Deciphering Cordyceps: The Most Expensive "Corpse"

The old Cordyceps has once again verified the rule of invariance in the industrial society - every precious thing that nature has bestowed on mankind is enjoyed by people thousands of miles away.

The Tibetans dug and the Hui people bought and sold.

1. Unearthed miscellaneous counties

With the heavy sound of closing the door, a room of dust leaped through the windows of the sunset.

Ala threw her luggage on the ground and sat down on the sofa.

Then gently place a cotton bag in the center of the coffee table.

This cloth bag contains more than 5000 Cordyceps sinensis.

This is the whole harvest he has been away from his family for more than a month.

These little things come from the soil of Tanggula Mountain, each one has experienced a painful life course.

If it had not been for this strange way of death, they could now be a bat moth with various patterns on their wings, flying like a cocoon butterfly on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau.

Now, they can only lie stiff.

In the next year, the people who have dug, dried and brought them to live here are determined by their standard of living.

Ala pulled out the wooden box under the bed, opened it, and cleaned out a space in a pile of ornaments and soft paper.

When he needed money, he could grab one and go out and find one of the caterpillar traders in the street.

As long as next year's Cordyceps digging season is not allowed to empty this bag, they will have relatively prosperous days.

They firmly believe that these "

It is called "the first county of Cordyceps sinensis".

The plateau area at the northern foot of the Tanggula Mountain, with an average altitude of 4290 meters, has rich mineral and metal contents in alkaline soil, large temperature difference between day and night, adequate sunshine, and suitable air humidity. The Cordyceps produced here are famous for their color, body and nutritional value.

Locally, there are "Qinghai Cordyceps out of Yushu, Yushu caterpillar fungus number".

1000 catties of catty Cordyceps, 80% from here.

As a result, digging up Cordyceps has become a top priority for every household in a year.

In the mid May to the end of June, there were thirty thousand people living in the county, and the rest were less than three thousand.

At home, there are locks and doors, and shops on the street are closed. Even the government departments, each department, has only one or two left behind staff, who are usually outsiders.

In fact, there will be basically nothing in this period. In Yushu, business activities, daily consumption and even government administration have stopped.

All of them must start again after the end of the Cordyceps digging period.

All traces of miscellaneous people can only be found in the mountains.

Usually the neighbouring families go hand in hand, bringing tent, bedding, gas stoves and necessary food together to build tent villages in the mountainside group.

Taking this temporary village as a stronghold, they set off with highland barley noodles and yak meat in the morning, and returned to the tent with the Cordyceps excavated one day in the evening.

Mining is a difficult and meticulous process. For a whole day, they need to lie on the hillside, tilt their heads, and pass through the grass or snow, and scan the brown seats on the ground with the naked eye.

Once the target is found, the small sickle in hand is used to start digging around the base, until the Cordyceps wrapped in the earth are completely dug out, leaving an egg size pit in the grass.

With hidden

Many children may be the highest paid children in the world. They have been able to dig up Cordyceps with their parents in their teens.

Because children are short and eyes are sharp, they often dig more than their parents.

At this time of year, the "Cordyceps leave" of primary and secondary schools has, to a certain extent, acquiesced and even encouraged primary and secondary school students to join the Cordyceps army.

Because even if there is no Cordyceps leave, these children who have quick legs and quick eyes will listen to their families' arrangements and choose to skipping school in order not to let go of the biggest opportunity to make money in the year.

Four or five year old children and elderly people who stay at home are not outsiders on the Cordyceps stage.

The old man will take his children to the nearby hills and dig them up and come back.

Although the harvest will not be too great, the children will begin to learn from their life in their lifetime.

Apart from digging and digging, they are obliged to guard their positions. The industry that only releases to the local people will never be allowed to have unfamiliar faces.

Since 2004, the Qinghai Cordyceps mining area has banned the digging of Cordyceps from other places, where the wealth belongs only to locals.

Many regulations are more stringent, and people in the county can not even go to villages and towns.

In cross - border mining and mining in ZA duo County, each person needs to pay 200 to 300 yuan for digging gold.

However, the amount of gold mining outside the county is likely to increase to several thousand yuan, which has become the main financial source of the township level government.

"When I dig Cordyceps, I am a lot of people."

Every time Alah speaks to her friends in her hometown, she always takes a little pride.

Since 2007, Allah has moved from Yushu to miscellaneous and joined the army of Cordyceps.

Although it belongs to Yushu, it also operates in Kham Tibetan language, but the subtle accent difference often makes the excavating people suspicious on the road. Several times they almost meet each other.

Every time, Allah can handle it.

