Approaching the village of Litong, someone in the team found a new gadget cotton on the side of the road. Of course, some people have doubts about this completely tree-like plant: "Isn't the cotton you see on TV all low, low, and at most so tall on the chest?

Gao Huan of the Ministry of Agriculture, who was only notified this morning to be transferred from the labor camp to the task force, answered this question as an expert on cash crops: "Cotton can also grow into a perennial woody plant in the natural environment in the wild, and it can even grow to a height of about six meters in tropical areas. Everyone should know Huang Daopo, right? It was in Yazhou that she learned the textile technology of the Li people here, and then brought it back to the Central Plains to spread. ”

"Since cotton is produced here, we will soon be able to open our own weaving factory?" asked someone excitedly.

Gao Huan shook his head and said: "It's not so easy, the Li people have not specially cultivated this kind of island cotton, and the output is also very limited. We have brought a lot of good varieties of island cotton, but it is not easy to find a place to promote planting, Hainan is mountainous inland, there is almost no flat land, and the cost performance of cotton is not high enough. ”

"Didn't the labor camp open up a large area of land on the east bank of the Tiandu River? Can't you grow cotton in that place?" asked someone who refused to give up.

Gao Huan smiled bitterly: "You can plant, but it will be the monsoon season soon, and it will be as long as a few months." You should have seen it on TV news before, and the land where the labor camp was opened up is at the mouth of the sea. If you grow cotton offshore, it is easy to lose the harvest if you are exposed to the slightest disturbance. The only feasible way is to persuade the Lebanese to grow cotton in the valley near where they live, and then trade it with us every year for grain. When it comes to growing grain, we are invincible in this world, and this is also the most important means for us to carry out agricultural extension in the future. ”

When he finally arrived outside Litong Village, the middle-aged man who led the way asked the working group to wait outside the village, and he wanted to go in first to report it. At this time, many Li children who didn't even wear pants came out of the village, and they collectively watched the strangely dressed exotic visitors.

There are no stone or wooden walls on the periphery of the village, only a circle of thorny shrubs that are obviously planted artificially, and there are various vines and bamboos the thickness of the bowl in the middle. The barrier stretched from side to side until it was far into the forest, and it was impossible to see for a moment how large the village was.

Someone noticed that the few old ladies sitting at the entrance of the village were all full of black faces, which must be the literary customs mentioned by Zhou Hengxing earlier. In addition to the complete disillusionment in his heart, he can only sigh at the strange aesthetics of these Li ancestors.

After waiting for a while, the middle-aged man came out, but said that there were too many people on this side of the crossing, and in order not to disturb the villagers, they could not be allowed to enter the village together, and only five people were allowed to enter. After some bargaining, the middle-aged man finally agreed to the request of ten people to enter. After a brief discussion with several leaders of the working group, Zhou Hengxing was the leader, plus Ning Qi, Gao Huan and seven members of the military police department entered the village to trade with the Li people, and of course, three former American soldiers also entered the team as reliable combat forces.

Before the crossing, the executive committee had organized all the members to go to the folk village in batches to visit the Li village, and even several foreigners from the North American Gang were specially taken out to make up for this lesson after arriving in Sanya, so they were not too surprised when they saw the scene in the Li village. Most of the houses resemble the boat-shaped houses seen in the folk village, with rattan timber tied into trusses, and the arched herringbone roof is covered with thick straw or sunflower leaves, which look like upside-down boats from a distance. This kind of house can be inhabited by people above, and some poultry and livestock can be raised below, and the overhead structure can also be moisture-proof, miasma-proof, and rain-proof. A small number of other houses are no longer elevated, but are built with mud walls, which seems to be influenced by the Han Chinese.

The team was taken to a large boat-shaped house in the middle of the village, with a stone abutment neatly laid on the ground and a log step at the door. Everyone entered the house along the steps, and saw that there were about forty square meters in it, and there was a bamboo ** against the wall on one side of the room, a white-haired old man sat on it, and several men stood around the old man. After seeing them come in, the old man made a gesture that they could sit down on the other empty bamboo ** in the room. There are no superfluous living facilities in this house, and it seems that this house is not a residence, but a place for village meetings.

The middle-aged man proudly introduced to the visitors that this old man was Fu Nuo, the owner of this Fu Mountain. Fu Nuo also opened his mouth to speak, and Zhou Hengxing translated to his companions that within a radius of 100 miles around here, Fu Shantong is the largest Li village, and if you want to trade with the Li people, then you must abide by the rules of the Li people.

Zhou Hengxing first explained his intention to the old master, and then took the initiative to send a gift prepared in advance to express his goodwill: two Yangjiang imitation Kaba 1218 sabers, two Yiwu wholesale back zippo domestic copycats, and two bottles of Luzhou Laojiao with the label torn off. The reason why each gift is prepared in two copies is that Zhou Hengxing built yì, according to him, the customs of the Li people also have the implication of good things in pairs.

