"tortoise crazy" made a fortune.

On the roof, on the balcony, on the ground, underground, in the corners of the corridor, even his pockets are full of turtles. Chen Mingqiu in Tunchang, Hainan, became rich because of turtles. In 2010, however, he encountered an unprecedented crisis and saw his income of seven or eight million yuan go down the drain. He made a decisive transformation, starting with turtles that many people don't like and worthless, and quietly found new business opportunities. Look at Chen Mingqiu in Hainan, how to earn tens of millions of wealth from turtles.

This is the pond in Chen Mingqiu's courtyard, he said. His wealth is hidden under the half-pool of water-floating lotus. Although the pool is small, the price of some turtles in it will be surprising.

Chen Mingqiu: catch, catch.

Chen Mingqiu: this is only 500.

Chen Mingqiu: it's too big to catch now. Ha ha.

Reporter: how much do you charge for this tortoise seedling?

Chen Mingqiu: you can buy one for more than ten yuan.

Chen Mingqiu: Ah, this.

Reporter: Oh, this is a soft-shelled turtle.

Chen Mingqiu: this is not a turtle. Haha, what is the red background?

Interviewer: what is the red background? It's a hard shell. It's a tortoise.

Chen Mingqiu: the hard shell is the tortoise, the red bottom.

Interviewer: what kind of tortoise is the red bottom?

Chen Mingqiu: the black-necked turtle also has a red background.

Interviewer: Oh, is this a black-necked turtle? How much is such a black-necked turtle seedling worth now?

Chen Mingqiu: it's more than a hundred thousand from Hainan.

Interviewer: I just released more than one hundred thousand yuan.

If you fish casually in this turtle pond, you can catch three kinds of turtles with such a big difference in price, but according to Chen Mingqiu, there are far more than these three kinds of turtles.

This is a farm only two kilometers away from Chen Mingqiu's home. In this farm, which covers an area of more than 100 mu, it is all Chen Mingqiu's painstaking efforts. There are more than 100,000 turtles, and there are even more breeds.

Chen Mingqiu: this is only part, part. Most of them haven't been caught yet.

There are 20 or 30 kinds of turtles in these baskets. Chen Mingqiu has more than 100 kinds of turtles in his whole farm.

Interviewer: what kind of tortoise is this so big?

Chen Mingqiu: this is a Malay giant tortoise. Its scientific name is Giant Turtle. You should note that although it does not take the initiative to bite, sometimes if you let go into it, he will bite by the way. This turtle has been raised for 20 or 30 years.

Interviewer: twenty or thirty years, it's so big. How much can it weigh now?

Chen Mingqiu: there are more than 70 jin now. Move like this, so it's easy to move.

Interviewer: I'm afraid it will bite me.

Chen Mingqiu: so he can't bite. If you put your hand here, it can't bite.

Interviewer: I can feel it resisting me. It has a strong back.

Chen Mingqiu: it's very strong, and it's no problem to sit on it. You can have a seat.

Interviewer: is that okay? I'm afraid to crush it.

Chen Mingqiu: the pressure is unbreakable.

Interviewer: it is very calm!

Chen Mingqiu: very calm.

Malay giant tortoise is a kind of giant water turtle, this is not the largest, the largest can grow to more than 100 jin. In Chen Mingqiu's breeding garden, there are all kinds of tortoises, such as Hainan flower turtles, Hainan black-necked turtles, and Asian giant turtles. What surprised the reporter most was that Chen Mingqiu had turtles underground.

Chen Mingqiu: the bottom is connected to the outside. The bottom of these places belongs to the basement and is connected to the open air outside (turtle pond). This turtle usually likes to run to these dark places. I'll show you. Below are many turtles concentrated here, they are all concentrated here to rest.

Reporter: so many turtles, what kind of turtles are they usually?

Chen Mingqiu: money tortoise, money tortoise.

Chen Mingqiu's love of turtles can be said to be almost obsessive. Turtles that he has never seen before must be bought no matter how much they cost. They are not only kept at home, but sometimes they are almost inseparable.

Chen Mingqiu: I took it out and put it in my pocket as if I had added a stone.

Chen Mingqiu is crazy about turtles, which has something to do with his childhood experience. Chen Mingqiu was not in good health when he was young. Later, someone gave him a turtle to eat. Coupled with regular exercise, Chen Mingqiu's body gradually became very strong, so he was very interested in turtles since he was a child. When he heard that money turtles had aura and nutrition, he began to raise money turtles specially. At its peak, his money turtles accounted for 1/3 of the total number of tortoises in Hainan Island.

Chen Mingqiu: when I raised these turtles and introduced seedlings, the price was very cheap. the cheapest one was ten or eight yuan per jin. Now it ranges from twenty to thirty, fifty to sixty, seventy to eighty thousand. If the tortoise is public, the pure turtle is more expensive, and the female tortoise is a little cheaper, more than ten thousand.

Reporter: more than ten kilos?

Chen Mingqiu: one, and now those who make seeds usually press only.

Reporter: how many of these money turtles can there be now?

Chen Mingqiu: there are thousands.

Chen Mingqiu's wife Wang Nan: the most important thing to get up in the middle of the night is to raise turtles, which is even more important than me.

Since the 1990s, money turtles have been hot, and their prices have risen sharply, which has brought Chen Mingqiu the first bucket of gold in his life. Everyone thought that Chen Mingqiu would concentrate on managing money turtles, but he focused on collecting all kinds of turtles, whether they had economic value or not, and he wanted to buy them for breeding.

Chen Mingqiu: I want to keep it if I haven't seen it before.

This method of raising Chen Mingqiu gradually gave him more than 100 kinds of turtles. Around 2000, Chen Mingqiu became the person who raised the most turtles in Hainan. However, what he did not expect was that his passion for turtles brought him an industry crisis he had never experienced before.

Chen Mingqiu: the influence (land) can no longer be developed. I want to get rid of those who have become commercial turtles, so I won't raise them.

Around 2010, Chen Mingqiu has formed two types of turtles raised ecologically. In addition to rare and famous turtles such as money turtles, he has also bred a large number of edible and medicinal turtles, which has become an important part of his turtle wealth. The turtles are sold to hundreds of regular customers he has accumulated over the decades, mostly hotels and pharmaceutical factories.