In the south of Nanjing, after a month of overtime, the two canning factories were successfully completed outside the Dinghuai Gate, and on the day of the completion of the two factories, they attracted many onlookers from the people, squires, dignitaries, and nobles.

Su Yan personally cut the ribbon for the factory under the watchful eye and announced that the canning factory was officially put into production.

The completion of the canning factory and the official production of the canning factory became the biggest news in Nanjing, and the people of Nanjing talked about it a lot, discussing what the so-called canning factory was used for, and some people who attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony had bragging capital.

They recounted what they had seen and heard at the time, and relayed the purpose of the canned food produced by the canneries they introduced at that time.

No matter what the outside world said, Su Yan was very concerned about these two factories, he personally supervised the recruitment and production of the factories, and discussed canned food with the directors attached to the two factories.

Because it is an early can, it uses the storage method of glass bottles and cans of the Frenchman Nicolas Appel, that is, the food is packed into a wide-mouth glass bottle, the mouth of the bottle is plugged with a wooden cork, heated in a steamer, and then the wooden cork is tightly corked and sealed with wax.

Because of the limitation of the level of science and technology, the steam engine has not yet appeared, and the factory can only use the original steamer heating method, and the factory can only upgrade to the steam heating method after lighting up the steam engine technology in the future.

The tightness of the glass jar and cans is not subject to change for the time being, but Su Yan can clearly see the contents of the inside from the outside, which is boiled cabbage and a large amount of water - according to the factory director, it is the brine of pickled cabbage, and in order to reduce the cost, the nearest sea salt is used.

Since there is only a large amount of brine in addition to cabbage in the can, there is no suspense about its taste, there is no other taste except salty, in fact, other canned food is the same, the canned factory only has canned cabbage and canned fish at the beginning, and the fish is made of common carp, crucian carp, wheat ear fish, etc., which are common in Nanjing, and the taste of these two canned foods is not very good without exception.

After all, it's an early canned food, how delicious do you want it to taste? Even in the later generations of advanced technology, canned food is not synonymous with deliciousness.

However, if it is placed in the army on the front line, canned food is considered a good dish, and in the case of the continuous expansion of the number of troops under its command, even the wealthy Nanjing court can not ensure that the army can eat meat frequently, and the soldiers' military rations are still traditional moose cakes made of meat foam flour and wrinkled rice made of rice cereal dried, or miscellaneous cakes made of miscellaneous grains.

However, in terms of which army has the best food in the army, it is worthy of the guards stationed in Nanjing and Su Yan's descendant Qinglong Left Brigade, the former is the guard army around Su Yan, and the latter is the trump card in the Chu army, at least four times a month.

As for the other troops, the best situation is to eat meat once a month, and if you win successive battles, you can meet the generosity of the main general, and reward the whole army with meat, and other than that, you can only taste meat on traditional festivals.

The emergence of canned food gave Chu Jun the opportunity to improve his food, fresh vegetables are not daring to think, it is okay to supplement vitamins, meat is only fish at this stage, and chicken, pork, mutton and the like will definitely be added in the future.

However, although the canned food was made, a problem bothered Su Yan - the cost was too high.

At this stage, canned food is made of glass cans, which is expensive and easy to be broken due to collisions during transportation, which is not convenient to use as military supplies.

If you want to spread this can to the whole army, you have to replace it with a durable metal container, and at the moment I am afraid that only iron can do it.

Su Yan therefore put forward a new opinion, he hoped that the factory could replace the storage container with iron, and the two factory directors showed a look of embarrassment.

"Your Highness." The director of the first factory was puzzled: "There are only 5,000 glass jars in the factory's warehouse, and if you want to replace them with iron containers, you can only purchase them from outside, not to mention the cost, and whether you can find a suitable container is a problem." ”

It is worth mentioning that the warehouses of the two canning factories contain 5,000 glass jars for making cans, which may have been attached to the system to allow the production of the canning factories to be transitioned.

For the factory director's embarrassment, Su Yan waved his hand and didn't care, he said: "This king will go to find a more suitable container, two (this chapter is not finished!) )

Chapter 274: The Canning Factory

You can process the glass jars in the warehouse first, and send them to the front line first to see how the response is. ”

Su Yan said this, how could the two of them object, so they saluted and nodded yes.

Iron cans Su Yan is ready to build from the iron casting factory in Jiangnan Province, three new iron casting factories have been opened in Jiangnan Province in the construction wave a few months ago, and most of the blacksmiths have also been recruited to work in the factory, Su Yan only needs to send the task down, and they will naturally think about how to build it on their own.

