In order to facilitate the preservation of the relief rations, the dehydration treatment is very thorough, so the texture is too hard, people generally have to use a hammer to break it when eating, and then eat it with water, it is almost impossible to swallow without drinking water, more often the eater will add some vegetables and cook it directly into a paste to eat.

The relief ration is essentially a simplified individual ration that cannot be compared in taste and nutrition to ordinary military ready-to-eat foods. In particular, its hard, rough texture and strange taste make it almost unpopular except for hungry refugees. Skader, who had to nibble on relief rations for a week due to a mistake by the logistics department on a business trip, once commented very harshly: a person can live on the grass series for half a year, without meals can live for seven days, and only eat relief rations for three days. And in the mainland strategy, the relief rations got the nickname of "teething bricks".

Relief rations have made some efforts in terms of taste. Within a few months of the ration being developed, the R&D team imitated modern instant noodles and developed a variety of flavors such as cumin, spicy, spicy, seafood, and green onion by adding various spices and seasonings. Of course, the change in taste did not actually increase the appetite much, except for the hungry, the average soldier and laborer still gave them a bad rating. As Dongmen Fuyu, who has eaten all the fast foods that have been put into production or not produced in the research and development, said: For the hungry, the variety of flavors cannot fill an empty stomach: for those who can eat normally, no amount of complex seasoning can make relief rations delicious.

From the beginning of Operation Engine, which transported displaced people, to the end of the mainland strategy, tens of millions of relief rations of various types were produced, and millions of refugees were saved from starvation. The rations were wrapped in oiled paper and neatly stacked in a standard 20-litre wooden box made of wooden nails, which was identical to the one containing ammunition, and was therefore generally painted red and yellow to distinguish them. Later, the imperial troops who went around to fight sometimes carried some to stabilize the people's hearts or pay commissions to the migrant workers.

The relief rations of this period were stamped in bold bold letters: "Gifts from the Senate and the people of the Empire".

The shelf life of relief rations was set at three years, and in practice, some late-produced, late-processed batches were still safe to eat after 20 years of storage in a relatively cold and dry environment. Of course, this ration has become extremely hard and almost impossible to chew.

A large amount of water must be added to boil it into a paste before it can be eaten. Due to its storage resistance, in some remote outposts on the frontiers of the empire with long logistical routes, and in the trading stations and research stations deep into the wilderness, relief rations were tightly encapsulated and then used as internal non-load-bearing walls for certain rooms, as a kind of emergency reserve for zuihou. This measure saved the lives of many soldiers and prospectors on duty in remote locations, enabling them to hold out until the rescue force arrived, surrounded by barbarians.

"Because relief rations are very sturdy and difficult to eat, there are always expired relief rations in the warehouses of the military and planning institutes everywhere because they are not eaten. The general way of handling is to hand it over to the agricultural department to grind and raise earthworms. However, some of the items were singled out compared to the haode, and some soldiers would cut relief rations with bayonets into various crafts or small household items at their leisure. For example, the pipe you see is the pipe made by the veteran Admiral Shi Zhiqi of the Navy Corps with his own hands on relief rations. In addition, the veteran Engineer General Panda collected relief ration pipes from all years since the advent of relief rations. Look, this is the Si Ren collection that Elder Pan donated to our museum. They have different smells, such as seafood in the fifth year, cumin and spicy in the sixth year, coconut in the seventh year, and in the eighth year, due to the large harvest of potatoes and sweet potatoes brought about by the expansion of the fertilizer plant in the previous year, which in turn led to the animal husbandry, and the addition of corned beef grains, which was unprecedented at the time. Now we can still see whole corned beef cubes on the surface of the pipe. Therefore, the pipes made by the relief rations in the eighth year of the Holy Eight are also known as the Great Harvest Pipes" The docent of the Imperial Museum explains the relief ration pipes The people of Lingao, whether naturalized or aborigines, now know that the Australians are about to have a large-scale operation.

Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the ways of an "Australian" or a "thief" knows that the bustling scene in the food factory of the Ministry of Light Industry is a sign of this unsettling portent.

In the new building of the Wenlan Riverside Food Factory, relief rations are being produced on a large scale, and the production of dry grassland food has also increased by three times compared to usual. Beginning in March, the food factory was tasked with producing 100,000 relief rations No. 1 and 20,000 meadow series dry rations per month. The task assigned by the Planning Institute is! By the end of June 1631, 400,000 relief rations No. 1 had been completed. 50,000 servings of No. 1 instant soup cubes. By the end of the year, the total annual order of 1.2 million copies will be completed. In addition, orders were placed for other instant foods, including fish, salted fish, pickles, pickles, pickles, biscuits, and sweets, among others.

