When many people signed up for the task force, they had a little bit of ** in their hearts, but now their dreams have been completely extinguished by Zhou Hengxing's words. Knowing that this is being cheated by the executive committee, at least in the short term, the idea of developing a maid project in Li Tong does not seem to be feasible, but everyone can only face the cruel reality after lamenting. For safety reasons, the Executive Committee did not have any female members in Tian Du's temporary camp or in the special task force sent this time, so everyone could only live a monk's life for a while in the future.

About two hours later, a small fork in the river ahead, and the boat leading the group signaled backwards that the temporary camp at Base 2 was on the bank of the river not far ahead. After about two minutes of further travel, the river in front of it became a little wider, and you could see that the river from the upper reaches was divided into two streams, and the river was divided into two streams from here to the fork in the river that I had just seen, and the river was divided into two streams, which surrounded a large area of land in the middle of the river.

This is the site of the first hydropower station in the upper reaches of the Tiandu River planned by the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Construction, using the natural river channel that is divided into two, the builder only needs to channel the river water into one side, and it is easy to dam the river drained on the other side, and the topography of the natural double river channel can also reduce the drainage pressure of the hydropower station in the rainy season.

There are several reinforced concrete pipe parts with a diameter of two feet stacked on the small trestle pier, which are the pressure water pipes used to build the hydropower station, according to the plan of the Ministry of Energy, they have been built long before the crossing, after all, the production capacity of this time and space is limited, and special parts like this cannot be built in a short time. It took several days to transport these heavy creatures one by one downstream in small boats through the crowd.

When the fleet arrived at the pier trestle, they saw a group of people sitting on the ground on the ground crackling with hammers, and their faces were the same as the migrant workers in the quarries of later generations, but none of the newcomers could laugh at this scene, because most of them had to knock stones here in the following days. This is one of the crushed stone mortar concrete materials that must be used for the base of the No. 1 hydropower station, and everyone has to obey the work schedule of the executive committee, including knocking stones, in the days when labor is scarce.

The makeshift camp is now surrounded by a sparse wooden fence on the riverbank, a fence pulled out of a snake-bellied barbed wire, and then a few marching tents and a canopy for stockpiling. Now there are more than 30 people stationed here, and the temporary person in charge is Liu Shanxia, the second-in-command of the Ministry of Construction, for this hydropower project in the upper reaches of the Tiandu River, he ran a lot of small hydropower stations in Yunnan and Guangxi in the six months before the crossing, although he has not yet actually operated, but the theoretical knowledge of building small hydropower stations should be said to be enough. This camp was set up the day before, and he was transferred the next day, and several projects that had just started at hand had to be handed over to others in charge of the Ministry of Construction, which shows that the executive committee attaches great importance to the hydropower station project.

Liu Shanxia greeted the trestle bridge and grabbed Ning Qi's hand: "I finally looked forward to you!"

Ning Qi asked in surprise, "You have a conflict with the Li people?"

"Not yet, but there are more and more Li people nearby, and I don't know what they want to do because of the language barrier, and now our people don't dare to leave the camp. Liu Shanxia hurried to introduce the current situation to Ning Qi: "These Li people have hook knives pinned to their waists, if you want to negotiate with them, be careful yourself!"

Ning Qi nodded and said, "Don't worry, for negotiations, we have professionals on our side." By the way, the old Xiang of the Ministry of Energy is here, you are old friends, so I won't say much. As for the hydropower station project, you should take a good look at the total and see if there is anything missing from the construction plan. When the last batch of materials and construction personnel arrives two days after tomorrow, you will start work as much as possible. ”

Xiang Zhinan is a native of Yunnan, and in terms of time, he should be the last member to join the crossing. Xiang Zhinan used to serve in the hydropower unit of the armed police, and after changing jobs, he worked in the local power bureau, and was a friend he met when Liu Shanxia inspected the construction of a small hydropower station before he crossed over, and also helped the preparatory committee design a lot of ideas for the construction plan of the hydropower station. On the first day after the Preparatory Committee withdrew from Guangzhou, he reported to Guangzhou accompanied by Liu Shanxia.

Later, the Executive Committee still followed Wu Zhuo's old example and gave Xiang Zhinan a dual establishment to the Ministry of Energy in peacetime and the Ministry of Military Police in wartime. For this hydropower project, the executive committee handed over the responsibility of Xiang Zhinan and Liu Shanxia.

Half an hour later, Zhou Hengxing and Ning Qi walked out of the camp under the escort of several heavily armed members of the military police department. Standing at the gate of the camp, you can see many people in the mountains and forests about 100 meters away. Although Zhou Hengxing was calm on the surface, his heartbeat was uncontrollably accelerated. Although his household registration book is marked with the Li nationality, he is really born in the city and grew up in the city, and he is an authentic city person, and he really has no confidence to deal with these Li ancestors who live in the mountains and forests with some pure theoretical knowledge.

