Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

After understanding the whole story, Yu Qiutang did not rush to chase the wild boar immediately.

When hunting wild boars, different methods are needed in different places.

If you are in the mountains and want to hunt wild boars, you just need to find a common habitat of wild boars, lie in ambush, wait for them to appear, knock down a few and carry them home.

But this kind of wild boar that breaks into the village is not acceptable.

Because these wild boars have been living in the village for a long time, they have become very cunning. They are like bandits. They will rush out to rob when they have nothing to do. If they see that something is wrong, they will run away immediately.

If you don't have particularly strong hunting abilities, it would be really difficult to deal with a group of wild boars.

We can't win in a head-on confrontation.

Once they run away, it is impossible to catch up with them. When wild boars run, humans are no match for them.

Even if people are lucky enough to kill one or two, it won't solve the problem.

On the contrary, it may make the remaining wild boars bear a grudge and become even more ambitious.

That would be a big problem.

So generally speaking, unless there is a special hunting organization, people just use sticks to drive them away from the village temporarily.

As for if they come again next time, there is nothing we can do. We will just continue to drive them away when they come.

It is not a problem that can be solved in one or two times.

Yu Qiutang had lived in the mountains for so long that he was naturally familiar with the habits of common wild animals such as wild boars.

We know that once they enter the village in large numbers, we have to deal with them all at once.

Otherwise, this group will grow larger and larger, and eventually become a wild boar problem.

He remembered that in his previous life, in a village near a mountain, there was once a severe problem with wild boars. The local people were helpless and the people at the police station were of no use either. In the end, they had to ask for help from a special army unit to deal with the situation.

I heard that more than a hundred wild boars were killed that time.

Yu Qiutang felt that the number of more than a hundred was definitely a bit exaggerated, but it was inevitable that the number was large.

Otherwise, there would be no need for troops to come.

Having said that, no matter how fierce the wild animals are, they are useless when faced with the organized power of humans.

Yu Qiutang was alone this time, so he naturally couldn't use the encirclement situation to kill the wild boar directly like the troops did.

He only had one gun, so naturally he needed to come up with a foolproof plan.

He let Yu Chuntao go back first, and he asked the village chief to find a backpack, and then he went into the mountains with it on his back.

"Young man, we are here to hunt wild boars, why are you making such progress?"

The village chief was very puzzled.

"Sharpening the knife does not delay the chopping of wood, village chief, you just need to arrange for everyone to fry the beans, the more the better."

The old village chief didn't understand what the more the better meant, but he had a general understanding of it.

Seeing Yu Qiutang's mysterious look, he thought it was the hunters' secret, so he didn't ask any more questions and just followed Yu Qiutang's instructions.

Yu Qiutang went into the mountains carrying a backpack.

He was going to look for a wild weed called poison hemlock.

Poison hemlock is a common poisonous weed in the Qinling Mountains. It lives in shady places such as ditches or valleys.

If people eat poison hemlock, they will feel nauseous, want to vomit, have weakness in their limbs, and have coma and convulsions. In severe cases, it may lead to death.

So people won’t eat it.

Nor will they feed it to livestock.

However, poison hemlock is one of the foods that wild boars like very much. After eating this thing, wild boars will become lazy, which is actually affected by the toxicity of poison hemlock.

It’s just that they are more resistant than humans and have good physical fitness, so poison hemlock will not have much impact on them, and they usually only need to rest for a while to recover.

The length of the rest period depends on their own physical condition.

In fact, it is the wild boar's weight, gender, and age.

After about an hour, Yu Qiutang collected a full basket of poison hemlock.

After coming back, he was about to look for the village chief, but he saw the village chief waiting for him at the mountain pass. He was surprised again to see him coming back with poison hemlock on his back.

He kept saying that poison hemlock must not be brought into the village at will, as if it were eaten by livestock or unsuspecting children, the consequences would be disastrous.

Yu Qiutang told him that if they wanted to catch all the wild boars in one fell swoop, they would definitely need the poison hemlock. He had observed the nearby mountains and found that they were very small hills, all loess mountains, without stones, and not suitable for the growth of Datura.

Otherwise, Datura is certainly more suitable than poison hemlock.

Datura emits a special smell. Without special training, most people will only smell it with a faint fragrance, but wild animals such as wild boars and roe deer are extremely obsessed with it.

They often eat it when they encounter it.

They then fall into a brief state of stupor, losing their ability to detect dangers around them.

Fortunately, they live in groups. If they acted alone like tigers and leopards, they would be killed to extinction.

