Lu Ming

Chapter 431 Canned Food
Mr. Huang Shaozhou's family set off from Shanghai by boat on December 12. After arriving in Taiwan in five days, they immediately ushered in the Gregorian New Year in this strange environment.

Speaking of the New Year, in fact, there is no festive atmosphere under the rule of a certain force.

Most Ming people don't feel much about the Gregorian New Year, and Mr. Huang's family is no exception.

The people who are devoted to developing the economy probably inherited the habits of the old world. They didn’t like the New Year too much, and on this day the old men don’t even give the workers holidays. Very kind, what kind of bicycle do you want?

In this way, Mr. Huang's family ushered in the New Year without knowing it.

For Mr. Huang, 1630 was undoubtedly a year of transformation.In the first few days of the year, Mr. Huang not only cured his foot disease, but also underwent IVF surgery.

When the test results came out half a month later, the Huang family wept with joy: the embryo was successfully dropped from the bed, and Mrs. Huang began to officially enter the pregnancy state!

And at this point in mid-January, the delegation to the North King Qin had not even had time to recruit cavalry, and had just settled in Tianjin.

Knowing that the master's "seed" has been "settled" safely, the elderly pregnant woman Huang Xie now has nothing to do but wait: after one or two months, pregnancy reactions such as vomiting and nausea will appear one after another. Be careful with the baby.

In this era, even for young and strong women, childbirth is a hell.The proportion of women who die from dystocia can scare obstetricians to death in later generations, let alone older pregnant women, and they are still the first child.

For a woman of Huang Xie's age, if there is no time traveler, even if she becomes pregnant, she will not be able to give birth in the seventeenth century. If you are lucky, the mother and child will live together. If you are unlucky, you will have two lives in one child.

So we still have to rely on the crowd: Dean Dong has already said that there is a high probability that Huang Xie will have a caesarean section at that time. Anyway, with her like this, it is impossible to get pregnant again.

Regarding the caesarean section, Mr. and Mrs. Huang, who have already tried the miraculous gout surgery, are not worried about it.But what bothers the couple is another derivative question: Who will be reborn?

Since this time, seeking medical treatment from afar has achieved the best outcome, the next step must be to expand the results. Master Huang still has several young concubines in Hangzhou. Wouldn't it be wonderful to regenerate his three, five, seven or eight children in one breath?From now on, the old Huang family is no longer afraid of having no descendants.

But that's not how it works.

Now is the seventeenth century when materials are scarce. Many high-end resources, including the doctor himself, are unique and scarce.

There are only four doctors in Chikan General Hospital across the country, including a monk who became a monk halfway through. They are extremely busy every day, and it is impossible to have so much free time to hang around Huang's house.

In addition, the number of consumables dedicated to some operations is also limited, and they cannot all be used by a family.

So Dong Qiang clearly told Lao Huang on this issue: at most two embryo surgeries can be done for him, and no more.

As a result, a new round of fighting broke out between the Huang family: in the remaining four concubines, Master Huang naturally preferred the two young girls who married in later.Mrs. Huang, on the other hand, has never had a good impression of the two vixens, so she tends to "rank seniority" and allocate places according to the time of "entry".

This kind of messy housework has always been unreasonable, so between the master and wife, it is bound to go through several rounds of war before reaching a conclusion.

In the following days, apart from the daily quarrels, Lao Huang was not idle.

First of all, the two old men surnamed Huang who lived in the same hotel checked out on the same day after saying goodbye to each other.

Huang Zhicheng and Huang Juren moved directly to the crossing districts with the best scenery—they are already worn out, so there is no need to stay in a hotel anymore.The smart comrade Zhong Xiuxiu has now begun to enjoy the fruits of the revolution: living in a villa, watching American dramas, and watching "Kung Fu" by the way.

Master Huang in Hangzhou bought a small wooden building near the General Hospital at a high price.There are many rooms in this small wooden building, and servants can be arranged. In the future, wives and concubines can live here to raise babies.

In the following time, Mr. Huang, who had slowly recovered from his foot injury, not only started exercising every day according to the doctor's advice, but also ran around the kiln area every day on crutches, experiencing the great source of industrial society.

At this time, Fang Tangjing, who was sent to Guangzhou on a business trip a few days ago, also sent back the first letter.

He has already visited the colleagues introduced by Nan Wang, and registered with the Guangzhou New Area Management Committee, which is currently in the demolition stage. Once the land transaction is released, he will immediately pick a suitable lot and sell it.

After reading the letter, Master Huang immediately replied, telling Fang Tangjing not to come back in a hurry, but to hang around more, just like he did research here, to find out the situation in Guangzhou Mansion first.

After contacting Fang Tangjing on the front foot, Nanwang came running on the back foot.

He hurriedly took the master out, rented a carriage, and Nan Wang kept urging the coachman to drive to the kiln area.

