Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 622 War Catalysis ([-])

Zhang Yun rolled over from a mule, threw the reins to an Italian guard who came from the reception room, and walked straight into the factory without stopping.As the vice president of Nanhai Fishery Company in charge of daily production, Zhang Yun is always very busy. No, he just communicated with the fleet that had returned from chasing the squid fishing season at Baleen Whale Port on Mashima Island about the problems that occurred during the operation. They rushed to the Luocha seafood processing plant under the jurisdiction of the fishery company.

Luocha Seafood Processing Factory is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the state-owned South China Sea Fishery Company. At first it was mainly responsible for processing some seafood, such as whale meat, cod, squid, red shrimp, etc., with more than [-] workers— — Typical labor-intensive industries.The main products of the factory before were all kinds of canned products, and the main customers were the army and ocean shipping companies.

Since Zhang Yun led the team to start the zero breakthrough of the east coast whaling industry, whale meat, a bulky seafood product that is easy to get in large quantities, has become the main product of the seafood processing factory in the early days.There are more than 20 chefs in the seafood processing factory cooking whale meat all day long, but their craftsmanship or working attitude is very problematic. There was great protest from the soldiers.

For no other reason, the taste is really bad!These people are simply making pig food. Although the food they make is nutritious, it is simply challenging everyone's tolerance limit in terms of taste!For this reason, the military department specially sent a senior staff officer to negotiate with the seafood processing factory.

The time for negotiation was at the beginning of this month (September). Zhang Yun remembered that he had received this group of uncles from the military department.At that time, the senior staff officers were also accompanied by technicians from the Logistics Department of the Ministry of War. These so-called "technicians" who were from cooks brought the food tastes voted by the frontline soldiers and ordered the Luocha Seafood Processing Factory to correct it immediately. .

"What a bunch of rampaging bulls!" Zhang Yun secretly slandered the group of arrogant Qiu Ba, then pushed open the door and walked straight into the kitchen of the whale meat processing workshop.When the chefs who were busy seeing Zhang Yun came in, they all stopped their work to say hello, and then continued their previous work.

Zhang Yun also greeted everyone, and then he couldn't wait to sit down at a small Eight Immortals table in the back, and picked up the food in the wooden bowl on the table and tasted one by one.These are newly developed products by the chefs according to the "Military Food Regulations" just issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Generally speaking, these products have been improved by absorbing the salty, fresh, and fragrant requirements put forward by the soldiers, and the taste should be better than the original. is much stronger.

But Zhang Yun was still worried. He decided to check it himself, that is, he had to try each new product first, and then asked the representatives and technicians of the military department to come and taste it, and finally finalize the production.To be honest, this is not a very pleasant job. Zhang Yun is paid well and has a high standard of living, so he, who is used to eating exquisite food at home, came to the workshop to taste it, which was cursed by the soldiers as "pig food". All kinds of canned food, which in itself is a kind of destruction to one's stomach.

"No. 1 boiled whale meat tastes average, and lacks a scallion flavor. This is a request made by everyone, and the taste is not fresh enough. Write it down and continue to change it!"

"No. 2 boiled whale meat tastes much fresher after adding soy sauce, but the quality of this soy sauce is not good. Change it! The soy sauce produced by Dafeng Food Company has a smell of machine oil. Change it to the time-honored handmade soy sauce in Ping'an County. The insufficient production makes them recruit people to expand Produce."

"No. 3 Braised Whale Meat is delicious, the seasoning of miso is also very good, and the spices are enough. Mmm, there is also a smell of garlic cloves, good! This one is good!"

After tasting the three meals in front of him—made using the whale meat cooking regulations that have been revised countless times, Zhang Yun wiped his mouth with a wet towel, and then said: "First revise the cooking regulations, and then cook the meat. Make another portion of whale meat and roasted whale meat. After tasting it is okay, invite the representatives of the military department to come and try it. If they also think it’s okay, then it will be finalized for production. Remember, whale meat is no better than beef and mutton. The meat is rough and has a strong taste. You must put enough onion, garlic and miso spices, otherwise the taste will be unpalatable. You must often buy this kind of meat at home. You know how difficult it is to make the cured meat you bought back. , don’t make trouble for me anymore, I’m already getting a headache from those loud Qiu Ba guys.”

Speaking of this, Zhang Yun is also a little depressed. The gang of Qiuba in the army and navy are okay to talk about, but the militiamen who accompanied the army have such picky tastes, which makes people a little speechless.You must know that many people here have not come to the East Bank for a few years. A few years ago, they couldn’t even eat in Daming.Now that I have lived comfortably on the east coast for a few years, I have started to criticize the taste of canned whale meat, which makes the Luocha Seafood Factory, which processes these canned food, a little depressed.

