Sixty Thousand Yuan for a Lame Pig: What Happened to Lü Xunda Later?

He spent sixty thousand yuan to buy a lame pig, fed it eggs and milk, and treasured it like a precious jewel. Others laughed at him for being insane, but he laughed at them for not seeing through it. Overnight, the lame pig locked in a pen over one meter tall disappeared, and little did anyone know, his path to wealth had just opened up.

On April 7, 2016, the stewing chef cooked an entire barrel of pork, and the aroma drifting out attracted all the tourists. Although it was not yet mealtime, some people could not hold back any longer.

Tourist: I will eat first, what is going on, you could not resist, right? I could not resist. I came as soon as I smelled the aroma, I could not resist the temptation.

Tourist: Eating this meat, it is much better than our usual pork, fragrant, the more you chew, the more fragrant it gets.

These tourists had been playing here all afternoon and were already starving. The sky gradually darkened, and seeing that the tourists were all hungry enough, the good show that Lü Xunda had carefully planned was about to begin.

Lü Xunda: Today, if anyone can eat one piece, we will reward them with two jin of pork.

Tourist: It is so white, is it greasy?

Lü Xunda: Not greasy, not greasy at all. Try it.

The cut piece of pork weighed roughly two liang, with quite a lot of fat. Worried that an average person could not eat so much, Lü Xunda prepared a plate of Shandong scallions for the challengers, saying they would eat meat the Shandong way, one bite of pork and one bite of scallion. Finally, someone took on the challenge.

Tourist: Wow, good. Slow down, slow down.

Tourist: Not greasy at all, I can eat a second piece.

Reporter: You can eat more? Yes, really?

Tourist: Really, do you not believe it? Do you believe it?

Reporter: Eat another piece and let me see.

Tourist: If I eat another piece, I will have earned four jin of meat. It looks very fatty, but it is not greasy at all, good, how is that? If you do not eat it, you will never know, what is the next line, once you eat it, you will never forget it.

One piece of meat weighed over two liang, and two pieces were almost half a jin. Seeing that someone really could eat half a jin of pork, the tourists watching on the side also took up the challenge one after another. Even children around ten years old were eager to try.

Tourist: Good.

Tourist: Do not wait for him, you eat yours. Encourage, encourage, good.

On one hand, the tourists really were hungry, and on the other hand, Lü Xunda's pork really was delicious. In the end, every challenger could eat at least one piece of pork weighing over two liang, and they were full of praise for Lü Xunda's pork. It seemed that Lü Xunda's planning today was very successful. Lü Xunda held an event like this once every one or two months, and he did not charge any fee for such events. What was his purpose in doing this?

Lü Xunda: Because what do I believe? As long as they eat my black pork once, they will never choose any other pork to eat again, because the characteristic of our pork is that it is fragrant but not greasy.

Lü Xunda had this kind of ability: a seemingly money-losing business could be turned into an explosive point of wealth.

In his hands, one pig could sell for 6,000 yuan. Lü Xunda not only became rich himself, but also helped more than two hundred farming households make money. What exactly was Lü Xunda's charm? This still has to start from the lame pig he bought back for 60,000 yuan.

In the spring of 2009, Lü Xunda, who worked at a transport company in Yanggu County, Shandong Province, went on a business trip to Laiwu City, where he ate a meal he still remembers clearly to this day.

Lü Xunda: Braised black pork, and clear-stewed pork ribs, and then a stir-fried pork kidney, these three dishes were especially good, especially that braised pork, it was especially fragrant, not greasy at all. When I ate Laiwu black pork, I thought, if only we had such delicious pork in our local area, then when I wanted to eat this kind of pork, I would not have to run all the way to Laiwu City.

At that time, Lü Xunda's monthly salary was only 1,200 yuan. For him, who already had a wife and child, this amount of money was not enough at all, and he had long wanted to start a business and do something. After investigation and comparison, he decided to raise Laiwu black pigs.

