Chapter 1634

Qiao Hui asked, "What kind of cigarette? Take it out and let me see."

The veteran soldier shook his head vigorously: "There's none left, I smoked the last one."

Qiao Hui glared: "Less nonsense, take the cigarette out."

The veteran soldier reluctantly took a pack of Hongtashan out of his pocket. Qiao Hui snatched it away and said with a clicking sound.

"Hongtashan is 20 yuan a pack, I can't even bear to smoke it. You kid are extravagant enough."

(A pack of Hongtashan is 20 yuan, will someone complain? A novel set in the 90s, prices of the 21st century? I have seen such a news report, Secretary Kong only smokes low-grade cigarettes that cost a few cents.)

(Once when giving a lecture at the Ali Party School, a comrade put two packs of Hongtashan on the table, and Secretary Kong got angry on the spot, saying: In Ali, a catty of wool is 4.8 yuan, but a pack of Hongtashan costs 20 yuan. Smoking a pack of Hongtashan burns away four or five catties of wool.)

The veteran soldier smiled: "I just wanted to taste what it was like. I bought a pack after I got my allowance. I definitely won't buy it next time, and I don't have the money to buy it anyway."

Qiao Hui took one out and put it in his mouth, threw one to Zhou Andong, and then returned the cigarettes to the veteran soldier.

"Save your money, don't always be so extravagant. Save some and send it home. Even if your family doesn't need it, can't you save it for yourself to marry a wife later?"

"Rest assured, Regiment Commander, just this once."

The veteran soldier didn't notice that the two cooks on the side were looking at him with unkind eyes as he tucked the cigarettes into his pocket.

Zhou Andong lit his cigarette and looked at the several large pots in the kitchen, which were still burning coal.

"Every morning, it must take you more than an hour to light the fire for these stoves, right?"

"It doesn't take an hour, ten minutes or so is enough." The veteran soldier pointed to the stove stewing the beef: "Look at this stove, is it a bit different from the others?"

"It is a bit." Zhou Andong nodded: "This stove is a bit shorter, built with irregular stones, and the seams are all filled with mud."

"The ones next to it are different; they are built with red bricks, and the seams are filled with cement, and they also look very beautiful."

The veteran soldier put away the smile on his face: "This is an old stove. When we changed defense in May last year, an old squad leader told me many stories about this place."

"This old squad leader was a soldier from '73. He joined the army at 16 and came here. Five years later, he took over this old stove from his old squad leader."

"He told me that compared to back then, Ali at this time can already be considered heaven. Back then, Ali was synonymous with a barren land."

"Holding a gun in one hand and a hoe in the other was their truest portrayal, living a life of depending on the weather every day. Whatever vegetable was ripe in the field, the dining table for the next few days would be various ways of cooking that vegetable."

"Like when potatoes were ripe, the old stove would have shredded potatoes, potato slices, and mashed potatoes in various combinations. Once the season of scarcity arrived or they encountered continuous bad weather, they could only eat white rice with pickled vegetables and compressed biscuits to fill their stomachs."

"Speaking of the hardest times back then, it was patrolling and duty. Some companies guarded several boundary markers, and the 40-plus kilometer mountain road required 4 days and 3 nights to go back and forth."

"Hot food security during patrols was a luxury. Every night before departure, the old squad leader would stand in front of the stove and make compressed biscuits for the soldiers himself. It was potato flour plus cornmeal and water, sprinkled with salt, put into an oil pan and stir-fried, and then it could be made after drying."

"For the next four days, the patrolling soldiers relied on these homemade biscuits to fill their stomachs, paired with winter white snow and summer mountain spring water. The only appetizer was pickled radish cubes."

"The old squad leader told me that he had been responsible for the regiment headquarters canteen food for 15 years, and he had been wearing the military uniform for exactly 20 years. And the fire of this old stove has been burning for a full 30 years."

"Even when the barracks were rebuilt more than ten years ago, this old stove was not demolished, and the fire has been burning all along, never extinguished."

"This can also be considered a kind of inheritance."

Zhou Andong said softly, feeling an indescribable emotion in his heart.

The border defense officers and soldiers are indeed too miserable. Even now, in winter, what the border defense officers and soldiers eat are potatoes, radishes, and some things that are easy to store.

He felt he should do something, such as vegetable greenhouses. After going back, he would talk to his teacher about this matter and build an experimental greenhouse here as soon as possible. As long as it is grown, it will be promoted in the border defense troops for free.

Another thing is self-heating boxed lunches. The heating pack is very simple, which is quicklime, iron powder, aluminum powder, coke powder, and some other very common materials.

The packaging bag of the heating pack is non-woven fabric. This thing is not high-tech either. In the 60s, Shanghai already established a non-woven fabric factory.

The key is quality. After all, it developed decades later than foreign countries. How high a temperature can the produced non-woven fabric withstand?

If the quality does not meet the requirements and it relies entirely on imports, the cost will increase a lot.

There are also lunch boxes, polypropylene resin. Although the technology is already very mature at this time.

But it still belongs to high-tech, and the price will definitely not be low, definitely much more expensive than in later generations.

For example, calendars, this is not high-tech stuff either.

At this time, better ones cost dozens, and higher-end ones cost hundreds.

But more than 20 years later, let alone dozens or hundreds, even if they were given away for free, no one would want them.

There are also cars. 20 years later, a Santana costs tens of thousands, but now it costs more than 200,000.

Polypropylene PP granules must be the same. In this way, the cost will also be much higher.

Self-heating boxed lunches are provided to the military. If the cost is too high, it definitely won't work.

At this time, he thought of Qu Guoquan, a professor at the Chemistry Research Institute of Sun Yat-sen University.

In October last year, he attended an entrepreneur forum in Yangcheng, and Qu Guoquan went to find research funding.

And the research project was polyolefin high-quality material synthesis, the most important of which is polyolefin film, but it also includes polyolefin resin.

At that time, the research had reached a critical moment, and then he brought Rifeng and the research institute together to cooperate. He didn't know if there was any progress now.

He was going to Guancheng, and when the time came, he had to go to the research institute in person to talk to Professor Qu Guoquan about this matter.

If the research and development is successful and he has his own technology and can produce PP granules himself, the cost will come down by a large chunk.

He didn't expect to make money from self-heating boxed lunches either. Looking at the suffering of the border defense soldiers, if he wanted to rely on this to make money, he estimated that his conscience would be uneasy for the rest of his life.

Moreover, producing PP granules himself can arrange for many workers, and building a food factory can also arrange for many workers, and then he can let the border defense soldiers eat hot meals when patrolling. Zhou Andong was very willing to do this thing that kills three birds with one stone.

"Old Zhou, what are you thinking about?" Qiao Hui poked Zhou Andong: "I've called you twice."

Zhou Andong came back to his senses: "I was thinking, can we develop a kind of boxed lunch where the rice and dishes are packed inside, and it can be automatically heated without electricity or fire?"

"In this way, when the officers and soldiers are patrolling, they can take it out and it will automatically heat up in a few minutes. You say how good that would be."