It is also normal for a new miscellaneous person to be questioned by the local hostage.

Because there are too many foreigners with Cordyceps ideas, they want to get a piece of this "Cordyceps first county".

In 2008, Alah once opened a washing car business in miscellany, which was a good business, but eventually it was closed because of lack of manpower.

In the complex, 2000 yuan a month also can not hire people, all the local people regard the digging of Cordyceps as the only survival ability.

Since the mid 90s of last century, the price of Cordyceps has risen sharply, and all the lives of locals have been moving around the Cordyceps.

They instinctively divide the year into the production season of digging Cordyceps and the consumption season without digging up the Cordyceps.

No one wants to work.

With an annual income of tens of thousands of dollars of Cordyceps, most of the people live comfortably without any other living skills.

These brave warriors in the history of the war were completely changed by this inch of small things.

In July, a lot of consumption season came and people in the streets grew more and more.

The market is well supplied, restaurants open and children come back to school.

The whole county began to recover in midsummer.

Two, plastic bags Yushu County

Yushu has not yet recovered from the shadow of the earthquake.

Even in the most ancient town square, there are many ruins.

For the outsiders to settle down, there is only the humble "account Hotel".

This is still unable to stop the gold rush's footsteps, as in the past season, which is full of strangers.

The ancient town square in summer is a concentrated trading place for Cordyceps sinensis in Yushu. Every day at dawn, some strange faces appear in the prominent position of the intersection as usual. The dark skinned Tibetans are the Hui people with the broad side sun shading straw hat.

Most of the time, they seem to have nothing to do, but once the locals come face to face with colorful plastic bags in their hands, they come up quickly like a hound looking at their prey.

The sleeves behind them reveal their only weapon, a delicate copper scale.

They are all businessmen who come here to buy Cordyceps sinensis, from all parts of Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan and Gansu.

In order to sell their Cordyceps at a better price, the herdsmen in the county will come to Yushu for sale.

Similarly, in order to get more affordable Cordyceps, Cordyceps merchants will gather here.

The Cordyceps in plastic bags are the purpose of their trip.

Acquisitions, and then sell them everywhere.

So the price from the origin to the place of sale can be nearly doubled.

In one year, the business of Cordyceps is far more than the sum of other seasons.

If they are satisfied with the Cordyceps in plastic bags, the two sides immediately put their hands under the clothes, under the plastic bags or under the towels that they carried with each other, and hammered the price by holding fingers together. This old secret bargaining method is known as "fingers" and is widely used in the trade of Cordyceps.

There are no more spectators to know the final paction price.

Also in the streets are the local Yushu's Cordyceps merchants who are walking on opposite routes with these foreigners.

Local acquisition, pported to the field, where the price is high, where to pport.

Because they are familiar with the local community, they often get the most cost-effective Cordyceps.

They have a very recognizable feature - a larger mouth usually exposing more than one golden tooth.

From the 90s to the early twenty-first Century of last century, the consumption of golden teeth was once popular in Tibetan areas, and was once a symbol of identity.

In those days, the richer people were those who made Cordyceps, almost without exception, the golden imprint of their own scenery.

Young Cordyceps traders are no longer obsessed with golden teeth. Their display of wealth is brand clothes.

The most popular domestic brand on TV every year is their fashion.

In 2008, the "seven wolves" and the "Prince dragon" in 2009 were all their identities.

This year is "strong fighter", and it must be equipped with sparkling brass buttons.

In the newly opened "strong" store, the most frequently visited is the Cordyceps merchants.

They wrapped themselves under the domestic brand suit and walked on the streets.

Sonam Fagafaga Zo, a 41 year old Yushu native, is one of the Cordyceps who shuttle across the Yushu, Xining and miscellaneous areas.

Now he settles in Xining.

18 years ago, he was earning more than two hundred yuan a month. When he worked in a foreign trade company in Yushu, he bought and sold local products, and Cordyceps was the most important source of profit.

Now, his job is still buying and selling Cordyceps, but the annual revenue has exceeded 200 thousand.

In 2001, he left the foreign trade company to operate the Cordyceps business.

Since then it has become a frequent visitor in the town of ZA duo, Jie Gu and diligent alley.

In 2006, there were gains and losses in the Cordyceps and lakes. It was reclaimed by the Qinghai Tibet Cordyceps company and entered a more systematic business operation.

In 2008, he was seen by the Xining spring company, which was just starting in Qinghai. The company provided him with a monthly salary of more than 3000 yuan.

At the same time, the wages of workers in the Cordyceps industry were less than half of that of their counterparts.