After hearing what Yu Qiutang said, the village chief did not insist on opposing it.

I just followed Yu Qiutang's instructions and emphasized this matter on the loudspeaker, telling all adults to be careful with children, especially those little ones who don't understand anything and just put anything they grab into their mouths.

With their small bodies, if they put poison hemlock in their mouths, something serious could happen.

Say the important thing three times.

There is basically no problem. Everyone was thinking about catching wild boars today, so they were all concentrating on listening to the horn and were not afraid of anyone being ignored.

To be on the safe side, Yu Qiutang asked the village chief to sound a reminder every hour so that even if someone went out, they would be able to hear the sound when they came back.

While the village chief was doing these things, Yu Qiutang was walking around the village with a basket on his back.

He found that the shape of the village was very special.

The east-west is very long, the north-south is very short.

This is because the village was built taking advantage of the terrain.

There are mountains to its south and valleys to its north, so the total distance from north to south is less than 100 meters.

To its west are the few cultivated fields, while to its east is the road connecting to the outside world.

Yu Qiutang carefully observed along the foot of the mountain and found that the group of wild boars did not rush out from the mountain path, so they could only be from the fields over there.

At the end of the field, there is another small valley, which is about seventy or eighty meters deep. Standing on the valley, you can see a river at the bottom of the valley. At this moment, it has been frozen, like a silver belt spread across the bottom of the valley.

There are also mountains across the valley.

It is connected to the mountain in the south, and there is a concave ridge in the middle, but overall it is connected.

At least from a distance.

He walked along the valley again and soon saw what he wanted.

That's right.

The wild boars came from this direction.

The reason why they didn't come down from the mountains in the south was probably because this side was close to farmland with grain. Every time these guys came down from the mountains, they would basically eat in the fields first, and it became a habit.

Now it is winter and there is no food in the fields.

But these bastards, if they really can't find anything to eat, will just dig up wheat to eat.

Winter wheat is grown in Rongcheng.

The wheat is sown in autumn, and grows to about 10 centimeters in winter, then dries up due to the low temperature and is covered by snow. Because it snows many times a year, basically one snowfall has not completely melted yet, and another one will come.

The accumulated snow can keep the wheat fields warm.

As the saying goes, cover yourself with three layers of quilts this winter and you will sleep on steamed buns as a pillow next year.

The wheat seedlings dried up in winter, except for the green seedlings on top, the roots below were fine.

So some livestock can be eaten on it, such as cows.

But some things are absolutely not allowed to enter, such as sheep and pigs.

Sheep and pigs are the kind of pigs that eat food by digging it up with the roots, so it takes a long time for the grasslands eaten by these animals to recover their ecology, let alone wheat.

If someone's sheep run into someone else's wheat field to eat and the owner doesn't do anything, it will cause a big dispute.

It is easy to tell that a wild boar has come. There are traces of wild boars running everywhere, as well as pig feces.

After Yu Qiutang determined the track, he returned to confirm with the village chief and learned that wild boars usually came in the evening or before dawn, with the most coming in the evening.

But he didn't go into the village every time. Most of the time he just ate wheat roots in the wheat fields.

Someone else added that in fact, in the past few days, perhaps because it had snowed, wild boars came almost every day, treating the wheat fields in the village as their restaurant and eating whenever they wanted.

When Yu Qiutang heard this, his eyes lit up.

I was just worrying about making that place the main battlefield, and then this inspiration came to me.

Originally, he wanted to take advantage of the wild boar's love for the smell of beans and lure it into the village, put some of the poison hemlock in it, and let the villagers guard the entrance to the village with the rest, thus catching the pig in a jar.

Now he has this wheat field, which just solves his urgent needs.

"Village Chief, you are..."

Yu Qiutang explained the "tactics" to the village chief once. Fearing that the village chief did not hear it clearly, he repeated the key points several times to make sure that the village chief understood what he meant.

Then he asked the village chief to make the arrangements and he went to his sister's house first.

"Okay, we'll get it done here, and please come back and take a look when the time comes. If there's anything missing, please point it out to us. As long as we can get rid of those damn things, you can cooperate with us in any way you want!"

"Don't worry, I won't go back until I kill them."

After Yu Qiutang parted with the village chief, he went to his second sister Yu Chuntao's house.

My second sister's house is also very ordinary, just like the houses of my friends here. It has a courtyard with earthen walls and a natural wooden door. There is a gate at the front door, but it is not very tall. There is a circle of apricot trees planted around the yard.

