Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1501 Hungry
Zhu Xianxi shook his head and could only sigh.

The Northern Army still hasn't eaten yet, and there's probably no hope for them. If a real fight breaks out, even standing with a gun in hand will require physical strength, not to mention hand-to-hand combat. Because once the gun is fired, everyone's adrenaline will start to flow, but after it starts to flow, they will start to get tired, and then they will become doubly hungry.

Man is made of iron and rice is made of steel. If you don't eat for a meal, you will definitely be hungry. Even if Lu Bu came, he had to eat his fill before going to the battlefield.

It is not enough to start learning from Huangdi digging a pit and pounding rice now, because what Huangdi pounded was not rice at all - there was no rice in the earliest five grains, but millet and sorghum. Although the grains of these two grains are very small, the seed coat and the grain are not tightly combined, and the grain can be easily separated from the seed coat by hitting it with a stone mortar or something like that.

In fact, rice hulling is very troublesome, because the rice grains are too large, and it is difficult to fully rub the rice grains by simply hammering. Compared with pounding rice, it is more appropriate to use a roller to grind it, and you cannot use a heavy stone roller, which will grind the rice directly. Generally, a wooden, lighter roller is used.

Even if you pound the rice directly, there are still some skills involved. If you use a sledgehammer to pound the rice directly, the rice is not as fine as sorghum and can be easily crushed. When the broken rice and husks are mixed together, it will be difficult to clean them up. When you eat them, you may have to eat the broken rice and husks together with the rice bran.

This kind of taste is quite scary for modern people. It is unpredictable, and from time to time something will pop up and scratch your throat all the way down.

Zhu Xianxun knew how bad it tasted because he had eaten it before. He had grown his own rice and processed it himself. After he put the rice into the stone mill and ground it, he ground the husks and rice grains into powder, turning it into a mixture of broken rice and broken husks. He was reluctant to throw it away, so he ate it once with tears in his eyes and fed it to the pigs.

After that, he bought a rice husker to remove the husks - because no one stipulated that the emperor had to do every step of the ploughing himself. That was not a ploughing ritual, it was survival in the wild, a test of the emperor's craftsmanship. If it was really so strict, among all the emperors in history, perhaps only Emperor Tianqi Zhu Youxiao could do it, because only his craftsmanship met the standards.

As for these guys in front of him, Zhu Xianxin could only give them points for their ideas on solving problems.

As for whether this solution to the problem is useful, he did not insist, because the problem itself is a bit beyond the syllabus, and the course does not teach this. His previous score was only given for the solution ideas. At least their idea of ​​learning from history is very good.

Of course, this kind of encouraging extra points is powerless in front of the real correct answer - but this is just a training session after all, and they don't have to decide a winner. In fact, you can get points whether you win or lose, as long as both sides show their due level during their own practice.

Like before, the two sides were crouching in their shells, which was not their level. Now they started to take the initiative to solve the problem, so even if they couldn't fight, Zhu Xianxi wouldn't make it difficult for them.

The score is one thing, but whether you can accept failure is another.

At this time, the score is not very important. The students of the Imperial College do not really need top-down recognition - the fact that they can come to the Imperial College is a kind of recognition. Because even for self-funded students, the score line is actually quite high, and it is not unconditional to be selected.

As for the Imperial Academy, only the dukes and marquises could directly enroll without conditions. Families at this level would basically not let their children go to the Imperial Academy to embarrass themselves, because the Imperial Academy would really prevent them from graduating, because Zhu Xianxi really taught classes here, and the cabinet minister was the principal here. If someone was really useless, there were other options to go, and there was no need to hang around in front of Zhu Xianxi and Wen Zhong, which would only make things difficult for themselves.

Although the purpose was to get close to the emperor, even Zheng Shijie, the Prince of Yanping, did not choose to enter the Imperial College because it was too sensitive.

Most of the students who chose the Imperial College were somewhat aggressive. They didn't need to be graded and evaluated. If they lost, they would be the first to be unable to accept it. Zhu Xianxun was helpless in this regard. He could only define both sides as "both right" - he could only care whether they were right or not. As for whether they could win, that was another issue.