"Why is it so urgent?" Master Huang asked after getting into the car.

"My lord, the cannery is officially in operation. Let's go and have a look. If it succeeds, go to the Ministry of Commerce to register and negotiate!"

"Oh, then you have to go and have a look."

Canned food, in fact, can be produced a long time ago based on the industrial capabilities of Chuanzhong.Whether it is tinplate, or food processing and disinfection, or bottle mouth packaging, these are not difficult.

The reason why canned food was not produced in the early stage was mainly because there was no demand: the troops were basically active in the surrounding areas, and they could get supplies in time no matter whether they were on the island or in the area under the jurisdiction of Ming Dynasty, so the low-priority project of canned food was put on hold.

There is also a secondary reason for this is not enough sugar.

Sugar cane is a very fertilizer and soil intensive crop.In the first two years of crossing Zhongdeng Island, the main crops were used to feed the immigrants' staple food, and there was no spare energy to fiddle with sugar cane.

Before that, the local white sugar consumption was basically all sugar cane shipped from Fujian and squeezed on the spot.

This situation did not change until the second half of last year.When a large number of potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes matured, the people across the world finally took a breather from the food problem, and began to sow some sugarcane fields with spare energy.

And the canning factory was officially launched recently because the above two conditions have changed-the cavalry stationed in the north needs canned food, and the local sugar cane has just matured.

When Master Huang and Nan Wang rushed to the newly opened canning factory in the kiln area, not only the people who came to inspect, but also some other well-informed businessmen were already doing research at the production line.

Naturally, the canning production line in the kiln area cannot be as high-end and automated as later generations.Whether it is food cooked in a large pot or various semi-manual tinplate packaging lines, it is full of a strong smell of black workshops.

However, although the equipment is simple, you can rest assured in terms of hygiene.Workers in clean overalls and hats are meticulously completing the process in front of them according to the procedures.

There are not many varieties in the cannery, mainly lychees in syrup, oranges in syrup, tempeh fish, and tomato sauce fish.

The sources of raw materials for these four kinds of canned food are very simple. Fujian is the main production area of ​​lychees and oranges, not to mention the other miscellaneous fish pieces, which are abundant in the cold storage.

After visiting the production line carefully, Mr. Huang found that compared with other large factories in the kiln area, the canning factory did not have high requirements for equipment.In addition to some large pots, there are boilers used to provide sterilizing steam, and some small sheet metal and packaging small machine tools.

In this way, it is theoretically possible for Mr. Huang to open a factory in Jiangnan.

After the visit, Mr. Huang bought a bunch of newly rolled cans from the factory, and then returned to his small wooden building with Nan Wang.

Pull the delicate iron ring on the top of the can hard, open the thin tinplate cover, pour the four dishes into the bowl, taste each, and then Mr. Huang gave a thumbs up on the spot: "The food in the tin can If the fruits and dishes can really last for years, it will be a big business."

"That's for sure, the grown-ups will definitely not smash their own signboards." Nan Wang smiled and lifted a small white paper sticker on the light yellow metal jar to the master's eyes.

This piece of white paper is the product introduction, and some simple information about the can is printed on it in small black letters: place of origin, ingredients, expiration date and factory code in Arabic numerals.

After seeing the string of small characters with a shelf life of "two years" written on the white paper, Mr. Huang closed his eyes and thought about it for a while, then opened his eyes and asked, "How will this deal be financed?"

"First go to the Chikan Government Affairs Hall to register, declare and verify the capital, and then negotiate with the people from the Ministry of Commerce."

"Then you have to hurry up."

Just as Mr. Huang came to the door of the Chikan District Government and submitted an application for a partnership to open a canning factory in Hangzhou, several other application forms with the same content also appeared on the desks of the staff of the Ministry of Commerce.

The contents of these application forms are basically the same, except for the location of the factory: Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Guangdong. In short, these well-informed businessmen from all over the world are generally optimistic about the canned food business.

You must know that travelers in this era can only eat dry food on the road. If this kind of canned food is available, it will be a good thing for the middle class and rich people who are away from home.

Travelers are also happy to see the success of this.If the cannery is located in a place like Hangzhou, it can not only absorb various fruits and grain raw materials on the spot, but also recruit workers on the spot, and save the high shipping costs from Taiwan to the port, which can be said to serve multiple purposes.

So Mr. Huang, who submitted the application, quickly started negotiations with the Ministry of Commerce.

Since Mr. Huang's details had already been grasped by the Intelligence Bureau in advance, the Ministry of Commerce saved the troublesome process of capital verification and background investigation, which led to the speeding up of the negotiation process.

In the end, Mr. Huang successfully reached an agreement with the Ministry of Commerce. In the near future, the two parties will cooperate to open a canning factory in Shanghai Port Industrial Zone, with the registered trademark "Meilin".

(End of this chapter)