Recaps

Li Qiang completed a month-long placement with Fifth Squad of the Red Seventh Company, where he trained, learned about the unit’s history, and bonded with the soldiers. Meanwhile, Li Long refused Ma Qiang’s request to arrange rescues in Kazakhstan, received a Hummer from Liu Gaolou, and agreed to help Liu Shanmin obtain cement-production equipment.

• Li Jianguo began operating his tractor alongside the cooperative’s harvesters, while villagers increasingly relied on combines to harvest their wheat.
• Li Qiang joined Fifth Squad, adapted to demanding training, and earned the soldiers’ respect by scoring forty-seven points in a live-fire shoot.
• Li Qiang learned about Seventh Company’s history and traditions, fired a pistol for the first time, and parted from the soldiers after his month-long placement.
• Li Long refused Ma Qiang’s request to find two missing men in Kazakhstan, explaining that Liu Shanmin could not make rescue work a priority.
• Liu Gaolou delivered a Hummer from Liu Shanmin to Li Long and asked him to help obtain cement-production equipment, which Li Long agreed to do.

Li Long arranged for Zhao Hui to buy a secondhand cement production line and send it with technicians to Liu Gaolou for Liu Shanmin’s plant in Kazakhstan. After the equipment reached the border and Liu Shanmin warned that he was facing difficulties in Almaty, he unexpectedly arrived at Li Long’s Purchasing Station on August 23.

• Li Long asked Zhao Hui to find cement production equipment, then authorized him to buy a working fifty-thousand-ton line for nine hundred thousand yuan.
• Zhao Hui bought and transported the equipment, hired four technicians, and agreed with Li Long to send them to Kazakhstan for installation in exchange for a discount on nearly ten thousand hides.
• Liu Gaolou arrived to take the equipment west, and Li Long paid the technicians advances in US dollars before hosting a meal for Liu Gaolou and Zhao Hui.
• Zhao Hui collected the hides, deducted his equipment and freight expenses, and paid Li Long the remaining six hundred thousand yuan.
• Liu Gaolou reported that the equipment had reached the border, and Liu Shanmin told Li Long that difficulties and opposition in Almaty might slow his efforts against local gangs.
• Liu Shanmin arrived at Li Long’s Purchasing Station on August 23, surprising Li Long, and said he had a long story to tell.

Liu Shanmin explained that Kazakhstani nationalists had targeted him for the businesses and resources he controlled, so he suspended barter shipments and waited in China. Meanwhile, Li Long prepared for cotton picking, moved his family into their new courtyard, and installed iron gates after thefts began; Liu Shanmin later reported that the supply shortage had eased the pressure and he planned to return.

• Liu Shanmin told Li Long that Kazakhstani officials and nationalists had turned against him, and he planned to wait in China while cement equipment was installed and barter shipments were suspended.
• Li Long arranged for Xie Yundong, Liang Dacheng, and Xu Haijun to contact schools about cotton-picking workers, while Liu Shanmin borrowed Li Long’s Hummer and explored the area.
• Li Long’s family moved into their new courtyard as migrant cotton pickers arrived, and Li Long helped his relatives prepare for the harvest and organize their belongings.
• Ning Renjun reported that outsiders had taken all the melons from his field, so Li Long ordered iron gates for his family’s courtyard after hearing of other thefts in the village.
• Liu Shanmin visited Li Long on September 16 and said the people in Kazakhstan had eased their pressure after the suspended supplies disrupted their earnings, so he planned to return.

Li Long helped Li Zhiqiang turn his new shop into a popular barbecue and games gathering place, then discussed cotton-picking laborers and security with Xie Yundong and Tao Daqiang. In early October, Xu Haijun learned that his younger cousin had left with a young man from Gansu, and Li Long joined the search, ending the chapter with them capturing the pair in Wu City.