At this time, Shangluo and Zhu Xianxin had basically the same idea - this was a sure win. If you were to fight an empty stomach with a full stomach, there was no point in playing if you could still lose.

The use of tiger squat cannons to stir-fry rice was soon underway. The heavy artillery could not be used for the time being, so the "shotgun launcher" that did not require much accuracy, such as the tiger squat cannon, was used. In addition, a real big pot was also put into use.

At this time, you have to use a cannon instead of a pot. Because it takes skill to cook a pot, and frying rice requires a lot of firepower - and in ancient times, when frying rice, it was inevitable to add some soil as filler to increase efficiency, and it takes a long time to roast. In fact, the students here don't know how to use a real frying pan, and it's more convenient to put a cannon directly on the fire. Because a narrow-mouthed cannon is much easier to heat up than an open pot.

But even so, it took the Southern Army a full hour and a half, with 80 tiger squat cannons working at the same time, to finally prepare today's rice.

Shangluo made a judgment when cooking rice: the finished fried rice should be placed in a large pot and fried again with oil and salt, or it is better to deep-fry it and eat the sugar and oil mixture directly, so that all the energy can be filled in one meal.

At this time, there was no need to worry about nutritional balance. Because if this meal could be completed and I could eat enough, maybe I could win the battle.

Shangluo also joined the team of stir-frying. He started to use the big wok to process the popcorn that he had already made with you, using oil to make the rice crispier and easier to eat.

"Brother." Shangluo was stirring the wok, and Han Xingzhi came back after taking a walk. "Guess what's going on over there?"

"I just saw them making a fire, probably frying rice."

"No, no, no. I saw them making a fire to burn the hard pit in preparation for pounding rice."

"Huh? What kind of operation is this?"

Ge Lun, who was frying food next to another large pot, spoke up: "Cut wood to make pestles, dig the ground to make mortars, use fire to harden them, and let the people pound millet. This is what is recorded in the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine. To be honest, if no one had provided the technique of making popcorn with a cannon, I'm afraid this would be what I would have thought of. However, from the literal meaning, it can be seen that this is a method of pounding millet. Whether it can be used to pound rice is hard to say. But if you want to pound rice, wouldn't it be better to use a cannon?"

Han Xingzhi nodded and said, "By the way, they are actually using cannons to pound rice right now. But in order to speed it up, they haven't stopped burning the land."

"What do you think, Chief Lin?" Across from Shangluo, Lin Chengyang, who proposed the plan, was processing rice.

"They can't pound it. Pounding rice requires skills. It's not something that can be solved by just hitting it with a hammer. If you use too much strength, the rice grains will be broken, and if you don't have enough strength, you can't grind it at all. In ancient times, pounding rice was used to punish criminals. It's a very hard job. Everyone here, including me, is lazy and can't tell the difference between grains. Pounding rice is too difficult for everyone."

"That means they might go hungry today, right?"

"I'm afraid they won't be able to finish it until tonight. Only frying the rice is the fastest way. Because this time the shelling and cooking are done, the rice is cooked directly after baking and can be eaten directly. This is the fastest method I know of. The only faster method is to put it in a special popcorn machine."

"Okay!" Shangluo made a decision, "In that case, we'll give them a big one after dinner! Let's fry more fried rice and prepare enough for two meals. If we can win this time, it will be a miracle." A few hours ago, when Shangluo saw the formations of both sides, he felt hopeless because the quality of the soldiers on both sides was too different. But now, he actually began to think that he might be able to win.

"Whether we can win depends on this meal!"

Ge Lun covered his forehead and said, "Shangluo's words make sense. But I didn't expect that we would have to decide the winner by cooking. Isn't this a bit off topic?"

"I don't think so." Shangluo replied, "This is a reflection of comprehensive quality, and it is very distinctive and of high standard. I think this might be the correct solution to this problem. Give me another spoonful of rice, I can add more."

