"What is this?" said King Yan with a smile.

Zhang Zhaohua said: "This is fried with wheat, millet, soybeans, black beans, brown rice and other grains, ground into powder, plus salt, minced meat, dry can also be eaten, brewed more delicious." ”

Because Zhang Zhaohua heard Zhang Sheng say that the food brought by the Mongols on the march was fried rice, cheese, air-dried beef and sheep, and these things were the staple food of the Mongols' daily life, and they could quickly replenish vitamins and calories, and because of the small size and lightness, it was also extremely convenient to carry, which made the Mongolian army very mobile.

She compared Yan Jun's food, which was all coarse flour flatbread, which was not only heavy, but also inconvenient to carry, because the biscuits were crispy when they were dry, and they were often broken into slag, and they pierced their throats until they ate them, so they came up with such a solution. As she said, King Yan poured water into a bowl of fried rice and stirred it into a bowl of paste.

If you brew it with hot water, the rice cereal will have a strong fragrance, Yan Wang smelled it, and couldn't help but be shocked, and then scooped a spoonful into his mouth, clicked it a few times, and nodded: "Delicious!"

"You have added salt to this bowl," Zhang Zhaohua said: "There are also two flavors of mixed sugar, in short, they can meet the needs." ”

King Yan snorted and finished eating a bowl, but said: "Delicious is delicious, how to carry it? If it is packed in bottles and cans, it will be broken if you are not careful, and you can't eat it in your mouth!"

Zhang Zhaohua waved his hand, and the palace people presented the thin and long cloth bags that had already been prepared, Zhang Zhaohua picked up a cloth bag and said: "This thing can be filled with fried rice, sewn into a thin and long shape with cloth, put fried rice in it, tie the two ends together, like a horse's intestines, if it is an infantry, it can be carried on the back, and the cavalry can be hung on the saddle, which is very convenient!"

Yan Wang was very interested, and personally got started, poured the fried rice on the intestinal cloth bag, and walked around the intestinal cloth bag cross-body on his shoulder, and weighed it: "This is good! This is good!"

Of course, this is good, the Eighth Route Army marched in later generations, carrying such rations on its back, and it was not afraid of trekking through mountains and rivers and running for long distances.

King Yan was very happy, but said, "How many bags like this have been sewn?"

Zhang Zhaohua said "ah" and said: "Because my son came up with this idea, I don't know if my father will accept it, so I only made the ten things in front of me." ”

King Yan shook his head and said: "The expedition is imminent, the idea you think is good, but it's a pity that there are so many people, how can you have time to sew bags and make fried rice?"

Zhang Zhaohua said: "My father has just come back less than ten days ago, and he is going to lead the troops to set off?"

"It's the imperial court that won't let me live in peace," King Yan said: "Li Jinglong has gathered a large army again, and I will fight him before he comes to fight me." ”

Zhang Zhaohua asked the time, thought about it in his heart, and said, "I will definitely be able to raise military food before my father sets out on the expedition." ”

Zhang Zhaohua didn't eat after he went back, raised military rations overnight, and wrote a notice by himself, Zhang Bang was in Beiping City, saying that he wanted to prepare dry food for the soldiers of Beiping, 70,000 intestine cloth bags, 280,000 people in Beiping City, an average family can get one, and the cloth for making sheep intestine bags is all provided by the palace, and the people only need to receive the fabric, go back and cut it out and sew it according to the requirements.

Zhang Zhaohua originally thought that cutting cloth was a very laborious thing, because the intestinal cloth bag was five feet long, but he didn't expect that not many people received the fabric of the palace, but there were many people on the list who claimed it, and in the end, every household made a bag out of their own cloth, and not just one family, one family of seven or eight abounded, and when it was delivered on the morning of the seventh day, there was no guarantee of less than one handover, but there were more than seven thousand two hundred.

This time the mobilization of the people of the whole city, for the army to prepare food, it can be seen that the hearts of the people in Beiping are high, looking forward to the victory of the soldiers, and the palace people of the palace were taken by the princess and Zhang Zhaohua, from morning to night, and from late to morning, almost without stopping, the cauldron has been stir-frying rice noodles, and finally on the day before the expedition, 70,000 intestine cloth bags were filled with things.

Yan Wang's grain and grass this time is enough, before he attacked Jinan, he first captured Dezhou, Dezhou is the place where the southern army stocked, the Yan army transported back more than 100,000 stone of grain from Dezhou, less than one-fifth of it was fried rice, Zhang Zhaohua called a few generals in advance to taste it, and the response was very good.

But Xue Lu was the only one, he had a straight stomach hiccup after eating, he didn't care about it, and several other servants knew about his problem, saying that it was like this after staying in the army for a long time, and his stomach was ruined, and his stomach was not good when he drank cold water and ate cold rice.