• Li Long advised Li Zhiqiang to add barbecue, beer, mahjong, and cards to his shop, which quickly drew a large crowd of cotton pickers.
• Xie Yundong and Tao Daqiang told Li Long about Wang Yongcheng, who had brought workers from Gansu to pick cotton and hoped to rent a house; Li Long refused to rent to him and agreed that the cooperative needed guards.
• Li Long monitored Wang Yongcheng's group, who found a house in the East-Side Settlement and took on cotton-picking and odd jobs without causing trouble.
• Xu Haijun told Li Long that his younger cousin had disappeared with a young Gansu cotton picker, and they drove with others to the County Town bus station.
• After learning the pair had taken a bus to Wu City, Li Long and Xu Haijun raced there and found them at the ticket hall.
• The Xu brothers attacked the young man, and Li Long separated them, had Tao Daqiang take the girl to the vehicles, then helped seize the young man and flee the crowd.

Li Long helped the Xu family bring their runaway seventeen-year-old cousin back from Wu City, and the girl later gave up her romanticized idea of life in Gansu Province after seeing the young man’s hometown. The Fourth Team redistributed its land and prepared for drip-irrigated cotton, while Liu Gaolou arrived with cars and trade supplies from Liu Shanmin’s operation in Kazakhstan.

• Li Long, Xu Haijun, and the others found the Xu girl and the young man who had deceived her, then brought them back and held Wang Yongcheng responsible for the young man’s conduct.
• Xu Haijun took his cousin to the young man’s county, where the town and mountain village proved far poorer than the young man had claimed, and she abandoned her plans to go there.
• Xu Chengjun and the village representatives redistributed the Fourth Team’s fields, assigned land to new residents, and required households to plow their plots before winter.
• Xu Haijun reported that Xu Dongfeng married a woman from Gansu Province after her relatives agreed she could leave with him, and the Xu family held a wedding in the Fourth Team.
• Liu Gaolou arrived with ten used cars, two new luxury Volgas, and plans to trade for canned food and white sugar, while Li Long arranged to sell the newly arrived vehicles.

Li Long attended the Cooperative’s annual meeting, where the members learned that strong cotton sales had earned them record dividends, and he encouraged Tao Daqiang to develop more land. After the money was distributed, Li Anguo visited and, reassured that oil supplies would resume, decided to keep his refinery in operation next year.

• Li Long watched the Purchasing Station’s remaining cars sell quickly and helped clear the first heavy snowfall in Ma County.
• At the Cooperative meeting, Jia Weidong announced that cotton sales totaled 3.75 million yuan and that more than 1.5 million yuan would be distributed as dividends.
• Tao Daqiang agreed to consider leasing and developing wasteland in the Third Team after Li Long and the others pointed out the potential bonus and logistical support.
• The villagers received their dividends, and Li Long deposited the money before telling Li Jianguo that Li Anguo was coming to visit.
• Li Anguo told Li Long he might sell his refinery if oil supplies did not return, but Li Long assured him that Boss Liu was stabilizing the oilfield, and Li Anguo agreed to keep the refinery running next year.

Li Long learned that a Mercedes-Benz offered to him by Deng and Xiao Lei was the car he had sold to Boss Lin, and he alerted Guo Tiebing instead of buying it. The police arrested the theft gang, Boss Lin recovered his car, and Li Long accepted a quiet reward while avoiding public recognition.

• Li Long told Liu Gaolou to bring more antelope horns and continued trading cars and supplies with the Liu family.
• Deng and Xiao Lei offered Li Long a Mercedes-Benz without its paperwork, and he recognized it as the car he had sold to Boss Lin.
• Li Long notified Guo Tiebing and Chen Yan that the car was stolen, and Guo Tiebing arrested Deng, Xiao Lei, and their gang.
• Boss Lin collected his Mercedes-Benz from the Police Station and thanked Li Long, who asked him to keep Li Long's role quiet.
• Guo Tiebing told Li Long the gang had been arrested and offered him a thousand-yuan reward, while the county news report omitted his involvement.

Harimu brought wolf pelts to Li Long and discussed his herders, livestock, and the fading winter slaughter tradition. Later, Li Long refused Dong Lijun’s offer to lease part of Little Haizi for aquaculture, and Dong Lijun left planning to seek pressure from the county.