An hour and a half later, the whole line was finished. Everyone was given a long grain bag. Shangluo had actually seen this thing before. The stalls selling soy milk in the morning used this thing to hold soy milk. Plastic cups were not popular these days, so long plastic bags were more practical.

In Shangluo, food is distributed in cloth bags, which are tied in the middle with a rope to divide them into two parts, each part containing enough food for one meal.

Everyone got the fried rice and started grabbing it.

There is Lake Baikal nearby, and there is plenty of water, which can be drunk as soon as it is boiled. More than a thousand people finished their meal quickly, taking a sip of hot water and a bite of fried rice.

After confirming that everyone had finished eating, Shangluo clapped his hands suddenly:

"Okay! Do it!"

On the Northern Army side, Wen Yuan already knew what was going on. When he saw Gao Shiyu pounding rice in front of him, he actually felt a little pity.

"Hmm? Wen Yuan, why are you looking at me like that? Is it wrong for us to do this? Look, this is the rice I pounded."

"The rice that can be pounded must be correct." Wen Yuan took a look. The pounded rice was only about a mouthful, and it was mixed with a lot of husks, making it difficult to look directly at.

He really wanted to tell everyone that in this case, the rice should be placed in a container and heated directly until it bursts. However, he couldn't open his mouth.

He even saw the people in Shangluo starting to move, preparing to advance. However, the entire Northern Army was already engaged in pounding rice, and had not yet noticed that the Southern Army had already started moving.

"No. They're moving!"

It was a little slow, but the Northern Army had already discovered it.

The Northern Army, noticing the movement, immediately began to dispatch troops. Although they had already started pounding rice, there was no point in pounding rice anymore since the enemy was already in front of them.

Both sides entered a combat state. The chariot camp that was originally formed into a square began to unfold, and heavy artillery began to be pushed out from the array to the front line.

"What the hell!" Gao Shiyu, who hurriedly put on his musket, was still hungry. He looked across the telescope and saw that the people on the other side seemed to be full of energy and did not look hungry at all.

"What's going on?" He looked at Wen Yuan beside him, "Weren't they pounding rice just now?"

"Sorry, no comment. I can't say that. But you should be able to tell for yourself whether they are full or not."

"Is our method wrong? Should we just throw the rice into the fire?"

This is not impossible - if she could speak, Wen Yuan would answer like this. In primitive society, rice grains were often eaten in this way. Just throw the grains directly into the fire and burn them. This is not impossible, at least it is not like now that no one is eaten at all.

“Ahhhhh!” Gao Shiyu slapped his thigh, “It’s fried rice! The correct answer should be fried rice!”

Wen Yuan looked at the watch. The Northern Army figured out the correct answer by themselves. But compared with the Southern Army, which directly used the reference answer to do the test, it was still an hour slower. For the entire exercise process that took days, one hour was simply insignificant. However, it was this short hour that seemed to really determine the outcome.

"Then." Wen Yuan waved her hand, "Get ready to fight, I want..."

He was just about to withdraw to score when he suddenly moved to the right like lightning - a shell from a cannon flew past his face, and the strong wind caused by the shell blew his military cap off.

The shells rolled into the Northern Army's formation, killing five people in an instant. The five people were directly hit by the shells, and the colored labels on their bodies turned into a ball of light particles and scattered, and the weapons in their hands also disappeared.

"Out." Wen Yuan, who was at the scene, blew the whistle. "Five of you over there, leave on your own and get your lunch boxes. My God, it's a sin to see you starving until now."

The five people looked at each other. Although they were unwilling, they all showed relief on their faces. The winner would be revealed later, at least they could eat now. They were not full just now, and pounding rice was a physically demanding job that was almost like corporal punishment. Even if they fought, they probably wouldn't be able to stand for long. Now, they could find a reason to leave and eat.

The director team has already used the food truck to heat up the lunch boxes.

Wen Yuan picked up the phone and said, "Please heat up some more lunch boxes. I think we can reimburse half of the people today."

(End of this chapter)