As for the specific production of chocolate, in addition to the need for Boss Luo and his mechanical team to come up with a set of uncomplicated food processing equipment at that time, the rest, whether it is milk or cane sugar, Lao Wang and Lao Zhu's agriculture and animal husbandry and sugar factory can also be completely solved under the existing conditions.

Therefore, everyone thinks that there is nothing that needs to be discussed in depth, and now that agriculture and animal husbandry have labor, and it is still a relatively high-quality labor force, the bottleneck problem is not here, the biggest bottleneck is how to obtain cocoa beans in the new world.

Therefore, Xia Xiaoou's proposal and Zhu Xu's opinions immediately sparked a heated discussion, and it was obvious that the most important issue was how to establish trade relations with the Portuguese.

The matter of Pimont is now very clear to everyone, and since he has gone to Macau, everyone naturally began to be interested in Macau.

Prior to this, many people had selected the ports of trade destination for the second time, including Macau, Manila, Ambon, Batavia, etc., and now more people believe that our next trade object should be aimed at the Portuguese in Macau, where there is an acquaintance of Pimont as an intermediary.

At this time, Gu Jin also immediately said that he was very familiar with the routes of Macao, after all, as a captain of the old world going to sea, Macao was a frequent destination.

At this time, Huang Hai and others suggested that we should not discuss a plan of action, at least we should support Pimont to fight back to Dili City, help him regain power on the island of Timor, and then restore order there and jointly develop the resources there.

And there are all kinds of minerals in that place, and there is also a ready-made labor force, if we want to grow cocoa beans and sugar cane or something, the natural conditions there should be similar to Zixia Island, but compared with the barren Zixia Island, Timor Island has labor, which is a great advantage.

Elder Sun, who presided over the meeting, heard this and immediately seconded the proposal, saying that Huang Hai is right, otherwise, which of you should propose a plan first.

Hearing this, a group of young people from the Huotang Club immediately came to their senses, and they picked up Huang Hai's words and said, "We are willing to submit this specific plan."

When Sun Lao heard this, he immediately agreed, and responded, then this issue is waiting for you, and when the time comes, your Huotang Club will come up with a plan, and everyone will discuss and approve it.

A group of young people in the Huotang Club were very excited to hear this, and Sun Lao's commission showed that everyone's attitude towards the Huotang Club had changed, and they really felt that this loose braggart salon was regarded as a "think tank".

Thus, the question of chocolate production was turned over.

Immediately afterwards, everyone turned their attention to the tobacco research and development project, which is divided into two parts: tobacco planting and cigarette processing.

The cultivation of tobacco leaves is not a big problem, and Lao Wang also said that there is no problem at all, and the water, soil and climate conditions of Mornington Island are also suitable for tobacco planting.

Of course, in order to save labor, but also to reduce costs and improve efficiency, cigarettes must be mechanized production, which involves industrial projects.

At this time, Boss Luo immediately spoke on behalf of the mechanical group and said that we do not have ready-made professional equipment in this area, and Anna did not provide us with it, so these equipment need to be specially made.

However, the dependence of the machinery manufacturing industry on the overall industrial system is high and involves a wide range of aspects, you should be very clear in your heart, and I will not say much about it here.

Therefore, in the near future, we may barely be able to make a set of semi-mechanized and semi-manual cigarette equipment, as for the kind of industrialized automatic cigarette equipment, just like the kind you see in the video library in the computer library, we think that in ten years it is still not to think about it, in fact, it will be very difficult in ten years.

So everyone, or don't bother with processing machinery, in a word, cigarette production is still a labor-intensive industry, for a long time, we can have a set of semi-mechanical handmade cigarette production line, in fact, there is already a very good this.

When Boss Luo said this, he turned his head to look at Mr. Zhao, who had been silent not far away, and said that there is actually another major bottleneck in this R&D project.