Zhou Hengxing took a few deep breaths, calmed down his feelings, and then raised the iron horn in his hand and began to preach loudly in several ancient Li languages he knew, to the effect that his group of people came here with no malice, hoping to coexist peacefully with the residents of Litong, and at the same time, he was also happy to trade the salt, pig iron, and so on they needed with the Li people.

After a while, a few Li people came out of the forest on the opposite side, and they did not stop until they were about ten meters away from the camp gate. The leader was a middle-aged man, pointing at Zhou Hengxing for a while. Zhou Hengxing estimated that he understood the meaning of seven or eight points, and then his heart gradually calmed down, turned his head to Ning Qi and said, "He hopes to see what we are going to take out for trading." ”

"Yes. Ning Qi nodded and motioned for someone to show the sample to the other party first.

There were not many things in the sample, a small clay pot of salt, and a few iron farm tools such as shovels and sickles. The middle-aged man came up and squatted down, picked up the farm tools and looked at them carefully, opened the clay pot again, stretched out his fingers and dipped it in a little salt and put it in his mouth.

After the middle-aged man got up, there was a sigh of wow, Zhou Hengxing translated that this person said that he was very satisfied with these things, but they did not have any materials to trade with them, and asked if they could return to the village with them to trade, and asked if they could provide more such trading goods.

"Of course, tell them, we have plenty of supplies, and we are happy to be a guest at their home. Ning Qi replied calmly. The Executive Committee dispatched such a large-scale task force not only to trade a few catties of salt and a few sickles with the Li people, but also to go deep into Li Tong to understand the people's feelings, and then maintain good relations with the Li people, and to develop Li Tong's human resources in a targeted manner, which is the main task to be accomplished by the special task force. Of course, in this process, people from other departments will also complete the investigation subjects such as the topography and landform, flora and fauna, agricultural status, and mineral development of the Li people-controlled zhì area.

After the preliminary negotiations were completed, the Lebanese people who got the news came out of the woods one after another, about 30 people, including old and young. Most of these people were wearing cloth shirts made of Jibei cloth, and each of them had a hook knife pinned to their waists, as Liu Shanxia had mentioned, but their faces were calm and had no intention of making trouble. Ning Qi looked at these ragged Li mountain people, and suddenly a thought flashed in his heart, it turned out that it was not only his own side that he was afraid of, in fact, these Li people were also worried about the threat from the outside.

An hour later, the special team that had prepared the supplies set out from the camp with the Lebanese who led the way. With the exception of a handful of people who were to stay at the camp to help with the construction of the hydroelectric plant, there were still as many as 35 members of the road again, half of whom were armed members of the military police, and even two blond, blue-eyed foreigners, Johnson and Morgan. In addition to the necessary three-day rations and a small amount of drinking water, they also carried tents, military radios, various medicines, lighting equipment, ropes, etc., and even a miniature hand-cranked generator in case of accidents.

This time, the materials to be traded in Li Tong included 200 catties of salt, 100 iron farm tools, a number of various seasoning spices, and some small items were also prepared as gifts for the leader of Li Tong. Of course, these materials do not need to be carried by the people themselves, and the Li people consciously undertake this work. Perhaps in their opinion, these things already belong to them, and they should naturally be responsible for transporting them home.

After about an hour of walking north along the path through the forest, the members could already see the traces of cultivation on the hillside. Zhou Hengxing, an expert on the Li nationality, introduced to the members: "This is the traditional farming method of the Li people, cutting the mountain fence, and before the liberation, the Li people have been growing food in this similar way of slash-and-burn farming. ”

The method of planting the fence is to go up the mountain in the first month of each year, cut down the trees in the selected area, wait until the branches on the ground dry up after three or four months, then set fire to it, and then sow the grain seeds when the rainy season comes. There is no ploughing process for cutting the fence, and when sowing the seeds, one person pokes a pit in front with a pointed wooden stick, and the other person puts the grain seeds behind and then flattens the soil. Weeds can be cleared a few times at most, and then wait for the harvest to mature in the second half of the year. Those with a little more intention will shovel the soil before sowing after burning the mountain, so as to remove the grass roots in the soil layer, and by the way, hoe the topsoil to facilitate the germination of cereals. In any case, this method of farming is extremely primitive and therefore extremely limited. Moreover, this kind of farming, which relies on the natural fertility of the land, must abandon the land every three or four years, and the interval may be as long as more than ten years, which can be described as extremely inefficient for the use of land.

In addition to the relatively closed environment, the lack of iron tools is also one of the important reasons. In this era, many of the farmers in Li used stone axes, stone shovels, stone hoes, etc., and most of the only iron tools were hook knives pinned to the waists of the Li people, so the Li people would be particularly interested in the iron agricultural tools provided by the people.