• Harimu delivered wolf pelts from more than twenty wolves killed by his herders and asked Li Long to help obtain more crossbow bolts.
• Harimu told Li Long that his livestock had grown, he had hired more young herders, and his tribe’s winter slaughter tradition had faded as people moved and worked separately.
• Li Qingxia described wedding extortion and other customs from his hometown, while explaining how Northern Xinjiang’s newer villages had fewer formalities.
• Dong Lijun asked Li Long to lease part of Little Haizi so he could raise crabs, fish, and shrimp in cages, offering first one thousand and then fifteen hundred yuan a year.
• Li Long refused because he wanted Little Haizi’s water and wild fish to remain unchanged, and Dong Lijun left considering an appeal to the county.

The Cooperative expanded as Tao Daqiang secured a ten-year lease on 890 mu in the Third Team, while Li Qiang returned home for the 1995 New Year and reunited with his family. As spring approached, the new farmland and planting plans prepared the village for another busy growing season.

• Li Long and the Cooperative's shareholders reviewed the expanded membership, and Tao Daqiang reported that he had leased 890 mu from the Third Team for reclamation.
• Tao Daqiang discussed his plans with Li Long, including hiring young workers, planting crops, and installing drip irrigation on the leased land.
• Li Qiang returned home from the Military Academy on January 20, gave his family health belts, and told them he would be able to visit during the summer of 1995.
• After Li Juan and Li Qiang left following the New Year, Gu Xiaoxia considered having another child and wondered whether she would leave her school job.
• Li Long continued running the drip irrigation tape factory and planned a twenty-mu cotton-picker trial, while Tao Daqiang headed to the Third Team to inspect his leased land as spring began.

Li Long helped Sister Yang expand the canned-food factory’s sales through the department store and Supply and Marketing Cooperative, then joined Principal Yang’s students in the fields to explain drip irrigation and his plans for machine-picked cotton. The chapter left Li Long teaching the trainees while Principal Yang approved of his preparations.

• Sister Yang told Li Long that the County Department Store wanted to buy canned food, and he praised her promotional work and encouraged her to grow the business.
• Li Long asked Li Xiangqian about the department store order, and Li Xiangqian said the store planned a long-term partnership if quality stayed high and proposed adding the canned food to shipments to Kazakhstan.
• Sister Yang confirmed monthly orders from the department store and dried-meat workshop, then agreed that the factory could also supply the cooperative’s planned order by increasing production and ingredient purchases.
• Li Long encountered Principal Yang leading students to study fields and explained his plans to use machine-picked cotton planting methods and prepare for future harvesting and processing needs.
• Li Long explained drip-irrigation preparations to Principal Yang’s students, while Principal Yang listened and approved of his forward planning.

Li Long expanded the Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, began trials of machine-picked cotton, and learned that contracting Corps land came with restrictive accounting and sales rules. During the May Day holiday, Li Juan brought her boyfriend Wang Yusheng to meet her family, and he was startled by the Li Family’s wealth and businesses.

• Li Long displayed a new planter for machine-picked cotton, then learned from Wang Mingjun about the Corps’ trials and the restrictions on contracting Corps land.
• Li Long arranged for two high-horsepower tractors and their implements, which Li Jianguo collected to expand the Agricultural Machinery Cooperative.
• Li Long and Principal Yang sowed twenty mu of machine-picked cotton on April 10, and the Cooperative finished planting its cotton fields by the end of April.
• Li Juan brought Wang Yusheng to meet her family during the May Day holiday, and he greeted the family respectfully with gifts.
• Li Juan drove Wang Yusheng around the Cooperative, the Drip Irrigation Tape Factory, and Old Ma’s Place, leaving him amazed by the Li Family’s holdings.

Li Long released crab seedlings into Little Haizi, planned to help Liang Wenyu establish a drip irrigation tape factory, and caught crabs with Xie Yundong and Tao Daqiang. Liang Wenyu leaned toward building the factory, while Li Long ended the chapter sharing his first harvest and thanking Huang Lei.