The umbrella enterprises under the Ministry of Light Industry and the People's Commissariat of Agriculture: grain processing plants, seafood processing plants, and food factories have all expanded in size and increased the number of personnel. The 850 naturalized employees worked in two shifts and all leave was cancelled. Production is carried out at a rate of 2 brushes per day, 7 days a week.

The roads leading from Bopu to the food factories have been renovated and converted to high-grade cinder hardened roads. Heavy ox carts and light purple electric carts run down the road, wheels rolling. The factory gate is open from morning to night, and it looks no different from the factories in other industrial zones. However, when producing instant food with a lot of spices, people in the neighborhood can smell the strong aroma.

Every day, many vehicles come in and out of the food factory to move goods. Some even eat the refrigerated cabinet in the car: 150 kg of various vegetables: 50 kg of brown rice, rice flour, beans: 100 kg of dried sweet potatoes and sweet potato flour: 50 kg of fruits: 50 kg of sucrose and salt: 5 kg of spices: 50 kg of salted fish and fresh fish: 5

Liter packages of fish luzuihou are the rarest of foods: fats. It is packed in 5-liter wooden barrels or ceramic jars. In addition to the common soybean oil and lard, there are also fishy fish oil and various vegetable oils that can be consumed.

The floor and walls of the newly built factory are all tiled, and rows of glass windows are used for lighting, and the ventilation windows are equipped with multiple screens, ranging from general roving to fine yarn for clothes. Prevents even the tiniest flying insects from entering. Workers have to dwell lime pools when they enter and leave the workshop, and their hands must be carefully washed when they change clothes. Workers wear white overalls, hoods and masks, and oilcloth overshoes on their feet to process raw materials. Most of the ingredients are ground into powder, and vegetables and fruits are processed into pastes or dried products. Then, according to the recipe, various raw materials are continuously poured into the cauldron for processing. Then add water to the stirring pot for stirring, a stirring pot is driven by a steam engine powered by the transmission shaft on the ceiling, and the newly installed large stirring pot can stir 250 at a time

kilograms of raw materials.

For the time being, the industrial mouth cannot produce steel, and because of the cost and energy problems, it cannot make pots. Therefore, most of the processing equipment in the food factory uses iron sheet tinning, and there are a few small processing equipment that use copper, and some use glass or ceramic.

Stir well with the paste after which the steam is heated to 100, ensuring that the food is fully cooked.

The paste is then poured into the mould, which is pulled to a gas-heated continuous kiln on a rotating chain plate for drying.

During the drying process, the shrinking biscuits automatically fall out of the mold and fall on the large tray of tinplate when the chain plate rotates.

Due to the lack of rubber gloves, workers are not allowed to touch food and wrapping paper with their hands, except for disinfecting their hands with disinfectant before entering the workshop. All operated with clips.

The packaged relief rations were placed in a sterilization room and heated to 120 C with superheated dry steam from a special boiler and then cooled to 40 C. After sterilization, the rations are packed into a standard 20-litre wooden box. The wooden box is lined with persimmon oil coated with oiled paper to ensure that it will not be permeable. Then put a packet of lime in the box as a desiccant. The lime bag is printed with a striking black sè font: "Recyclable materials, pay attention to recycling!" ”

Not only lime bales, but also cartons and wooden boxes have similar warnings.

In addition to providing relief rations that can be eaten by individuals at any time, the food factory also produces relief rations for multiple people, which are identical in composition but are made into 2.5-kilogram blocks. When in use, smash it and boil it with water to make a paste. It is known as the "No. 1 in-situ relief ration". This ration is used to recruit refugees when refugee relief facilities are set up in disaster areas.

In order to ensure the supply of vitamins and avoid beriberi and sepsis caused by a single lack of vitamins in the diet, the food factory will produce 15,000 kilograms of dehydrated vegetables and dried fruits in addition to instant soup cubes. In addition, the grain processing plant prepares 50,000 kilograms of brown rice for food in the transit camp. Brown rice is also processed: it is first cooked into rice and then thoroughly dried. This way it doesn't require much fuel to cook into porridge. In case of emergency, it can also be eaten directly.