Zhang Zhaohua asked: "Is it not easy to make a fire in the army? Hot water is also rare?"

Zhang Wu said: "I'm afraid that the war will start, so I won't stop! Sometimes I can't drink water for two or three days, where is the hot water!"

Fang Sheng also said: "In winter, it is not easy to make fire, King Yan burned his saddle to make fire——"

Zhang Zhaohua said: "Where the southern army is, how can you make fire?"

"They are not as good as us," Xue Lu said: "I don't know how many of them have froze to death! There are many of them who have frozen their fingers and toes! But their commander, Li Jinglong, heard that he thinks that the coal ash he brings is large, and he also specially purchases carrot charcoal from Tongzhou, all for him to enjoy alone!"

Zhang Zhaohua said, "Can you bring charcoal with you?"

Several generals shook their heads: "This thing burns well when it is heavy, and it can't be touched if it is light, so it is very heavy and can't be carried on its back." And when it rains wet, it doesn't work. ”

Zhang Zhaohua let out an "oh" and thought in his heart.

Charcoal was the most common fuel in ancient times, and although the Chinese began to mine coal in the Han Dynasty, before the Song Dynasty, coal mining and coal burning were basically non-mainstream compared to plant fuels, which were more readily available. Because of the industrial transformation from agriculture to modern industry in the Song Dynasty, the supply of vegetable fuels, mainly charcoal, was stretched thin, and coal could be supplied.

Now that coal has entered thousands of households, why don't you use coal for heating? However, when Zhang Zhaohua asked, these people said, "The briquettes are too big, how can you carry them?"

The briquettes used now are really a huge cake-shaped, with a diameter of about 30 centimeters and a thickness of seven or eight centimeters.

Zhang Zhaohua also went to the coal yard in Chongrenmen, and sure enough, the processed briquettes were huge, and the briquettes were about the same size as a basketball in later generations.

Zhang Zhaohua looked at it for a long time and asked, "Can't you make smaller briquettes?"

The master of the coal yard turned his back on his ears and asked several times before he said: "It's not small! It's not small! If this coal is small, it will be broken, and the coal is still not good!"

It took Zhang Zhaohua a long time to understand the meaning of coal, the coal dug out of the coal mines in the suburbs of Beiping has too many impurities, and the sieve is not clean, and when the coal cake is crushed, if the area is small and the thickness is not enough, it is very easy to break up and become a pile of coal ash.

What Zhang Zhaohua wants to do is the honeycomb coal that has been used in later generations, the volume of honeycomb coal is no more than the size of a palm, easy to carry, and easy to use - just to make such a thing, the coal in the suburbs of Beiping is not good, and it is necessary to find a high-quality coal source.

Zhang Zhaohua suddenly remembered that the place where horses were raised in Kaiping was not Tangshan in later generations!

Coal resources are abundant and the accumulation is profound, and Tangshan is rising because of coal mining - now who knows that there is coal under Kaiping, and Zhang Zhaohua is it, she can't sit still, and Gao Chi said that she wants to take people to Kaiping to dig coal.

Gao Chi almost thought she was crazy, she had never been to that place, but she swore that there was coal there, and she said that it was all underground, where is there a place where all the coal is hidden underground!

"I said that if there is, there must be," Zhang Zhaohua grinded Gao Chi around: "Think about it, so much coal, all are good coal, the briquettes made will not drop the scum, the soldiers can carry it with them, in winter, there is hot water to eat fried rice, and they are not afraid of freezing!"

"Just ask someone to go over and explore," Gao Chi still disagreed: "Why do you want to go there yourself! Although Kaiping is guarded, what time is it, and what if there are troops from Shandong going north, what if they encounter it!"

"Tie Xuan has made a great contribution because he blocked his father this time," Zhang Zhaohua had already thought about it: "I was summoned to the heavens to be rewarded! Sheng Yong is too, this time he has been crowned as the Hou, replacing Li Jinglong, and is in the process of reorganizing the team, and if they want to attack, it will be a few months later! Their goal is Beiping, not Kaiping, if they don't go now, when will they stay?"

Gao Chi didn't agree with her going, Zhang Zhaohua had to go to Princess Xu to work hard, Princess Xu also had doubts, but finally agreed, let Gao Sui go with her, Zhang Zhaohua picked Yi Shiha and Wang Yan to accompany - Wang Yan is also a eunuch who follows King Yan, but King Yan does not often call him by his big name, but calls him by his nickname "Dog" more.

Although Wang Yan went out on the expedition, he received his injuries and stayed in the mansion to recuperate, and the injuries were healed, so Zhang Zhaohua took him and sixty-four women's soldiers, as well as the coal workers, to Kaiping.