• Huang Lei delivered ten thousand crab seedlings, and Li Long released them into Little Haizi despite seeing a perch eat one.
• Li Long prepared river clams for his family and proposed helping Liang Wenyu build a drip irrigation tape factory, while his brother and sister-in-law agreed to fund and support the plan if Wenyu chose it.
• Liang Wenyu weighed factory work against a political career, and Liang Donglou advised him that running the factory would be the wiser choice.
• Li Long surveyed the cotton fields, then caught a bucketful of crabs at Little Haizi and met Xie Yundong and Tao Daqiang, who were also collecting crabs.
• Li Long left half the crabs with Li Jianguo, steamed the rest the next morning, and took some to Huang Lei as thanks for securing the seedlings.

Liang Wenyu and Xu Chengjun decided to establish drip-irrigation tape factories, with Li Long advising them on sites, equipment, workers, and training. As the factories prepared for autumn production, Li Long helped demonstrate a cotton picker, whose first pass through the field left Principal Yang astonished by how much debris it would harvest along with the cotton.

• Liang Wenyu abandoned his plan to become village director and asked Li Long for advice on starting a factory; Li Long warned him to follow regulations carefully and explained how to arrange the site, supplies, workers, and paperwork.
• Liang Wenyu's factory site was approved, and despite complaints during construction, he completed the building and recruited workers.
• Xu Chengjun asked Li Long about setting up a factory for Mingwa, and Li Long agreed to advise him and help find equipment; Mingwa later visited to ask questions about the factory.
• Li Long accompanied Liang Wenyu to buy production equipment, while Xu Chengjun also completed Mingwa's factory; both factories planned to train workers before autumn production.
• Li Qiang returned home for summer vacation, then left to resume his studies; in September, Mingming and Haohao began their final year of elementary school.
• Li Long prepared a cotton field for a demonstration, and Master Shi operated the cotton picker; Principal Yang watched it strip cotton, flowers, and leaves from the plants and was surprised by the debris.

Li Long harvested seven tons of machine-picked cotton, built a cotton gin after buyers and local companies declined to handle it, and successfully cleaned and processed the crop. He ended with clean lint cotton in hand and a path toward expanding machine-picking at the cooperative.

• Li Long tested the cotton picker, harvested the cooperative's twenty mu of cotton, and stored the dirty crop at the Drip Irrigation Tape Factory.
• Li Long arranged to buy cotton-cleaning equipment and discussed expanding broom orders and machine-picked cotton with Li Xiangqian, Wang Mingjun, and Zhao Zongming.
• Wang Mingjun reported that the Corps was not buying machine-picked cotton from outside, so Li Long hired Meng Hai's team to build a cotton gin.
• Li Long completed the gin by the end of October, and technicians helped his workers clean the cotton while wearing masks.
• After adjustments, the equipment removed the impurities, and Li Long's team ginned the cotton and produced clean lint cotton for the Cotton and Hemp Company to buy if it met standards.
• Li Long gave the cottonseed to Uncle Lao Luo for feed and considered the successful processing a major step toward wider machine-picking.

The Fourth Team prospered after its cotton harvest, while Li Long's livestock and antelope-horn ventures continued to grow. He approved a larger bonus for plot managers and a machine-harvesting trial, then arranged a ten-ton antelope-horn sale and went to see Engineer Liu after learning he had retired.

• The Fourth Team's families earned good profits from cotton and spent their money on household goods, while Li Zhiqiang's courtyard and Old Ma's Place stayed busy with celebrations.
• Jade Mountain River told Li Long and Harimu that he had built four large livestock enclosures with their shared business, and Li Long discussed their growth and the people managing them.
• Li Long and the cooperative members raised the plot managers' bonus to fifteen thousand yuan and approved a five-hundred-mu machine-harvesting trial for the next cotton season.
• Jia Tianlong visited Li Long and arranged to buy ten tons of antelope horn at eight hundred yuan per kilogram, with Li Long setting Jia Tianlong's commission at one hundred yuan per kilogram.
• Engineer Liu called Li Long after retiring from the Jade Carving Factory and asked him to collect some things he had set aside, so Li Long drove over to see him.

