu Chengjun was somewhat surprised by Li Long's words. "Won't it be redistributed then? Who knows what the policies will be then?"

"Don't worry, there haven't been any problems with the first round of land contracting over the past ten years, which means it's operating normally. The higher-ups wouldn't mess with the land at this time," Li Long reassured Xu Chengjun. "Our team has a lot of land. In addition to their ration fields, each family also has contracted land, and quite a lot of it. Now that it's been confirmed, everyone can rest assured."

Xu Chengjun agreed with Li Long, and he was also thinking about this issue.

A working group from the autonomous region came to the Fourth Team, accompanied by the deputy county head in charge of agriculture. The main reason was that this project was quite large, involved a significant amount of funding, and was the first such project in the county, so the authorities attached great importance to it.

Both the county and township levels attached great importance to it. Just like the last land survey, the people stayed at the township guesthouse, and the village provided for their meals.

Li Long guessed that the previous work group might have given them the information. After the meeting in the village, the members of the work group looked expectant, clearly already thinking about the food.

Li Long accompanied them, and on the first day, he led the members of the work group to tour the village and get to know every piece of land.

They had a simple map drawn up by the previous working group, which marked the shape and location of each piece of land, as well as the surrounding roads and residential areas.

This time, they conducted on-site inspections as they went, examining things in greater detail and marking everything thoroughly.

After a day of searching, the work team held a meeting with the village officials to explain their ideas.

"The first point is the readjustment of land parcels. There are two parcels on the east side that need to be cut off and divided into larger blocks, which will contain about 4,000 mu. The other parcels, including the smaller ones on the west and south sides, will each form a smaller area, and we will carry out the renovation according to these parcels."

I suggest that you cultivate that large piece of land to the east, which is the wasteland between your two original plots, together. This will make the fields more organized and easier to work in.

A gravel road can be built to the west of the field, with all the pumping stations on the east side of the road. A ditch can also be built on the east side of the newly built road to facilitate unified renovation and subsequent management.

Secondly, based on our investigation, 70% of the pump houses and filter beds that you have already built can be retained, while the remaining 30% may be abandoned because they cannot be included in the unified plan.

Since you also paid for the renovation, our working group has decided to handle it in the following way: First, for the pump rooms and filter pools that are to be retained, we will compensate you farmers according to the standard construction cost, so that the project team can take over them in a unified manner.

Secondly, for those items that are unusable and need to be discarded, we will compensate you at a discounted price. We will consider recycling the water pumps and pipes you purchased, depending on the circumstances. However, the compensation will not be 100%, only a certain percentage; the recycling of water pumps is also not 100% guaranteed, and we will not recycle non-compliant pumps.

Third, regarding the equipment in your cooperative, Li Long, we will not provide compensation. Those were originally projects supported by the autonomous region, and the funds came from the autonomous region's agricultural department. It's impossible for us to subsidize your cooperative again. Do you understand that?

Li Long naturally nodded.

"This is all we need to inform the village right now, team leader. You should know that we are very sincere. Saying we are informing you is actually just giving you the final answer." The members of the working group spoke as if they were discussing something, but it was really just a notification.

Xu Chengjun smiled and said:

"No problem, we welcome you to come and help us with this. We're also very happy that you're not making us spend any money and are even giving us compensation. Everyone had already thought of this when they started this project, so there's definitely no problem with the villagers. Even if there are any issues, I, as the village chief, and all the other village officials will take responsibility. You can rest assured and proceed with your plan!"

With Xu Chengjun's statement, the members of the working group breathed a sigh of relief; their biggest worry was gone.

P.S.: Still feeling unwell, that's all for today. I currently have less than 11,000 monthly votes. I plan to discuss the lottery tomorrow after I recover. The top three in monthly votes should be pretty much decided. I'll keep an eye on it; I wonder if I'll be awake at midnight.

The prizes are the same as before: jade ornaments, dried fruit, dairy products, honey, beef jerky, etc. There are white apricots now, but honestly, apricots aren't worth eating at this time of year, so they're not included in the plan. Winners should check their tickets and join the group promptly. (End of Chapter)