He chose job hopping.

A year later, the 39 year old agent once again went to sea.

This time, he maintained close cooperation with his family in Qinghai spring, and became a member of Qinghai spring Cordyceps supplier, looking for high-quality Cordyceps resources.

200 thousand yuan has already been the "upper limit" of income in this sector, which means that it has entered the "upper class society" of the Cordyceps industry.

But relative to the dependence of economic income on Cordyceps sinensis, local Tibetans have a much lower degree of trust in the medical value of Cordyceps sinensis.

In their minds, the price of musk is only 1/10 of Cordyceps.

Many people believe that if there is a musk in a village, the whole village will not be sick as the wind acts.

Cordyceps sinensis has no effect on Tibetan people who grow up from eating yak meat and drinking yogurt without any additives.

They regard it as a natural and simple tool to become rich.

In Yushu's famous Zhuo Mei Tibetan Hospital, seventy or eighty days ago, there was no Cordyceps sinensis in more than ten years.

People suffering from lung diseases, liver diseases and cancer are all Tibetan medicine pills made of minerals and plants.

However, in the oncology department of many TCM hospitals in Beijing, Cordyceps sinensis appears every day in the prescriptions of "identity" patients.

In order to reach these "identity" patients correctly, Cordyceps began the long march from Yushu. The first stop is Xining, which is 800 kilometers away.

This is the largest distributing center of Cordyceps in the world. The air of the whole city is permeated with the taste of Cordyceps sinensis, and it has formed a complete industrial chain and mature fraud environment.

Three, safe hard Lane

If the Cordyceps are picked up by the Tibetans, then the trade of Cordyceps is the world of the Hui people.

Since ancient times, the Han people who advocate farming have natural fear of the ecological environment of Qinghai Tibet Plateau. Few Han people have bought and bought Cordyceps sinensis.

And closely related to Tibet and Xinjiang, and a large number of Hui people in Qinghai are keen on this.

As the price of Cordyceps rose steadily in the 90s of last century, more and more Hui people began to run this business.

From that time on, Xining's diligent alley gradually evolved into a Cordyceps street.

Now, diligent alley is the pilgrimage site for all Chinese caterpillar merchants.

Most of the Cordyceps digging in the Cordyceps are using Xining as a pfer station, and moving to the diligent lane is a required course to grasp the price and market.

Both sides of the diligent lane are crowded with Cordyceps shops.

The size of these shops is the same as that of the salon shops with pink fluorescent lamps. Apart from tattered tables and chairs, the most striking and crucial equipment in the corner of each shop is the safe, which contains various kinds of Cordyceps and cash used for turnover.

The key to the safe is usually kept by the boss himself. If the partnership opens, the key to each small door of the safe will be kept separately.

These shops have a variety of names, some will have a rough Logo, more are filled in the gap between the shop and the nameless shop without signs.

At 89 o'clock in the morning, the Cordyceps wearing the white hat of the Hui nationality gathered here, stared at the past people with a deep blue eye, and saw who had the good Cordyceps immediately pulling the "fingers".

More white caps carry the plastic bags filled with Cordyceps on the street. Some people want to see the goods and start immediately.

When the plastic bags are opened for inspection, the storefront boss should always be on guard against the children with wire hooks on the street.

These children gather in groups outside the Cordyceps pile, and hook up a Cordyceps with a self made wire hook from a human seam and put them in their pockets.

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Now, in the alley of less than 1000 kilometers, there are more than 400 fixed stores, and there are thousands of people selling small pieces of caterpillar fungus in small hotels in the lane, and the annual turnover of Cordyceps is nearly 100 tons.

In the two peak seasons of summer and Spring Festival, the daily turnover of Chinese caterpillar fungus can reach more than one ton, with a daily turnover of nearly 50 million yuan.

No invoice or even account book.

All shops only symbolically pay a fixed tax, and then carry out huge pactions in the name of local products.

Those who are engaged in Cordyceps related businesses in Qinghai must keep in touch with them here.

The price of diligent alley determines the price of Cordyceps throughout the world and changes every day.

Larger companies will send special personnel to spy on the military situation every day.

Solo speculators often know the market through friends.

Every big price change in hard lane can trigger an earthquake in the whole industry.

In 2008, after ten years of rising cycles, the price of Cordyceps suddenly plummeted.

It is said that a speculator from Zhejiang first bought a large number of Cordyceps through diligent alley through middlemen, and then made his debut in every shop of diligent alley, saying that the new high-end Cordyceps sinensis in the mainland was going to enter tens of billions of goods, and at the same time, he smashed several million yuan by himself and bought it at a price higher than the market price.