Fu Nuo carefully examined the gifts presented by the working group with great interest, and he was amazed by the sharpness of the two short knives and the delicacy of the lighters. When he finally saw the two bottles of liquor, the old man was not calm at all, and there were also self-brewed glutinous rice wine, banana wine, and mountain fruit wine in Litong, but the bottle of this wine was transparent! These loser Han people actually used crystal to make wine bottles!

Then the middle-aged man who led the way took the items of this transaction and put them on the floor in the middle of the house, and the lord Fu Nuo inspected the goods again, nodded with satisfaction, and then said in an accent very close to southern Cantonese: "Your goods are very good, there is no such thing in Yazhou, where are you from, my guest?"

Most of the people here had been in Guangzhou for a few months before the crossing, and even if they couldn't speak Cantonese, they could basically understand it, and what Fu Nuo said was obviously within this range. Even Zhou Hengxing was taken aback: "Lord Yu, do you know how to speak official language?"

Fu Nuo nodded and said, "When I was young, I went to Yazhou and Qiongzhou, and lived in Yazhou for a few years, but the Han people there will not trade these good things with us. ”

Zhou Hengxing had already been trained to explain the origin of his group, so he immediately repeated the statement of the overseas Han people, and at the end he brought a solemn statement: "We are willing to trade with the Li people on an equal basis, and both parties can get what they want through guò trading on a voluntary basis." ”

"And what do you want?" said Fu Nuo, spreading his hands, "We Li people don't have much silver, only wood, furs, jibebs, and buffaloes. ”

Ning Qi really wanted to interject and say that we want people, all the living people in your village. However, Zhou Hengxing had already rushed to the front to reply: "Yes, we accept all these things." ”

Soon there were bundles of cowhides, deerskins, boar skins, and horses of self-woven jibecloth. As for the buffalo, the deal can be reached first, but the cattle working group does not plan to accept it for the time being, because the current temporary cowshed can no longer accommodate new arrivals, and it will still be cumbersome to bring this thing back, at least until the new livestock breeding base of the Ministry of Agriculture is built in a few days.

Of course, these superficial transactions were not actually valued by the working group, so there was not much bargaining with the Li people in the process, and an agreement was quickly reached, and Fu Nuo, the lord of the mountain, was also very satisfied that these Han people could provide a price much lower than that of the previous trading partners, and the price of salt and iron in this transaction was even less than one-third of that of the previous Han traders, and in his opinion, it was simply half sold and half given.

Then the two sides made an agreement, and in the future, on the first day, the tenth day of the new month, and the twenty-twentieth day of the new month, the traversal people will open a market near the No. 2 base to provide all kinds of materials needed by the Li people, and the Li people can also sell what they can provide to the traversers at the negotiated price.

After completing this basic foreshadowing, the relationship between the two sides has become much closer. Fu Nuo ordered that a banquet be held in the village to entertain the guests, and that outsiders who were still waiting for news at the entrance of the village were allowed to enter the village.

It is said to be a banquet, but in fact, in the eyes of the members of the working group, it is more like a picnic full of ethnic customs. Guests sit facing each other in the open space outside the big house, and the lord of the house, Fu Nuo, raises a wine bowl to greet the guests with a drink, and then drinks it all. Then he served the home-brewed rice wine to the guests one by one, and only walked to the next one after the previous one had drunk it, and then announced the beginning of the banquet after a round of wine, which was the unique wine invitation ceremony of the Li people.

The travelers were also fortunate to have the most authentic bamboo tube rice here, which according to Fu Nuo, is made by mixing venison and wild boar meat with glutinous rice and salt, and putting it in a bamboo tube. As soon as this pure natural and pollution-free delicacy appeared, it was immediately enthusiastically sought after by the people who were poisoned by various foods in later generations, and some people even made a request on the spot after tasting it, hoping that Fu Nuo could arrange a few people to go to the No. 2 base to make this kind of bamboo rice.

As for the various rice wine and fruit wine brewed by the Li people, it is not very powerful in the eyes of the traversers, after all, these Li people have not mastered the distillation technology, and the alcohol concentration is not high. However, Fu Nuo later opened a bottle of Luzhou Laojiao at the instigation of Zhou Hengxing, and as a result, that bottle of wine actually put down six or seven Li men, including Fu Nuo, the lord of the mountain, and was not spared.

This small accident also disrupted the original arrangement of the working group, Ning Qi was originally going to find an opportunity to talk to Fu Nuo about the cooperation of Li Dong's labor export at the banquet, but the current situation must not be discussed. So that night, the working group set up camp in the Li village and stayed first, planning to wait for the next day to negotiate with Fu Nuo.