Just as he was about to push the door open, it opened and a little girl of seven or eight years old came out carrying a basket. The two almost bumped into each other.

The little girl was wearing black cotton trousers and a pink cotton jacket. Her hair was twisted into a pigtail with a small white flower tied at the end of the pigtail.

This is probably because Yu Dehuo died.

Yu Qiutang just thought the girl looked familiar, and was still trying to figure out who she was, when the girl put down the basket, smiled sweetly and called out, "Second Uncle."

"You are Dujuan!"

Yu Qiutang remembered the little girl's name. She was the eldest daughter of his second sister.

My second sister has three daughters and one son.

The eldest daughter is named Dujuan, the youngest daughter is named Peony, and the youngest daughter is named Camellia.

Although the second sister is the youngest sister, she gave birth to a child earlier than the eldest sister. Dadong, the eldest sister's child, is just over five years old, while Dujuan, the second sister's child, is at least seven or eight years old.

These three daughters grew up to be very successful and all of them are college students.

Among them, my little niece Shancha was admitted to the University of Science and Technology of China and later engaged in research in the biopharmaceutical industry.

But after growing up, Yu Qiutang rarely saw these nieces.

We are not in the same place, and there are so many relatives, it is difficult to take care of everyone. Moreover, when a new generation comes along, their feelings towards relatives have faded. Brothers and sisters don’t interact much with each other, and sometimes they are too lazy to call their parents, let alone visit relatives.

We only see each other during festivals and sometimes at gatherings.

Later, the three children all settled down in other places and I don’t know the specific reasons.

"Yes, I'm Du Juan. Uncle, don't you recognize me?"

Du Juan put the basket inside the door, looked at the gun on Yu Qiutang's back, and said in surprise: "Second uncle, is this a real gun?"

Yu Qiutang smiled and nodded.

Dujuan doesn't look like the second sister, but more like the eldest sister. Judging from her appearance, the second sister is not as pretty as the eldest sister.

But because the second sister is a teacher, she has read a lot and has a lot of knowledge, so she looks more elegant and more attractive.

Du Juan is very young, but she looks like her aunt and has a temperament similar to her mother. She will definitely be a great beauty when she grows up.

Yu Qiutang took the gun off his back and asked, "Do you want to carry it?"

"Can you do that?"

"Why not?"

Yu Qiutang placed the gun on Dujuan's shoulder. The gun was still a little heavy, and Dujuan's body leaned forward slightly. However, she immediately united her waist and horse, and steadied herself while staggering, as if she was carrying a shoulder pole.

"Is your mother here?"

"Inside," Du Juan shouted like a little female soldier, carrying a gun and shouting inside: "Mom, my second uncle is here."

"Hey."

The second sister's voice was heard from inside, but Yu Qiutang noticed a small pigtail sticking out from the door of the main room.

Slowly, slowly, the braids stretched out more and more, and a little girl of three or four years old showed half of her face. Her big dark eyes stared at Yu Qiutang, so adorable.

Yu Qiutang quickly recalled that this should be his second sister's second daughter, Mudan.

He looks like he is only three or four years old.

When Mudan grew up, she was admitted to the Shanghai Drama Academy. Later, she went to Jiangsu to study Kunqu Opera and became a well-known Kunqu actor.

For this reason, my second brother-in-law Bai Dawei was unhappy and said that if he wanted to learn opera, why couldn't he learn it near home? There were many places to learn it.

Long Opera or Qinqiang are both fine.

In fact, he just wanted to keep one of his three daughters by his side.

But girls grow up and become beyond their control. One by one, they become like fully-fledged birds, gradually flying out of their sight.

So much so that, when he was old and confused, he would still mutter: This child, he should not be able to achieve much. He has no future. I can only see him a few times a year, but once he has some ability, he will fly away all over the world.

Others laughed and said that his three daughters were so successful and filial to them, and he must be very happy.

But Yu Qiutang could understand his brother-in-law's thoughts.

When children are young, they think that they must bring honor to the family when they grow up. But as they grow up and are about to leave their parents to pursue their own lives, their parents begin to feel reluctant to let them go.

Very contradictory.

"Mudan, come here, this is your second uncle, you should call him second uncle."

Dujuan called out.

Mudan then revealed her entire body, dressed like a century-old doll in a painting, and shouted with a cracked mouth, "Er Ju."

There seemed to be something wrong with her teeth, and she had some leakage when she spoke.

Yu Qiutang burst out laughing.

Who would have thought that this child who can barely speak properly now would become a star in an opera in the future? Life is really unpredictable. (End of this chapter)