Starting from discovering the crab's face, he earned tens of millions in wealth

This is South Taihu in Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. In late November, crab sales in the Yangtze River Delta are already nearing their end, but for Song Liangliang, large-scale crab sales are just beginning.

On November 22, Song Liangliang was going to harvest a batch of crabs. The distributors who had come to visit the crab farming base saw the crab harvesting process with their own eyes for the first time. They were very curious and began discussing the cage used to catch crabs.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: When it crawls, why doesn't it crawl outside? Why must it drill into the net?

Song Liangliang: The crab crawls along the net, crawls into that net, and then it comes over here.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: So it's like the front of this net is its only way out.

Song Liangliang: Right, the only way out is here. Once it crawls here, it goes in, and then it comes over.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: They've all come to this end.

Song Liangliang: Yes, yes.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: And over there, they can get in but not out. It's a funnel-shaped opening.

Song Liangliang: Yes, yes, yes.

E-commerce representative: I thought crabs were raised vertically, but I didn't expect it to be horizontally.

As soon as the crabs were harvested, Song Liangliang got busy. He needed to carry out the first sorting of these crabs.

Song Liangliang: Put the female crabs here, put the male crabs there. First separate the males from the females.

Seeing Song Liangliang's quick and skilled movements in catching crabs, the distributors admired him greatly.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: How many years have you practiced this technique of catching crabs? How many years have you been doing this?

Song Liangliang: About 20 years.

E-commerce representative: How much are you farming now?

Song Liangliang: Right now our whole cooperative has more than 1000 mu.

Having farmed crabs for more than 20 years, Song Liangliang can not only sort crabs very skillfully, but has also developed a special skill for catching crabs.

After the crabs were harvested and brought ashore, Song Liangliang began the second sorting of the crabs. Seeing that Song Liangliang could catch crabs accurately every time, this visitor wanted to compete with him.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: Catch one, catch one and test it. The thickness is different; you can't just look at the width.

Song Liangliang: What about this one?

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: Aren't you really good? How much does this one weigh?

Visitor: I can't do it.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: You can. Don't be modest.

Visitor: 3 liang, 3 liang 2.

Song Liangliang: Wait a moment.

Visitor: 2 liang 9.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: He said 2 liang 9.

Song Liangliang: 3 liang 6.

Visitor: How could it be that high?

Song Liangliang: 3 liang 5, right? The difference is one qian. I said one qian; I only have an error of one qian.

Deputy General Manager of a certain express delivery group's Jiaxing District, Zhejiang Province: If the boss is just a little tougher, this one gets thrown into the 4 liang bucket.

Seeing so many crabs, some young visitors could not hold back and started catching them themselves.

Visitor: Dad, I really want to steal the spotlight. I want to steal the spotlight.

Taking advantage of the crowd, Song Liangliang began introducing the crabs he farmed.

Song Liangliang: Our crabs are just that fierce. They bite all the snails into this shape. Their claws are very powerful. They can pinch off this leg. Look, the leg has already been pinched off. Look, look, look, your hand would be in danger.

Visitor: The leg came off. It was bitten off directly.

Song Liangliang: If you touch it, it will pinch, so you have to be careful when catching it. You can't grab it from the front.

These distributors and visitors were all specially invited by Song Liangliang. Every year starting from the beginning of crab season, on the lake-opening festival and special days, Song Liangliang's farming base is always full of many people, and many times it is even livelier than now. Through selling crabs, Song Liangliang's sales in 2014 reached more than 20 million yuan. Local farmers told reporters that privately everyone calls Song Liangliang the "Taihu Crab Boss."

Farmer: Boss Song is definitely the boss of our Taihu crabs. He has a large sales volume, broad outside connections, many customers, good quality, and high credibility. If he tells us to stockpile crabs, we stockpile crabs; if he says not to, we don't. We definitely listen to him. We keep making money year after year.

Farmer: He reads the market accurately. Sometimes he tells us to sell, saying the market is bad, and we basically sell right away. He says wait a bit, the price will still rise, and then we sell a little more slowly.

But now, every time Song Liangliang invites these distributors and visitors to his farming base, he loses a lot of money.

Song Liangliang: It's a big loss. With four events each year, the value lost each day is about 8000 yuan. If we do it often, we lose seven or eight thousand yuan a day, and calculated over a year, that number is very large.

If he doesn't make money and even loses money, then why does Song Liangliang do this?

When Song Liangliang was 4 years old, something happened that broke the hearts of his whole family. He vaguely remembers that year, because the family was poor, his parents sent him to live with another family.

Song Liangliang's father: Life was hard, so in the end he was taken away.

Song Liangliang: When I was little, you sent me away. You had difficulties, and I won't ask about them, but after all, I still wanted to come back. That was my thought. I always wanted to come back.

At 16, after discussing it with his adoptive parents, Song Liangliang returned to his biological parents' side. At this time, he found that after all these years his parents were still drifting on a boat like this, catching small fish and shrimp to make a living, and life was very hard. He secretly made up his mind that through his own efforts he would find a stable home on shore for his aging parents.

Song Liangliang: Seeing children on shore playing, they all had homes, while we only had a boat. When I was little, what I longed for was to be able to live in a small house. So I started my own business at 19, doing business myself.

At 19, Song Liangliang went alone to Guangdong to sell crabs. The selling price of crabs in the Guangdong market let him spot a business opportunity.

Song Liangliang: At that time our crabs sold in Guangdong for more than 120 yuan per jin, but they could sell theirs for more than 200 per jin, a difference of double. But they had the ability. After I saw that price difference, I went to learn.

After careful observation, Song Liangliang found that other people's method of sorting crabs was very strange.

Song Liangliang: Around here we used to do it like this: throw this size here, throw that size there. They weren't like that. They put a pile of crabs here, and they had to look at every one like this. I said, they're digging through the crabs back and forth, digging for what? I was very puzzled.