Seeing that Mr. Zhao looked over a little helplessly, Boss Luo paused and added:

"If the chemical industry does not have the ability to provide chemical washing liquid, baking liquid, flavor and various aromatics for tobacco leaves, I don't think cigarettes will be produced, and without those chemical products, cigarettes will not be called cigarettes, they will be called stinky smoke......

In a word, if you don't have these chemical auxiliary preparations, then take the tobacco leaf roll and roll it yourself, forget it, don't bother to engage in the cigarette industry......"

Everyone in the venue heard Boss Luo say this, and their eyes looked at the chemical group.

However, Mr. Zhao and a few of them looked at the table and did not respond, everyone couldn't help but be a little worried when they saw this scene, and they all discussed, are you really not sure about making aromatics in the chemical group? Is it so difficult to make a fragrance?

In the face of everyone's inquiry, Mr. Zhao nodded and responded, it depends on your standards, in fact, the aromatics of cigarettes include natural and chemical, natural not to mention, there are various flavor plants, we have extraction process information, but we still need other related chemical raw materials, this is another homework, I will not be verbose here, as for the flavor that Boss Luo just said, of course, there are also pure chemicals, there are thousands of kinds to choose from, the problem is that it all depends on a lot of basic chemical industry, especially organic chemicals.

So, if we want to produce cigarettes on a large scale, we actually have a long way to go......

"Mr. Zhao, how long is it?"

A few addicted smokers asked anxiously.

"As a fine chemical professional, I have to remind you here that the process from R&D to large-scale production of cigarettes is at least ...... longer than the R&D and production of chocolate."

Qiao Xiaomu added beside him.

"Why?!"

"Does it have to be that long?"

"Elder Wang said that it will take five years for cocoa bean seeds to become cocoa trees! Do you want to make cigarettes for five years?! ”

Seeing that everyone was a little anxious, Gui Xianning hurriedly stood up and spoke:

"Ladies and gentlemen! Although we have a variety of technical information, the so-called cigarettes, the fundamental difference between ordinary tobacco in this era, the key is this incense word, right? Therefore, in addition to the extraction process of natural flavors, there is also the production of flavors and various chemical flavors.

In fact, the above are the second place, in order to produce cigarettes with competitive advantages, there must be a series of tobacco processing procedures, all kinds of aging and fermentation processes are good to say, we have information, but the treatment liquid is a bottleneck, because it requires some chemical raw materials, such as some specific nitrates, sulfates and organic acids, etc., in short, it all depends on our organic and inorganic chemical level!

If these processing processes are omitted, the cigarettes we produce are not fundamentally different from the tobacco of this era, and even if they are produced with great effort, there is no absolute competitive advantage.

Due to our limited resources, our product development principle is: everything that does not have an absolute crushing competitive advantage of the product development project is not worth our labor, everyone, am I right? ”

"Although what you said is so, then do you think the cigarette industry can be developed or not?"

"Yes, yes, but there are some conditions ......"

"What conditions? Let's talk about the specific plan! ”

"Listen to you, you mean to go to the organic chemical project, right?"

"That's right, the first step is to launch the coal coke chemical project as soon as possible, and the specific project is to install the coal dry distillation equipment in the cave as soon as possible."

At this time, Teacher Zhao nodded to Gui Xianning, and quickly stood up and spoke.

"So we need not only labor support, but also energy, coal, and especially more electricity support."

Qiao Xiaomu finally showed their last hole card for the chemical group.

"Oh......"

"That's ......"

"So we must increase investment in power development!"

"The problem is that there are already a lot of big power consumers in the chemical industry!"

"yes, especially the furnace ......"

"Hey, yes, your glass factory is really not a fuel-efficient lamp, now as long as your glass kiln starts, the cement factory brick and tile factory must be stopped, and the sugar factory will also expand the scale of production in the future, it is also a large power consumer, in short, your chemical project is simply a group of electric tigers, eat electricity and eat bones and slag!"

At this time, sitting in the corner of the venue and complaining violently was Foreman Hou, Hou Xianglin.