In the previous chapter "Bottom" (195), change trains.
"The sky is wild, the wind blows the grass and the cattle and sheep are low." This well-known ancient poem describes the magnificent landscape of grassland and also reflects the long history of animal husbandry in China. In this magical land of Inner Mongolia, there are 30 million grassland children living, with Mongolians as the main body and Han people as the majority, living in mixed communities and small settlements. Grassland children of all ethnic groups live in harmony here, thrive, and jointly describe and build a bright future of grassland.
Inner Mongolia has a vast territory, spanning two or three thousand kilometers from east to west. There are three well-preserved primitive grasslands here, namely Hulunbeier Grassland, Xilingol Grassland and Horqin Grassland. These three grasslands are interrelated and constitute the main body of Inner Mongolia grassland. Mongolian children, as primitive humans here, rode horses and grazed on this grassland very early. Since ancient times, herders who graze on this grassland have always adopted a nomadic way. Every winter and summer, they live on aquatic plants, and wherever they roam, they build Mongolian yurts, which is their temporary home.
Long-term nomadic life, because the food is single, the most important thing is that minor illnesses can not be treated in time and the living environment is bad. The average life expectancy of early nomadic people was much lower than that of the whole country. Moreover, the production mode of nomadic animal husbandry has extremely low utilization rate of grassland. At the same time, in recent years, with the overgrazing of grassland, grassland desertification and grassland retreat have occurred. In order to better protect the grassland ecological environment and make better and more rational use of the grassland, the state has successively adopted various policies such as grassland rotation grazing and captivity to let the grassland recuperate and restore the grassland ecology in the shortest time.
In recent years, according to the population of herdsmen and the existing number of cattle and sheep, the state has divided grasslands into the hands of herders for their use. At the same time, herders who use grasslands have the responsibility to protect the ecological environment of grasslands in their hands, and do not allow grasslands in their hands to be degraded and desertified during use. Because almost all state-owned pastures are distributed to herders on the grasslands, there are basically no nomads on the grasslands in Inner Mongolia, but there are exceptions. In a few areas on the border between China and Mongolia, there are still sporadic herders living a nomadic life.
After the pasture is distributed to herders, the state provides funds to enclose the pastures of different herders with cement columns and barbed wire, so that the cattle and sheep grazing by two adjacent herders will not cross the border to graze in other herders' pastures, and at the same time prevent the cattle and sheep of two adjacent herders from mixing.
Herdsmen are assigned to their own pastures, and when they have a lot of cattle and sheep, all the pastures assigned to them are for their own use, and they are used to graze their own cattle and sheep on their own pastures. When the number of cattle and sheep raised by them is relatively small, part of the grassland that they can't use is divided and rented to other herders, and a certain rent is charged to the users. There are also herders assigned to pasture. They don't graze on the pasture, but contract these pastures that have obtained the right to use to other herders, and only charge rent to users every year.
Therefore, the herdsmen on the grassland are not all Mongolian herders on the grassland, and many Han people contract the grasslands of Mongolian herders to raise livestock here.
Whether it is the original herders or the people who contract pasture grazing, all herders should use lawn mowers to cut the grass on the grassland before it turns yellow and withers in autumn. After about ten days of sunshine, they tied the cut and dried grass into bundles with straw ropes with a baler, and the bundled grass was scattered on the grassland.
If the baled pasture is eaten by the herdsmen's own cattle and sheep in winter, they will hire people to load the baled pasture on the grassland with agricultural trucks or four-wheeled carts and transport it back to their pasture, and then unload the pasture brought back by these vehicles and line it up to a height of more than ten, and put it neatly around the pasture. When the herdsmen can't eat enough pasture for their cattle and sheep, they will transport it back to the pasture to sort it out, and put the rest on the pasture, and contact or wait for customers who lack pasture for cattle and sheep in winter to buy it. These bundles of grass are put on the grassland like this, because they are breathable and ventilated, and they are not easy to rot and deteriorate due to heat and mildew.
There is another situation, that is, some herders assigned to pasture or Han Chinese who contract pasture for herders do not need to raise pasture, but cut grass and bind it on these pastures every autumn, and sell or transport the bundled grass to areas lacking pasture through various channels.
In either case, from the end of September every year, a large number of people are needed to load and unload forage on grazing land and grassland. The work of loading and unloading grass, the person who picks grass on the car, or the person who puts bundles of grass on the car all need certain skills, and it is impossible without strength. Moreover, the work of loading and unloading bags is particularly tiring and very profitable. However, there are so many laborers in the labor market, many of them are strong, but not many people have the ability to load and unload bags. Some young people with great strength are not convinced, and they will never do it again after loading and unloading their bags once. So we can see how difficult it is to load and unload bales.
When Li Guoqiang first loaded the straw bag, he didn't grasp the main point, but relied on his strength. As a result, I packed a car full of grass, and my hands were covered with blisters, muscles on my waist, legs and stomach, and bones. It hurt for several days and my legs were limping. However, Li Guoqiang was not convinced. In such a mess, he still insisted on going to the grassland in autumn the next day, bundling straw into the car and biting his teeth. After many times of tempering and repeated practice, I finally found a way to carry bundles of pasture on a truck suitable for my physical strength, and became one of the few migrant workers in the labor market who can load and unload pasture every autumn.
Of course, the other three small partners of the Li quartet also experienced hardships and perseverance like Li, and finally broke through the cocoon and became people who could load and unload grass. Such a small team of four people dare to accept the task of loading grass on vehicles of any size and length, and face certain challenges, they can successfully complete the task every time.
The next chapter, "Valley Bottom" (197) Pasture "Pan Cao"