Of course, the manufacturing difficulty of the iron can will definitely be relatively high, not only to pursue lightness, but also to ensure that the inside of the can is tightly fit to prevent leakage, and the craftsmen who add up to these two requirements are busy.

Su Yan is a layman, and indiscriminately meddling in guidance is likely to lead to self-defeating, so he only needs to explain his ideas, and as long as the qualified samples are created, the problem will be solved.

After leaving the canning factory, Su Yan went directly to Taiping Province by carriage - three iron foundries in Jiangnan Province were built in Taiping Province, because this is the location of the famous Ma'anshan Iron Mine in later generations, and the iron ore resources are abundant.

It is worth mentioning that the reason why this place was discovered and a mine was set up was not discovered by Su Yan, but that the local residents accidentally found iron ore on the ground and reported it to the government, and the iron ore resources here were finally discovered.

It's not that Su Yan doesn't know about the Ma'anshan Iron Mine, but he doesn't know which province Ma'anshan corresponds to in the future, if the people don't find it, I'm afraid that he will miss this rich iron mine for a while.

After coming to the iron foundry in Taiping Mansion, Su Yan summoned the main person in charge of the factory to explain to him the style and requirements of the new container that needed to be made.

After Su Yan waited in the factory for a while, the person in charge came over with a sample and presented it to Su Yan for him to see.

How to say it, it seems to be made of a whole piece of iron, and there is a bit of heaviness when you pick it up, and the lid on the top is not made, but Su Yan rejected it just by looking at it, this is more like a lunch box used in the seventies and eighties in later generations......

In contrast, it is better to use a glass jar.

The person in charge saw Su Yan's dissatisfaction, and he carefully explained: "Your Highness, if you want to make the effect of a tight internal fit, I don't dare to say anything else, this is the most consistent thing we can do at present." ”

"Then tell the king, how do you seal the top of it?" Su Yan asked.

"It can't be helped." The other party shook his head and said, "If Your Highness puts food inside, it will definitely stain the food inside when it is sealed." ”

Su Yan, who got this answer, did not give up, he went to two other factories to ask, and the answers he got were very similar, one of the blacksmiths had the courage to say to Su Yan: "Your Highness, we can't do the effect you want, not only us, I'm afraid that there will be no blacksmith in the whole world who can meet your requirements." ”

After listening to the words of the blacksmiths, Su Yan had no choice but to give up, he didn't think that this was a lie told by the blacksmiths collectively in order to shirk their responsibilities, starting from the technology of this era, it was understandable that they could not do it.

In desperation, Su Yan could only continue to use glass jars, and then change to iron cans when the conditions were ripe in the future.

As early as the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Yanshen Town in Zichuan County, Shandong Province has begun to appear glass manufacturing technology, and gradually became a world-famous glass manufacturing production area, which shows that the Celestial Empire has mastered the mature glass manufacturing process in the Ming Dynasty, but it has not been used on a large scale in the daily use of the people.

Those traversers who came to the end of the Ming Dynasty to start by making glass, and were shocked, were pure nonsense...... Do you really think that the ancients had no knowledge?

It was precisely knowing this that Su Yan did not have any thoughts on making glass, and after he decided to continue to use glass cans, he ordered the establishment of a glass factory outside the city of Nanjing, and recruited craftsmen from all over the world who knew how to make glass with a high amount of money.

As soon as Su Yan's order was reached, many glass craftsmen suddenly heard the news and wanted to lead the court's Yulu to eat. )

Chapter 274: The Canning Factory

However, these people are not refused, and as long as they are sure that they are glass craftsmen, they can be hired as employees of the glass factory.

After the establishment of the glass factory, because of the tight time at the beginning, they could only work in a few bungalows, Su Yan only asked them to make the same style of products as the glass bottles that came with the system, which was not difficult, compared to this kind of glassware without appearance requirements, the artwork they had made in the past was many times more difficult.

In November, the canning factory produced thousands of canned cabbage and canned fish, which were loaded onto ships and sent up the Yangtze River to Huguang, ready to be assembled for the troops on the front line in Huguang, so that the soldiers on the front line could taste what the canned food tasted like.

In order to ensure that the cans are not damaged by bumps in transit, each can is filled with hay, and the cans are not discarded directly after eating, but are recycled and sent back to Nanjing to make new cans.

In any case, there are still not enough of these glass cans to be squandered at will, and it is quite necessary to save on recycling.

Chapter 274: The Canning Factory