Such a move makes all shop owners believe that they have spared no expense of the source of the organization, and the price of Cordyceps has risen.

At this time, the speculators secretly shipped through the middleman. The Cordyceps bought earlier sold at this high price. After making a hard profit, they could no longer see the figure.

There are a lot of Cordyceps in the diligent lane. After realizing that they are being fooled, every boss is rushing to sell the goods at a lower price.

In the lowest valley, the price of Cordyceps dropped by 20% compared with the previous year.

The authenticity of the legend remains to be verified.

But after this price drop, Cordyceps bosses are more careful.

In the face of increasingly pparent prices and increasingly small profit margins, many people are beginning to take a wrong turn.

In order to guarantee lower prices, they make great efforts to write articles on the weight of Cordyceps, lightly add water, and then use heavy metal powder such as iron powder and lead powder.

"Now, 90% of the Cordyceps in the diligent alley have been dealt with more or less.

If you buy only the Cordyceps mixed with water, it is fortunate.

A diligent Lane insider said.

From the plastic bags of origin to the safe cabinets of diligent lanes, they are able to help themselves.

No one knows how much nutritious ingredients left in the high-end tonic from here, or how much reaction it has produced.

Four, box Xining City

"What you see now is the new grass of 2010. A few years ago, it was just a bat moth egg. It grew into a larva and was infected by phakii. The larvae after infection continued to grow. Last year, it drilled into the soil and waited for it to break into cocoon after becoming a bat moth.

In the soil, the fungus is slowly covered with its whole body, and the larvae die. In this year's warm and humid spring, a brown stalk with a handle from the head of the worm penetrates the soil and is discovered and dug by the herdsmen. "

The voice of the commentator is clear and melodious, but not proficient.

This is the only Cordyceps Museum in the world. It is located on the five floor of the new Cordyceps sinensis International Trade Center on the 71 road of Xining. It is open to the public free of charge.

But this did not attract many visitors. Most of the time, except when a tour group arrived, it was cold and clear.

Even tourists from far away do not have much interest in the mysterious growth process of Cordyceps sinensis.

Everyone's interest is pure - put them in their pockets and take them home.

The four floors below the museum satisfy everyone's appetite.

One to four floors of the sales hall are rows of Cordyceps.

Each layer will have an area with the largest location and the best stalls. It will become a new brand store and sell its own products directly.

Xin Qian hopes to elevate himself to the position of the industry leader through the way of stars.

This so-called world's largest Cordyceps market opened in May. Before that, the new millennium was still a simple Real Estate Company.

Perhaps it is the huge profits of the Cordyceps industry, which has no foundation and experience in this line, and has become the last link directly to consumers in the industrial chain of Cordyceps.

In Xining, there are more Cordyceps stores than cigarette shops. The new millennium made a decent box for them, hoping to provide a safe and reliable place for the 105 stalls.

Another big box to be put into use may soon refresh the world's largest "record" of the new millennium, the Qinghai hawk hawk trading center, which provides 1000 fixed trading shops, and is also invested by a Real Estate Company.

Compared with the market formed by the hard lane, every stall in these boxes is a brand.

Cordyceps completed the pformation from native produce to commodity.

Each of the stalls is lined with cartons, wooden boxes, metal boxes and acrylic boxes.

Almost all of the materials that humans can think of for packaging are used in Cordyceps.

The price of each brand Cordyceps is strictly classified according to the level, and then the corresponding packaging is determined according to the price.

Most of the Cordyceps enterprises are doing their best to create a perfect box. The same Cordyceps with such a box can double the price.

But the beauty of the box is directly proportional to the quality of the Cordyceps. No one knows.

"The whole industry is like this. Even Beijing Tongrentang does not have a test standard specifically for Cordyceps sinensis."

Zhang Xuefeng from Sichuan said.

Zhang Xuefeng entered the industry in 2007, and now he is the director of the Qinghai Provincial Pharmaceutical Association Cordyceps sinensis medicinal research Specialized Committee. His name has become the leading enterprise of Qinghai Cordyceps industry in spring.

He has always been unobstructed.

"The confusion in this industry is the result of policy irregularities, and boards should be directly directed against the Ministry of health.

Cordyceps sinensis, a medicine or food, is a saying in a province, and is changing frequently.

Every adjustment will make the production and operation of a small number of companies become illegal from legality.

Large companies with long-term vision will get two sets of approval procedures separately to cope with any change in policy.

"But this industry will not collapse."

Zhang Xuefeng has a mysterious smile on his lips. "In recent years, the general circulation of the Tibetan Plateau has changed, and the climate is more suitable for the growth of Cordyceps.