As the East Coast catches more and more heads in waters around Baleen Whale Harbour, whale meat, the largest by-product, is piling up.Most of these whale meats are marinated in the baleen whale port first, and then shipped back to the mainland for further processing or sold directly; of course, a small amount of whale meat is directly dehydrated in the baleen whale port to make spiced whale jerky, but the taste is just the same, anyway The main consumers of these whale jerky are the navy, who often cook the brick-hard jerky with other things while at sea, thus ignoring the taste of this food itself.

With the outbreak of the war with the Spaniards for La Plata, the Ministry of War finally focused on the cheap meat of whale meat.After all, no matter how bad it is, it is meat, which can provide enough protein and fat for soldiers.According to the regulations of the Ministry of War, soldiers need to consume at least 200 grams of protein, 60 grams of fat, and 700 grams of sugar every day. After researching for half a day, I finally came to a conclusion: Regardless of the navy, their treatment has always been very good, but as far as the army is concerned, the current dietary structure of the army contains more sugar (carbohydrates). If your intake is adequate but lacking in protein and fat, order whale meat in bulk.

After all, military expenditures are tight, and the supply of luxury goods such as beef in the domestic market is seriously insufficient—after all, although the cattle captured from La Plata are mainly put into reproduction and reproduction, no one will be short-sighted enough to slaughter them immediately for food— - Whale meat is so cheap, so the choice is obvious.

However, the bureaucrats of the Ministry of War did not consider that the bad taste of canned whale meat would seriously affect the morale of the soldiers, and then affect everyone's health. This was beyond their expectation.But now that the problem has been discovered, they should correct it in time, so they immediately collected the soldiers' requirements for the taste of canned whale meat, and then returned to the country to instruct the manufacturer to improve the formula.

In fact, the problems that everyone responded were far more than just canned whale meat. For example, the commanders found that because the Paraná River Basin was swampy and the climate was cloudy and rainy, it was extremely humid. Soldiers rolled in muddy water for many days, and many of them got athlete's foot. sick.After this problem was reported, the Ministry of Health immediately sent an expert team to the front line to investigate quickly by steamship, and the conclusion came out quickly: because the soldiers lacked a lot of vegetables and fruits in their daily diet, after all, how could they be so good when they were marching outside? Logistics supplies, so the intake of vitamins is greatly insufficient, coupled with environmental, psychological and other factors, it is not surprising that many people have beriberi.

After finding out the cause of the problem, the Ministry of the Army quickly took countermeasures.On the one hand, they sent their logistics procurement manager to the canned food factory in Jushu Township, hoping to purchase a large number of canned fruits produced by the factory.However, at this time, the fruit planting in Jushu Township and Liming Township has not yet scaled up, and the output is extremely limited. The only small amount of canned fruit output cannot make up for the huge demand of the Ministry of War.Therefore, the army procurement manager, who was already going crazy, immediately contacted the Brazilians, planning to import a large amount of tropical fruits from there, and then quickly transport them back to Ping'an County by steam engine sailboat for processing.

On the other hand, cod oil, a by-product of the cod processing workshop in another workshop of the Luocha Seafood Processing Factory, also came into the army's attention. Of course, cod liver oil made from whale oil viscera was also included in their selection.These two by-products are rich in vitamins, together with the canned spinach and cod processed by the Luocha Seafood Processing Plant for the Navy, and the semolina (containing bran flour) specially requested by the Ministry of the Army, the beriberi of most army soldiers The disease gradually recovered.According to the latest survey by the Department of the Army last month, only 0.25% of the [-] soldiers on the Santa Fe battlefield suffered from beriberi. The East Coast Army took the lead in the battle against beriberi.

It can be seen from this that war is really a systematic project, and any link must not be sloppy.Before the war broke out, the confident military staff thought they had considered all the things that should be considered. Unexpectedly, the war had only been going on for a year, and the front line had already fed back a bunch of problems, which made those arrogant The staff officers' eggs were broken to the ground.

Fortunately, the problem was discovered in a timely manner, and the speed of correction was relatively fast.For example, the navy and army that went to the Pacific this time were equipped with a large number of canned non-staple foods in accordance with the newly formulated "1647 Military Food Regulations", such as: the second version of improved canned whale meat, canned beef, canned cod and spinach, and canned boiled soft fish , canned sea bream and mushroom sauce, canned fruit, canned vegetables such as carrots, ginger, and green onions. In addition, some cows were brought to provide fresh milk supplies for the officers and soldiers. In general, the logistics work was almost done to the extreme.

However, these things that hastily catalyzed improvements during the war were not in vain, because he further improved the logistics system of the East Coast Army and enriched its experience.Moreover, many things, such as various canned fish, meat and vegetables that were urgently developed, can be sold to ordinary citizens in peacetime after the war, enriching everyone's diet, and of course they can also be exported to foreign countries. I believe that they can earn a lot of money back.

(End of this chapter)