Chapter 166: One Tael of Tangerine Peel and One Tael of Gold
After Lin Sanqi came out of the post office, he never went back to his grandparents or the small Western-style building.
After all, he was a time traveler and had never met the Lin family before. It was impossible for him to feel a blood relationship as soon as they met, so he was too lazy to deal with it. He just fulfilled the responsibility of this body and left enough money for the old man.
In the afternoon, he went to the Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University again, borrowed 10,000 yuan from the hospital's purchasing department, and then left Huadu.
A citrus mountain in Xinhui County.
Lin Sanqi followed the local village chief, climbing the mountain with difficulty, and listened to the village chief bragging:
"The most amazing thing about our Xinhui tangerine peel is that the skin grows but the flesh doesn't, and the skin is sweet but the flesh isn't. Only citrus trees that are six years old or older, and that produce tangerines with thin skin and good shape, are picked to make tangerine peel.
Every year, we start picking tangerine peels in autumn. Depending on the picking time, tangerine peels are divided into different types, each with its own unique flavor. In September, we pick green tangerine peels, in October, slightly red tangerine peels, in November, slightly red tangerine peels, and in December, large red tangerine peels.
Around the Double Ninth Festival, when the tea-branch oranges are still green, the green peels are picked. The green peels are most effective for liver and gallbladder diseases, liver qi stagnation, and abdominal qi obstruction.
However, Qingpi is quite strong in nature and can easily damage Qi if used excessively. Therefore, people with Qi deficiency should not use Qingpi too much or for too long.
At the beginning of the tenth month of the lunar calendar, the tea-branch tangerine turns yellow-green. If picked at this time, it is called slightly reddish peel or second yellow peel. The second yellow peel has better functions of drying dampness and soothing the stomach.
Around the winter solstice, the rinds of citrus fruits turn a yellow-red or bright red after being exposed to sunlight. This is when the red peels mature. It's the red peels that truly warm and nourish the qi, and after being exposed to the sun, the dryness of the red peels is reduced.
Lin Sanqi was already out of breath, but he had to continue pretending to smile and make a few jokes:
"Wow, Uncle Qu, it turns out there are so many details about our dried tangerine peel. I used to think it was just dried tangerine peel, and you could have as much as you wanted."
Lin Sanqi's "ignorance" even touched the sore spot of the district village chief. Old people always like to teach others.
"Comrade Li, you young people may not understand, this peel has to be repeatedly dried in the sun for three years before it can be called tangerine peel. If it is less than three years old, it can only be called peel and cannot be sold to others.
Then you have to wait until 8 years before you can store it in a jar, and you have to prevent insects and moths during storage. It's really not easy.
A piece of tangerine peel, from being turned and dried annually to being preserved year-round, consumes a lot of manpower and material resources in each step. If not properly preserved, it will weather and break. The tangerine peel that can be properly preserved is like gold after the great waves wash away the sand.
Lin Sanqi wondered why tangerine peel was so expensive decades later. It was all the result of capital speculation.
At the 5th China Xinhui Tangerine Peel Culture Festival in 2019, Xinhui tangerine peel aged for 57 years and weighing 166.9g was sold for 500,000 yuan, equivalent to 1 jin = 1.5 million yuan!
Later, it was sold at a sky-high price of 2 million yuan per kilogram.
It's just orange peel. How magical can it be? How effective can it be? Can it make you immortal or immune to all poisons?
However, this kind of capital speculation is equivalent to an advertisement, letting everyone know that tangerine peel can actually maintain and increase its value, and then everyone follows suit to buy it and speculate on it, causing the price to rise.
This is how the game of passing the flower while beating the drum began.
Later, when a woman in Jiangmen got married, her father gave her 20-year-old stored dried tangerine peel as her dowry, which pushed the hype to a climax.
Then everyone followed suit. When a Guangdong woman got married, in addition to being covered in gold bracelets, having boxes of cash and property deeds, she would also have bottles of dried tangerine peel and pieces of fish maw.
This is what it means to have face in the surrounding area.
Anyone who doesn't have one will not be able to hold his head up in the village, and will be laughed at behind the back by his in-laws and relatives for being shabby.
Anyway, Lin Sanqi despises this kind of rural custom of comparison. The consequence is that men cannot afford to marry wives and women cannot afford to marry husbands. Why bother with the inner qualities for the sake of face?
Now that he has the chance, he is ready to personally make a fortune, and the dragon slayer finally becomes the dragon.
But back in 1959, although Xinhui dried tangerine peel was famous, it was by no means famous enough to be known nationwide or hyped throughout the province. So when the district village chief said that one ounce of dried tangerine peel was worth one ounce of gold, Lin Sanqi would never believe it.
To say this is nothing more than raising the price.
"Uncle Qu, you know I'm purchasing on behalf of our Huadu Food Company. The state has a guide price, and I can't raise the price arbitrarily. Otherwise, the company will think I took kickbacks, and I won't be able to report to the authorities."
Of course, Lin Sanqi couldn't reveal his identity, and it was not difficult for him to get a fake letter of introduction, so he directly pretended to be from Huadu City Food Company.
Even his name was fake, he called himself Liming...
Plus, with his fluent Huadu accent, no one would suspect he was a fake.
The village chief sighed and pointed to the orange trees all over the mountain and said:
"Comrade Li, you may not know this, but I really want to cut down all these tea-branch tangerine trees and plant them all with crops, but my superiors won't allow it. You said it's time now, and food is the most important thing that can save our lives."
Lin Sanqi was also dejected after hearing this. These days, there are regulations on what to plant and how much to plant. It cannot be less or more. This is called "planning."