Combined with the restrictions on environmental protection and mining, the total output is only 80 tons to 150 tons a year. The turnover of about thirty billion seems to be a lot. But if the Chinese eat one, they will have to queue for 5 years.

The gradual standardization of the industry will make the survival space of small businesses smaller and smaller, and the industry leader will let the filtered top quality products get rid of the low-end users, which is not something that everyone can afford.

Five, the recurrent crystal coffin.

"Moisture: 8.4%, lead: 1.2mg/kg, mercury: 0.035mg/kg, adenosine: 0.025%", a A4 form slowly spit out from the printer, become the identification of this batch of Cordyceps.

At present, the detection of Cordyceps is limited to three aspects: water, heavy metal and adenosine content.

The standard of Qinghai technical and Quality Supervision Bureau is that under the premise of qualified character, the moisture content is less than 10%, and the content of lead and mercury is not more than 2.0mg/kg and 0.3mg/kg respectively, while the only nutrient content in standard is adenosine not less than 0.01%.

Undoubtedly, these Cordyceps from all over Yushu belong to the top grade.

Now, the owner of these Cordyceps is alive in the grass picking room.

As mentioned earlier, it is a long-term supplier of Qinghai spring company.

This enterprise needs a lot of first-class Cordyceps every year.

Due to strict selection, its purchase price is 10 thousand yuan higher than the market price per kilogram, and the turnover is stable.

All the producers of Cordyceps from origin want to become suppliers of spring in Qinghai.

But it's not easy.

60 catties of Cordyceps all spread out in front of a 3 meter long table, and more than a dozen workers responsible for selecting grass sit around the table and screen them one by one.

The peculiar smell of Cordyceps is permeated in the air, which is called "fishy smell" by insiders.

Many people who believe in the medicinal value of Cordyceps believe that this smell is also a good remedy for diseases.

The process of picking is the most stressful time.

Every few minutes, he carefully packed the selected Cordyceps and picked the remaining Cordyceps into the bag.

This is to avoid water loss.

When the temperature is 35 degrees Celsius, the longer time the Cordyceps are exposed, the greater the weight loss.

Each batch of goods will lose more than ten thousand yuan in the process of selecting grass because of the loss of water.

Screening the remaining grass is known as "leftovers" in the industry.

Jac will be sold in diligent alley, and the price will be much lower, one to two pounds.

Every time he chooses grass, he needs to calculate the proportion of leftovers in his mind at any time.

This is the second batch of Cordyceps sent by him this year.

Generally speaking, the passing rate of Cordyceps increased by 70%, which means that the 60 kg of goods should have a "20 kg" leftover material to deal with at a low price. Therefore, he can only control the quality from the source when stocking.

If it goes smoothly, the value of about three million of the goods will give him a fifty thousand or sixty thousand profit.

If the control is not in place, not only will the profits decrease, but sometimes they will lose money.

Last year, there were 67 million pactions in Qinghai and spring, and the profits were 12. 3 million.

This year, his target is 10 million of the paction volume.

This group of Cordyceps leave the market, and they are closer to their destination, and their status is becoming more and more expensive.

Only 5% of the 300 million Cordyceps produced annually in China can be screened out and become "polar grass".

This is the only "safe food grade" Cordyceps sinensis approved by the Ministry of health.

They are also treated differently from the remaining 95% "industrial raw material grade" Cordyceps.

The complete line of Qinghai spring provides them with three options.

Part of them, from the most advanced German equipment, was crushed in accordance with the size of the particles most suitable for the human body, and then pressed into a tablet.

The other part is made of the same powder after being made into capsules.

The luckiest part can always maintain a complete body.

They were packed into a half cigar sized PVC box filled with inert gas.

In principle, this is equivalent to preserving the crystal coffin of the corpse.

This little crystal coffin is called "Water Cube" by its designers.

24 "Water Cube", each containing a net content of 12 grams of Cordyceps sinensis, the total price is 8160 yuan.

In this way, 340 yuan per gram.

This is indeed sky high. It is already more expensive than platinum.

These "polar grass" after professional cleaning treatment, in crystal coffin maintained a perfect legacy - the head is full, the seat is complete, four pairs of feet in the abdomen are strong and strong, and the ringed veins on the back are clearly discernible.

They will go out from here to Beijing, Shanghai, Hongkong and Taiwan.

They went all the way, and finally they stopped in the hands of a sharp Pyramid guest - a weak old man or a strong strong man.

As the crystal coffins were crisp broken, they were swallowed up.