In 2009, Lü Xunda resigned from his job at the transport company, mortgaged his family's house, and raised 800,000 yuan. At a price of 15,000 yuan per pig, he brought in twenty Laiwu black sow pigs from Laiwu. But when he asked the other party about bringing in boars as well, the other party said something that made Lü Xunda very puzzled.

Lü Xunda: At that time, the legal representative of this enterprise told me one thing: you simply cannot buy purebred Laiwu black pigs locally in our Laiwu City, because for one thing they are rare, there are none, and for another, even if there were, they would not be sold to outsiders. At that time he said something like, I would rather give you two tons of chilled fresh black pork than give you this one breeding pig.

This is the Laiwu black pig. Laiwu black pigs are mainly distributed in Laiwu City, Shandong Province. Although their meat is delicious, because they grow slowly and have low economic returns, fewer and fewer people raise them. By the late 1970s, Laiwu black pigs had reached the point of being on the verge of extinction. Later, Laiwu black pigs became a nationally protected breed, and some farms were unwilling to sell breeding pigs to outsiders; they only agreed to provide Lü Xunda with black pig semen.

But Lü Xunda knew that without his own breeding boar, the future development of the pig farm would be controlled by others. Since the other party refused to sell, why not go to Laiwu himself to look for one? He heard from a friend that in some remote mountainous areas of Laiwu, perhaps one or two relatively purebred breeding pigs could be found, but the result greatly disappointed him.

Lü Xunda: At that time, when I came to look for this kind of Laiwu black pig, I really put in a lot of effort. Just for lodging here, I stayed for more than half a month, and asked at least ten or twenty local people, but I still could not find out anything. There are quite a few pig farmers in Laiwu, but most of them raise commercial pigs, that kind of white pig.

Whether or not it is a purebred Laiwu black pig is actually not hard to identify. Because this kind of pig has adapted to the mountainous environment of Laiwu City and is good at climbing mountains, its legs are thinner than those of ordinary pigs, and its body shape is also moderate. In addition, Laiwu black pigs have three more distinctive features.

Farmer Cao Linqing: The characteristics of the Laiwu black pig: it has splayed eyebrows on the front, splayed eyebrows on its face, and bristles, very long. What other characteristics are there? Also, big ears, big ears.

However, Lü Xunda searched for more than half a month and still did not buy a single purebred Laiwu breeding pig.

In May 2009, an intermediary passed on a piece of news to Lü Xunda, saying that a farmer in Laiwu was preparing to sell a Laiwu breeding pig. As soon as Lü Xunda heard this, he immediately took the veterinarian Lü Xupin from his hometown and rushed to Laiwu from Liaocheng, three hundred kilometers away. When they arrived at the farmer's house and took a look, they found that the Laiwu black pig was very purebred, but they could not be happy at all.

Lü Xunda: Its constitution was especially weak. It could still walk fine in the front, but when the two back legs walked, they splayed out step by step.

Reporter: How did they splay out? Show me.

Lü Xunda: When it walked in the back, it swung back and forth, as if it could not stand steadily. People who did not understand would think it was lame.

Veterinarian Lü Xupin: Its hind legs are weak, so it cannot mount a sow. Ours here is not artificial insemination, mainly natural mating.

When a boar mates, it relies on its hind legs for support. If its hind legs are not strong enough, it is very difficult to mate successfully. It was precisely after seeing this situation that the farmer at the time decided to sell it. But although the pig's legs were a bit lame, the intermediary still asked for a price of sixty thousand yuan. This gave Lü Xunda a fright. For a boar with a problem in its hind legs, it really was not worth this money. However, after observing it carefully, Lü Xunda decided to buy this pig.

Lü Xunda: For nearly half a month, I had not found a single purebred Laiwu black pig. Although the breeding pig I bought back had a somewhat weak constitution, I felt that spending sixty thousand yuan to buy a pig like this was still acceptable. The animal husbandry expert who came also said that after we went back, we could condition it ourselves, and it could still be used normally.