With a relatively stable territory, even if it may be temporary, Zhou Huai'an also has time to start thinking about more new things to improve his environment and surrounding conditions;

For example, after the compressed dry food cubes in the initial version of dry baking paper packets, canned fried rice and fried noodles, the third version of portable rations continued to be trial-produced; All kinds of grains collected on the spot are mashed and cooked into a thick slurry, roasted dried vegetables and minced bacon, ground bone meal, soybean meal and oil residue, and then pressed and dried into pieces of hard biscuits that are extremely dense and can be stored for a long time;

Although the final product is still the poor taste of heavy oil and salt, the calorie supply, nutrient content, and absorption efficiency have been improved to varying degrees. Then according to one meal, one day, three days, seven days, ten days, wrapped in a simple paper bag, with a small piece of gray coarse sugar, a piece of soup seasoned concentrated dried sauce, as long as there is a little water can be eaten.

Containers can be used as containers in whole barrels or jars to provide at least one team or a fireman with the food rations needed for a full day. Although eating it for a long time may cause gastrointestinal and taste problems; But it is also equivalent to saving the time and energy spent on cooking on the normal march or breakthrough in the field, and allows the soldiers to have more leisure and energy to perform other duties such as preparing for the enemy and guarding the enemy.

In the process, Zhou Huai'an even wanted to extract nitrite, which is ubiquitous in nature, especially in this area near the sea where a large number of pickled products are common; Although in the food regulations and ordinary people's concepts in later generations, this thing is regarded as a flood of beasts; However, for the preservation and preservation of meat, it has the effect of turning decay into magic; In the modern military supply system, it plays a very important role.

At least the vast majority of people in this era do not have enough life to live to allow carcinogens to accumulate into lesions; However, compared to those who can only mold or rot in the land due to poor logistics and transportation, the remaining agricultural products are rotten; A little addition of preservatives can make these things play more added value, or save the lives of more hungry people in the world.

Therefore, the next step is to find a suitable location by the sea, and practically build a salt pan for brine grading and a natural air-drying field to replace the traditional method of boiling seawater to extract salt, and by the way, in addition to the delicate table salt, some useful by-product ingredients can be extracted. After all, Zhou Huai'an has had enough of the so-called high-grade green salt with the fishy and astringent smell of seawater, and he has to re-boil, filter and precipitate it every time before it can be used as a seasoning for cooking.

In addition, there is a newly made improved version of paper armor; Because there are also several large papermaking workshops near Chaoyang City, a large number of raw materials and tools have been obtained, so they no longer use the original not very waterproof pulp and cardboard to deal with it;

As long as the locally produced mulberry paper and straw linen paper are alternately brushed with tung oil as a binder and then stacked until there is no gap and visible bubbles, it becomes a lighter paper nail part. As long as it is not directly immersed in water for a long time, it will not be damaged or peeled.

At present, through the manual assembly line of craftsmen, more than 100 collars can be produced every day; In this way, it can be used as a transition in addition to a small amount of inlaid iron armor and some leather armor, and gradually eliminate those relatively heavy hemp bamboo armor and other things for the garrison.

In the next step, Zhou Huai'an also wanted to make a simple animal power-driven machine, or even a mechanism that uses water power, so as to be ahead of thousands of years of vision and knowledge.

Then it is to collect relatively simple and inexpensive herbal recipes from local materials to make portable and large pills; It is mainly used for traumatic injuries and bone-setting ointment, as well as pills for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders such as heat stroke and diarrhea, and external powder for the treatment of skin diseases to repel mosquitoes.

In this way, even half-hangers who have not received traditional medical teachings and can only use some simple wound sutures, bandages to stop bleeding, or boiled water disinfection, lime and vinegar fumigation to sterilize and prevent epidemics, can rely on these ready-made panacea and placebo ingredients to perform a relatively limited number of doctors' duties.

The original intention of these things was to provide convenience and means of preparation for himself when he broke away from the peasant army in the future; But now after changing your mind, it can still be a material condition for indirectly strengthening the army under your command.

Although it has developed like this, there are still some deformities and shortcomings; But even the unbalanced lame walking development is better than the previous dazed and unaware so-called stagnant water. Then, there is a project that Zhou Huai'an has conceived for a while. Before, because there was no long gap, and there was no stable surrounding environment to ensure corresponding confidentiality measures, now the conditions are basically ripe.

On the pretext of collecting and making portable prescriptions and products, Zhou Huai'an quickly gathered the basic materials he needed after ordering people to search all the pharmacies and mountain goods stores in Chaoyang City; In an area like this, where land and water meet, the convergence of various materials is still relatively complete and sufficient, especially with the continuous source of imported products from overseas.

At least, in this era, sulfur was used as an ingredient in external medicine for the treatment of ulcers and skin diseases, i.e., "sulfur is the main sore, and water is also suitable." ”； Saltpeter is used to treat internal diseases such as heat accumulation in the five internal organs, stomach distension and closure. It is also known as yin salt, Pu Xiao, etc.; For example, Huangdan powder, which was used to treat gold sores in this era, was made by combining red lead, sulfur, saltpeter, etc.

As for charcoal, it is even simpler, as long as the burning temperature is guaranteed after being fully sealed. Any experienced charcoal burner can solve and provide. Sometimes the bottleneck and generation gap of scientific and technological development are just a thin layer of diaphragm that has not been broken.

Then, after further refining and refining in the mortar, the wet shade is dried into relatively uniform fine particles that can be fully burned. Of course, in addition, there is another important step, that is, according to the ratio formula of "seven nitrate, disulfide, and one charcoal" that has been circulated on the Internet in later generations, the adjustment of the subtle ratio and the corresponding excitation experiment are carried out to find out the best formula for rapid combustion efficiency.

Of course, because the land, population and resource output under their control are relatively limited, this kind of thing does not have the possibility of mass production at present; That is, to concoct a few hundred catties or thousands of catties first, as a secret means to use one, two temporary experiments by chance.

However, as long as the conditions are ripe in the future, and there are sufficient sources of raw materials and production, it is easy to directly transform the fire throwing team in the army formation into a grenadier in the real sense, yes, a grenadier; Before the qualified barrel drilling and cannon casting technology is mass-produced, it is actually possible to make the transition with incendiary and explosives thrown by human or instrumental means.

This is also a means of preparation just in case, once there is discord on the part of Guangfu, maybe it will be the crusade army that comes; A small amount of explosives and incendiary objects thrown are a powerful weapon to hold on to the confrontation and force the other side to compromise. As the so-called means of military struggle and courteous and courteous negotiations, both hands must be prepared to complement each other.