Xu Chenghou and others stayed at Xu Shiyan's house for one night and went home the next morning.
Xu Shiyan was very busy. He was called away early in the morning and was unable to send his father-in-law and mother-in-law to the station.
Fortunately, both Su Weizhong and his wife understood, so they naturally didn't make any excuses and left happily.
Xu Shiyan, on the other hand, led his people and continued to toss in the new place.
After laying the foundation firewood in the ground, it’s time to orient and hang the strings.
Orientation means determining the direction the front eaves of the ginseng bed faces based on the ginseng's lighting requirements and the terrain.
The overall requirement is to make use of morning and evening sun, avoid midday sun, and avoid direct sun.
Generally, the standard is 10:00 or 10:30 in the morning when the sunlight exits from the pool surface.
The flat land is mostly dew-yang, that is, the pools are in the north-south or south-east direction.
The hills are mostly oriented due south and north, and the north and south slopes of the mountains are mostly along the mountains.
If the east and west slopes are not too steep and the water can be drained smoothly, they can be across or sloping hills. For steeper slopes, they should be along or sloping hills.
Orientation is of great importance. Yu Shouguang found several old ginseng farmers, and together with Xu Shiyan, they took a compass to measure around the ginseng field for a long time, and after long discussions, they finally determined the Yangkou.
After setting the yangkou, the next step is to hang the skewers.
According to the determined direction of the pool string and the specification requirements of the ginseng bed, the stakes are marked, which is called hanging string.
Still use the compass to determine the direction, find the positions of the stakes at both ends, and connect the two stake points with a rope.
Along the rope, insert a stake every five meters. This is the baseline.
Then, starting from the end of the datum line and along the direction of the end line, measure the width of the border, which is the combined width of the pool surface and the horse path.
Then insert the stakes, and mark each stake with a number with an ink pen. Connecting stakes with the same number is equivalent to drawing countless parallel lines on the entire land.
The area between two adjacent parallel lines is a border. When digging the soil, the stakes cannot be pulled out or moved.
It sounds simple, but the actual operation is very troublesome. The second brigade planned to get 5,000 feet of ginseng soil this year, and it took two days just to hang the skewers.
After hanging the skewers, the next step is to dig the soil.
The worker wielded a pickaxe and dug up the turf together with the soil underneath, forming a large adobe about one and a half feet square, which was placed in the middle of the border.
At the same time, the subsoil on both sides is also gathered into the middle of the border, and the adobe is placed on the subsoil to look like fish scales.
After the adobe has been fully cured by exposure to the sun, the soil is then beaten.
Digging the soil is a laborious task.
The picks used for digging soil in these days were larger than those used in large fields.
But in Xu Shiyan's eyes, this thing is still not good. It is too narrow and cannot be used for many tasks.
So, Xu Shiyan began to take advantage of his rebirth and drew a drawing.
After asking Tao Shouguang for instructions, he found someone from the industry to build several new pickaxes according to the drawings.
The new pick is twice as wide as the original pick. In order to reduce weight, only the bottom half is solid downwards, and the top is hollowed out.
The new pickaxe head is extremely sharp and can cut through small tree roots in two strokes, not to mention turf.
It only takes two or three times to plan a piece of adobe, which is more than half the effort of the original pickaxe.
"Oh my God, this thing is so useful. Xiao Xu, how did you think of it?"
Xu Shiyan brought four or five pickaxes up the mountain for everyone to test. After trying them out, everyone said that the new pickaxes were easy to use, worked quickly, and saved effort.
Yu Shouguang and other brigade cadres who followed him up the mountain were all dumbfounded. This new pickaxe worked so well.
"It's just a fool's errand. The pickaxe we use is too slow. It's time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the work is too slow." Xu Shiyan smiled.
In the previous life, when this pickaxe first came out, many people rushed to buy it, and the blacksmith shop that made the pickaxe made a lot of money.
This thing is really easy to use. Until he was reborn, unless he was plowing the ground manually, he would always use this earth-ploughing tool.
Xu Shiyan struck a total of five pickaxes in the industry, and all of them were snatched away.
Others didn't, and could only watch others work quickly and easily.
"Uncle Yu, please stop standing here and go back quickly to order the pickaxe from the industrial side."
The clever man next to him quickly came to Yu Shouguang and gave him advice.
"I ordered one hundred and eighty, and everyone has one, so they can work quickly."
"Uncle, I guess it won't take a few days before other teams will come to find you again.
This time, don't show off your style like you did with the ground gun.
Simply, we can order thousands of them from the industry, and then we can sell them. Even if we make two yuan per hand, wouldn't we be able to make a lot of money?
This is okay, uncle, think about it, at least make money for the pickaxes you use in our team."
Xu Shiyan was even more ruthless and came to the extreme.
After all, this was something he had done. He couldn't always give it away for free. Even if he didn't benefit himself, he had to let the team make a fortune from it.
Being reminded by Xu Shiyan, several cadres in the team immediately widened their eyes.
"Oh, what's wrong? What the hell are we all pretending to be? We can't even figure this out.
Go, go, hurry up, go back quickly, find the people in the industry, and ask them to keep the secret.
If our team doesn’t make a fortune with this pickaxe, then Xiao Xu’s efforts will be in vain.”
How many brigades are there in Donggang Commune? Ten.
Ten brigades all plant ginseng and have to dig the soil. Don’t you believe they won’t be tempted after seeing such a useful pickaxe?
Even if a commune ordered a hundred pickaxes, the quantity would be huge.
You don’t need to earn too much for a pickaxe, just one yuan is enough, which is better than letting other teams take advantage every time.
So, a few cadres from the brigade didn't care about anything and slipped down the mountain.
As soon as he returned, Yu Shouguang immediately found the director of the industrial factory and decided directly with him that he would only make pickaxes for the Second Brigade, with the first batch of a thousand picks to be made.
After finishing the industrial side, Yu Shouguang first went to the commune to participate in the market. He found the director of the commune and talked to him in plain language, and successfully sold a hundred pieces.
The price is one yuan higher than the industrial quotation, and half of the deposit is paid in advance.
The first step was taken successfully, and the next step would be easy. Yu Shouguang and others continued to cheat.
Within a few days, all the brigades under Donggang Commune were fooled into placing orders.
How could the Second Brigade be so noisy without alarming the commune?
The leaders of the commune were very curious after knowing it. They went to the mountain to check it in person and found that the pickaxe was really useful.
"Lao Yu, you are not being honest. If you have money, just your team can make it. This is not okay.
Well, the commune has taken over the pickaxe matter." Several leaders of the commune took over the follow-up work without saying a word.
"Hey, Lao Zhang, how much ginseng soil did your commune get in total this year? Have you finished digging it all?
I have a tool here that is very useful for digging dirt. It is fast and easy. Several brigades in our commune use it. Do you want to come and take a look?"
The commune secretary directly called the phone to find someone, which was a hundred times better than Yu Shouguang and the others who could run away on a bicycle.
Being deceived by the Donggang Commune, the nearby Xinglong, Songjiang, Manjiang and other communes sent people to learn from it.
Then, they discovered that this pickaxe was really good.
Donggang said, we have some in stock, if not we can place an order, do you want it?