Li Long bought jade saved by Engineer Liu, heard about the Jade Carving Factory’s decline, and encouraged the retired engineer to seek promising apprentices at the growing jade street. He later found Yusufu selling jade there and bought several thousand yuan’s worth, leaving Yusufu to reflect on how far Li Long had risen.

• Li Long paid Xiao Wu a thousand yuan for Engineer Liu’s rough jade and finished carvings, then drove Engineer Liu to the Red House for coffee and a meal.
• Engineer Liu told Li Long that the Jade Carving Factory had lost orders, cut staff, and neared collapse, and regretted that he had not passed on the Kunlun School techniques to a true disciple.
• Li Long urged Engineer Liu to look for students at the jade street, and Engineer Liu decided to rest before considering a stall there in spring.
• Li Long found Yusufu absent from his Railway Station stall and went to the jade street, where Yusufu was selling jade and described the stronger business there.
• Li Long bought good rough jade from Yusufu and other stallholders, spending at least five thousand yuan, while Yusufu gave him a discount.
• After Li Long drove away, Yusufu’s fellow stallholders marveled at Li Long’s wealth, and Yusufu wondered how his old acquaintance had become so successful.

In spring 1996, Li Long advanced plans for machine-picked cotton as Wang the Miser explored adopting the method for his cooperative. Meanwhile, Li Juan’s boyfriend Wang Yusheng and his parents visited the Li family, and the two families smoothly agreed on marriage arrangements.

• Wang the Miser learned about Li Long’s machine-picked cotton plans, but Huang Xinping declined to invest in new seeders for their cooperative.
• Li Long planned to buy a cotton picker for his cooperative and operate it himself during the coming harvest.
• Wang Yong and Hou Xiumei visited Fourth Team to formally discuss the marriage of Wang Yusheng and Li Juan.
• Li Long’s professional connections with Wang Yong and Hou Xiumei quickly put both families at ease.
• Li Jianguo refused a bride price, while the Wang family agreed to provide household furnishings, renovations, and jewelry for Li Juan.

Li Long handled Li Juan’s wedding plans, worried over Mingming and Haohao’s school concerns, and fended off buyers seeking his jade by claiming he had sold it all. Li Qiang was assigned to a research institute in Yanjing, while Li Long sold a collection of antiques to spread the impression that his valuables were gone.

• Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia settled on giving Li Juan a luxury Volga after she and Li Jianguo rejected a Mercedes-Benz.
• Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia learned that Mingming and Haohao feared attending different junior high schools from the girls they liked, and encouraged them to focus on their exams.
• Two men came to the Purchasing Station seeking Li Long’s jade, but Li Long said he had sold his good pieces in Yanjing and spread word that he had no valuable jade left.
• Li Qiang told the family he had been assigned to a research institute in Yanjing, then briefly returned home before reporting to his unit.
• Li Long sold more than twenty antiques to Boss He for over fifty-one thousand yuan, and the resellers spread news that he had sold his valuable old objects.

Li Long sold the remaining antiques at the Purchasing Station for over a hundred thousand yuan, then arranged to buy a cotton picker for the coming harvest. In August, art dealer Meng Haichuan arrived to buy the paintings and calligraphy Li Long had acquired in Yanjing, and their negotiations began with an authenticated work by Painter Qi.

• Li Long’s warehouse sale drew crowds until late July and brought in over a hundred thousand yuan, after which he distributed staff bonuses and sold the leftover scrap metal.
• Li Long agreed to buy a five-row cotton picker from Factory Director Du for 1.4 million yuan and prepared the Cotton Gin for a much larger harvest.
• Meng Haichuan contacted Li Long in August and visited the Purchasing Station with bodyguard Li Zhongping and specialist Hou Yueming to discuss buying his Yanjing paintings and calligraphy.
• Li Long brought several dozen works to the Purchasing Station and presented Painter Qi’s “Lotus Flowers,” which Meng Haichuan and Hou Yueming authenticated.

Li Long sold dozens of paintings to Meng Haichuan, secured an official approval for machine-picked cotton trials, and began harvesting with the Cotton Picker. The first demonstration showed that the machine cleared the fields quickly, though its dirty cotton needed gin processing before sale.

