The grasslands of the Huangshui Valley are covered with snow, and the grasslands without a single tree are covered with snow that no cattle or sheep can overturn. All the herdsmen were in danger of dying in large numbers of cattle and sheep, but the Song people in the east left a promise when they built the road to Qingtang City, that all the old and weak cattle and sheep that had been eliminated due to hunger and cold in the winter could be sent to Qingtang City at any time throughout the winter in exchange for flour, salt, tea, ironware, tents, grease and other survival materials. As long as the dead cattle and sheep do not have a rancid smell, they can be exchanged for coarse salt and kerosene for a hundred to one weight. In the month of heavy snowfall, most of the herdsmen have changed to enough winter food and cold-resistant materials.

Unlike the imagination of the general public, the Huangshui Valley is a suitable place for farming, and it is very wasteful to use it for nomadic herding, so there are many villages and towns along the river that are agricultural Han and a few Qiang and other ethnic minorities. In this economically backward region, copper coins are far less popular than heavy textiles such as double-weft and double-warp. All kinds of necessities that cannot be produced locally are the general equivalents with a high degree of acceptance. It was difficult to exchange meat, wool and other specialties for sufficient salt, iron, tea and other necessities, so the news spread like a big bang throughout the Tibetan tribes, and every herdsman and tribe was skeptical.

In order to prevent a swarm of bees from gathering in Qingtang City to grab shopping materials, resulting in a vicious surname incident and price distortion caused by the imbalance between supply and demand, Li Ji purchased a large amount of cloth and grain from Chengdu Fu Road in Sichuan and Yongxing Military Road in the Guanxi Plain, and purchased horses, cattle and sheep from the Chenji Group's warehouse with pipes for cast iron wells (deep water wells), special steel shovels and hoes, simple agricultural machinery (mainly wooden husking and grinding machinery with few iron accessories), iron pots, kitchen knives and other kitchen utensils. Trading outlets were set up in various towns along the Huangshui River for unlimited exchanges. Of course, a 'high price' was set that was acceptable to both parties, such as a heavy horse that could be exchanged for a newly grown Odori horse with no disabilities, and a hundred catties of Sichuan well salt with no obvious bitterness could be exchanged for three thousand catties of wool.

Many wealthy Han landlords and rich peasants and yeoman farmers in the riverside areas also took out their accumulated cowhides, horns, cow tendons, and gold, silver, and copper coins that were basically unusable to exchange for agricultural machinery and cast iron water pipes, which were hailed as artifacts.

After the engineers and technicians brought by Li Ji to guide and lead the well-drilling team and the prospecting team, after completing the road construction project, they scattered to various villages and pastures to help residents dig wells, and by the way, sold the remaining unused cement and other building materials to the landlords who drilled the wells.

Of course, the main purpose is to go deep into the various areas of the Huangshui Valley to discover the mineral deposits marked on the map. The task assigned by Li Ji was carried out in secret, and when the snow closed the mountain, the 'well drilling teams' that successfully completed the prospecting mission returned to the Chenji Group branch in Lanzhou with large bags of specimen ore, and handed in a result that was enough to make the shareholders of Qinfenglu Mining Group crazy.

Talc, gypsum, phosphate ore, sulfur ore, nickel ore, coal mine, marble ore and other mineral specimens and ores are placed in front of shareholders and shareholder representatives, who only know sulfur and coal mines, and some well-informed people also recognize gypsum and marble, but nickel ore and phosphate ore are not known to anyone can be used. Some of the team members and engineers who completed the pit recruited people on the spot to start building the basic mining infrastructure, such as warehouses, brick factories and mineral processing plants, ore washing ponds, primary smelters, etc., and also taught various skills and knowledge in mining, mineral processing, processing, handling and storage to those hired miners and factory workers who signed contracts of sale, so as to reserve human resources for production expansion in the coming year.

Many herders and young laborers do not have the strength to compete for relatively high-paying technical positions, but the miners and construction workers who contribute are still very competitive.

The salary is paid once a month, and no copper coins are issued, and various grains, cloths, and daily necessities produced by the Chenji Group are distributed, such as soap, ironware, sought-after candy and tea. As a result, the families of the workers soon became the first professional to make a fortune by reselling these supple materials.

Many workers who were not selected regretted wanting to jump into the river, resulting in the future every time these related interest organizations such as Chenji Group and Qinfeng Road Mining Group wanted to recruit people, the people who signed up for the job would break their heads to compete for places, and there was often a situation where there were hundreds of people competing for a handyman, and they could almost catch up with the level of the civil service examination for popular positions when Li Ji came.

Horses, cattle and sheep and various local products in the northeast of Tibet began to flow to Lanzhou and Qingtang City in a steady stream, in this round of strategy to change the social operation mode of the Amdo region, many herdsmen have turned into farmers and craftsmen, a few have a talent for mathematics to become merchants, and many wealthy families who were originally merchants and nobles have raised their living standards to the point of the middle class in Bianjing in the expansion of the Chenji Group and the dumping of goods.