However, there are few buyers for the processed dried tangerine peels, and this dilemma is exactly the same as that faced by the fishermen on the beach, Hu Jian.
The inability of commodities to circulate freely and the inability of farmers to decide independently what crops to grow are actually a major reason for the exacerbation of the food shortage.
Lin Sanqi looked around to make sure there was no one within 100 meters, then he said with ease:
"Uncle Qu, I actually have another idea. Our unit secretly organized a batch of rice this time. The leaders also know that it is not easy for you farmers, so they want to subsidize you with some food."
When the village chief heard this, he grabbed Lin Sanqi's wrist:
"Are you serious? Young man, you can't lie to me, an old man!"
People from Lingnan are brave by nature, and are definitely not like the men in some Wu dialect areas who are gentlemen who use words rather than violence. They can argue for a long time on the bus without even touching each other's fingers.
People from Lingnan will really pick up weapons and fight you, and they will not care about their lives. For example, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Guangdong Army fought a bloody battle with the Japanese army in the Battle of Shanghai.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, only a few thousand of the 920,000 Guangdong troops returned, and not a single one of them went to the government to receive military medals. Every household in Guangdong hung white silk.
It was the heroic fighting of the Guangdong Army that laid the foundation for the War of Resistance Against Japan. In the end, the Guangdong Army was wiped out and the Sichuan Army came out.
So don't underestimate the Dongguan people because they are small and weak. Whether they are fighting or arguing, they are willing to risk their lives. When Qu Bo showed his fierce look, Lin Sanqi was so scared that he almost fell to the ground.
"Uncle Qu, I'm not lying to you, but you have a requirement for the food. We need to exchange the best tangerine peels. Bring us your 50-year and 40-year-old tangerine peels. We can mutually benefit!"
Uncle Qu snorted and said, "I think you are taking advantage of the situation. Do you know how precious tangerine peel is?"
Lin Sanqi asked in reply, "Times have changed. Do you know how precious white rice is now?"
Qu Bo was speechless for a moment. He held the tangerine tree with one hand and fell into deep thought. It was obvious that he was having a fierce struggle in his heart.
"Comrade Li, I need to discuss this matter with the people in our commune, so I can't give you an answer now."
Lin Sanqi was not in a hurry. It would be best if he could receive decades-old tangerine peel, but it didn't matter if he couldn't. Now his "channel space" was full of cordyceps, fish maw, shark fin, and abalone, which was enough for him to make a fortune.
There is no end to making money. Later, an old bastard once said, don't try to earn the last penny.
In a tangerine peel warehouse.
Seven or eight people were gathered together holding a secret meeting. They were all village heads from several major tangerine peel producing areas, including Tianma, Meijiang, Chakeng, and Dongjia.
There was an oil lamp lit on the table, making the atmosphere even more depressing.
The village chief told everyone what Lin Sanqi had told him during the day about exchanging grain for tangerine peel:
"Whether this thing will succeed or not, let's all make a decision."
Village Chief Li of Meijiang Village asked:
"Old District, what does this Huadu Food Company mean? They're purchasing unplanned dried tangerine peel, and they want the best quality. This is against our principles, and if our Xinhui Supply and Marketing Cooperative finds out..."
But Yao, the village chief of Chakeng Village, didn't care:
"What are you afraid of? To put it bluntly, these dried tangerine peels belong to our village collective and to every villager. They don't belong to the supply and marketing cooperative. So we can sell them at whatever price they say. If they say we can't sell them, we won't sell them."
Village Chief Li said with some worry:
"The dried tangerine peels we've stored for decades are all destined for export to Hong Kong and Macau. By the time we've exchanged them for food, the supply and marketing cooperatives will come to collect them and we won't be able to take them out. Wouldn't that be terrible?"
Village Chief Yao chuckled:
"They took our tangerine peels and only gave us a tiny bit of the money they made from selling them. They couldn't even cover their costs, and they kept asking us to contribute. But who's ever considered our difficulties? Look, I'm so hungry, how much meat do I still have left on my body?"
Village Chief Jiang of Dongjia Village, who had been silent all this time, asked:
"Old District, did Comrade Li say how much grain to exchange for?"
"He said if it's 50 years old, one jin of tangerine peel can be exchanged for 10 jin of rice; 40 years old, eight jin; 30 years old, six jin, and so on."
As soon as these words were spoken, several village chiefs immediately began to calculate how much food they could exchange for their own stocks.
In fact, compared with the transaction with fishermen, Lin Sanqi definitely gave a discount on this quantity, because we are all fellow villagers.
Village Chief Yao gritted his teeth and made up his mind:
"I think it's possible. A kilogram of good rice sells for 5 yuan on the black market in the city right now. A kilogram of 50-year-old tangerine peel can be exchanged for 10 kilograms of rice, which is equivalent to 50 yuan. This purchase price is 10 times what the supply and marketing cooperative offers."
Village Chief Jiang also nodded in agreement:
"The key is that even if you have money, you can't buy food. Damn, only the provincial capital's food company is so arrogant. If you miss this opportunity, you won't be able to have this store in the future."
The district village chief then said softly:
"Our several villages must all stand together on this matter. No one can tell anyone, and it must not be known to outsiders. Whoever becomes a traitor, the other villages will unite to destroy him. Are you willing to do it?"
"We in Meidong Village do it!"
"We in Dongjia Village followed suit!"
"Well, we in Chakeng Village have done it too!"
"Okay, now that we've all agreed, go back and prepare to organize Chenpi. I'll go discuss the details of the transaction with Comrade Li. Finally, I have to reiterate that confidentiality must be maintained!"
(End of this chapter)
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