• Li Long negotiated with Meng Haichuan, selling dozens of paintings for about two million yuan, including the Lotus Painting for 480,000 yuan.
• Li Long deposited the proceeds, gave the Purchasing Station staff bonuses, and told curious resellers a partial account of the sale.
• Li Long and Xie Yundong prepared selected cotton fields for machine harvesting, while Mingming and Haohao started junior high school at No. 2 High School.
• Li Xiangqian gave Li Long an official County Cotton and Hemp Company approval for the Fourth Team's Cotton Gin to conduct machine-picked cotton trials, and Li Long made copies of the document.
• On September 24, Li Long drove the Cotton Picker into the fields and harvested a clean swath in one pass, prompting cooperative managers to consider machine harvesting despite the need to gin the dirty cotton.

Li Long expanded the Cooperative’s cotton operations with machine harvesting, stricter factory safety, and new land leases, while helping area managers secure higher bonuses. By autumn 1998, cotton prices had surged and the Cooperative had grown to twenty thousand mu, but Li Long warned that prices would fall the following year and remain low for years.

• Xie Yundong expanded the Cotton Picker’s trial to a thousand mu, and Li Long trained Li Junhai to operate it as the harvested cotton was cleaned at the Cotton Gin.
• Li Long fired Xu Feibao for smoking near the cotton and gathered the workers for a strict fire-safety briefing; Xu Feibao later struggled to find work in the County Seat.
• Li Long agreed with Xu Haijun that the Cooperative should lease more land and raise bonuses for managers whose drip-irrigated fields yielded over three hundred kilograms per mu.
• The Cooperative approved higher bonuses, leased another five thousand mu by spring, and drew attention from county and prefecture reporters as cotton cultivation spread.
• In autumn 1998, the Cotton and Hemp Company offered 6.6 yuan for cotton, prompting Li Long and Xie Yundong to raise area managers’ bonuses to thirty thousand yuan as the Cooperative’s acreage reached twenty thousand mu.
• The Fourth Team prospered, Li Juan gave birth to Wang Lei, and Li Long warned that cotton prices would fall the next year and remain low for seven or eight years.

In 2001, Li Long secured approval to buy cotton and used his cotton gin and harvesters to offer farmers an alternative to private buyers and costly hand-picking. The chapter left him preparing for a major machine-picking harvest as the Fourth Team planted all its cotton for machine harvesting in 2002.

• Rising supply costs and picking wages squeezed cotton farmers, while Li Long expanded his sugar trade and the Cooperative continued earning modest profits through drip irrigation.
• Li Long obtained Autonomous Region approval for his cotton gin to purchase cotton and refused investors’ pressure to join their associations or coordinate prices.
• Farmers brought cotton to Li Long’s gin, where he paid cash and explained machine-harvesting costs and requirements to those considering it for the next year.
• After Li Long’s television interview publicized machine-picking methods, the County Agriculture Bureau estimated that nearly half the county’s cotton farmers planted machine-picked cotton in 2002.
• Li Long ordered two more cotton pickers and recruited local young men to train as operators, while the Fourth Team planted all its cotton for machine harvesting.
• Li Long cast a net from Little Haizi’s North Dam Line as he looked ahead to the coming harvest.

The author explained the delay in posting the June monthly ticket prize draw and said they would take a break before starting the next book in late July. They announced the top contributors and prize winners, then returned to writing.

• The author said a power outage delayed posting the draw results and explained that they had already conducted the draw on June 30.
• The author decided to rest and postpone the next book until late July after more than two years of frequent updates and upcoming family obligations.
• The author reported receiving 8,874 monthly tickets and drawing ten prizes, in addition to prizes for the top three contributors.
• The author named One of the Five Pests, Sky Wolf Xiaotian Zhan, and The King's Scepter as the top contributors and listed the prize draw numbers.
• The author asked the winners to contact "Wu Liu Military Bayonet" in the group to choose their prizes, which included newly added items such as jade objects and apricots.