My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 212: Drinking a mouthful of yogurt to summarize a road of all things

Although Zhuge Jin felt that the current situation in Xu Du reported by Sun Qian was not enough to see the overall direction of the future.

If we can wait for another month or two until the second shoe drops, everything will be certain.

But since Liu Bei asked, he had to give a direct answer.

After careful consideration, Zhuge Jin said solemnly: "My Lord, I think that Yuan Shao has indeed suffered a loss in the Henei Incident. With Yuan Shao's temper, he will definitely not tolerate it. But Yuan Shao is greedy for small profits and cares about his reputation. He is not like Cao Cao who would do anything to achieve his goal.

Therefore, even if he was angry, he would not immediately go to war with Cao Cao. There are three possible trends for the subsequent development:
First of all, Yang Chou had just killed Zhang Yang, and the internal situation was still unstable. It was hard to say whether he could convince the civil and military officials in Henei. Once Yang Chou's internal situation was unstable and other incidents occurred, which allowed Yuan Shao to save some face, then perhaps this conflict could be postponed. But in the long run, there would inevitably be conflicts between Yuan and Cao.

Secondly, if Yang Chou stabilized the situation in Henei, Yuan Shao would probably not dare to directly go to war with the imperial court. At that time, he might not declare war, or use other small actions to actually conflict with Cao Cao and gradually weaken Cao Cao. He would also make preliminary contacts with other princes to see if a loose alliance against Cao could be formed. If so, it would be another attempt to defeat Dong Zhuo.

Finally, if these small-scale conflicts could not weaken Cao Cao and achieve Yuan Shao's strategic goals, he would most likely settle for the next best thing, such as fabricating other charges against Cao Cao for arbitrary power and deceiving the emperor during his years of assisting in the administration.

Or he could repeatedly send envoys to pay tribute, meet the emperor, and take various small actions to respect the emperor's real power and weaken Cao Cao's control over the emperor. Once Cao Cao got tired of it, he would either harm Yuan Shao's envoys or secretly trip him up, and Yuan Shao would have an excuse to officially start a war. It can be said that Cao Cao was blocking the king's path. "

Since Zhuge Jin didn't know which direction the situation would develop in, he had to list out all the possibilities he had deduced.

To be honest, this move already has a bit of the style of the modern German military staff system in the future - I can't guess how the enemy will respond after the war, but I have listed all the possible countermeasures to the enemy. In the end, no matter which move the enemy chooses, I will use the predetermined plan to fit it.

After hearing this, Liu Bei couldn't help but refresh his understanding of Zhuge Jin's meticulous thinking.

Oh my goodness! Is this what Tzuyu meant by "not sure about the development of the situation"?
It turns out that being confident means being able to predict with certainty what the enemy will do and then figuring out your own countermeasures.

If you are not sure, it means you don't know what the enemy will do, but you list all possible tricks of the enemy!

Why does it feel like being unsure is harder than being sure?

"In that case, it's useless for us to think too much now. We have to wait and see how the situation develops in the next month or so, and which of the three paths that Ziyu envisioned will Yuan and Cao take... Never mind, we don't have to respond immediately, so let's just continue to recuperate and wait and see."

After Liu Bei sorted out his thoughts, he set the tone for today's banquet interlude.

Everyone agreed with this and thought that for now they should just continue to do their best and wait and see for another month or two.

Zhang Liao, who attended this event for the first time, finally had an intuitive understanding of the meticulousness of the Zhuge brothers' strategies, and was sincerely impressed: It turns out that the Zhuge brothers can think so meticulously... No wonder the lord was able to survive and rise again quickly within three years. In comparison, Wen Hou only relied on Chen Gong and Chen Deng, which was far behind.

Everyone quickly returned to the relaxed atmosphere of clinking glasses, and soon, everyone was a little drunk, so as usual, they had to make some hangover soup.

Some people who are used to drinking hot and sour noodle soup to sober up still order noodle soup, but the noodles used nowadays are not that sour, so they add extra vinegar to enhance the sourness.

Some southerners don’t like noodles, so they just drink hot and sour fish soup - such as Chen Deng, who is from Guangling.

Liu Bei was holding the bowl of noodles when he suddenly remembered something. He smiled and asked Zhuge brothers, "Ziyu, Kongming, have you been busy making wheat noodles this month? After all, this kind of thing cannot increase the output of grain and fodder, but it can make the food more delicious. After all, we should not waste too much energy on it.

Although we need to rest and wait and see what happens now. It is better to spend our time thinking about other things than thinking about food all the time."

Facing Liu Bei's persuasion, Zhuge Jin just smiled and said nothing, while Zhuge Liang spoke frankly:

"My Lord, there are different levels of knowledge and different specializations in different fields. You may not know this. I am not thinking about food, but actually summarizing the general principles of 'breeding and selection'.

It’s just that the Aspergillus fungus reproduces very quickly, so it’s convenient to summarize the experimental rules, so we use Aspergillus fungus first. In the future, maybe we can apply these ideas to the breeding of all kinds of herbs, grains and vegetables in the world.”

Liu Bei was originally worried that Zhuge Liang was wasting too much time and brainpower on fine food and luxurious enjoyment. But when he heard that there was such a profound truth behind it that he couldn't understand, he simply shut up and let Zhuge Liang do whatever he wanted.

Seeing that his second brother had convinced the master, Zhuge Jin added: "Don't worry, my lord. Civil affairs and agricultural promotion should be adapted to local conditions and the times. In the past few months of leisure, I have considered continuing to improve steel pouring, porcelain firing, and mining, but those things are more suitable for construction in Danyang, Yuzhang, and Jiangxia.

We are now in Xiapi, which is already in the north of the Huai River. There are many people and eyes, so it is inevitable that Cao and Yuan will be spies. At the same time, the local mineral resources are not as rich as those in the south of the Yangtze River. It is not easy to keep those things secret, and it will be twice as effective. It is better to wait until the autumn harvest in September and return to the south of the Yangtze River. I will take care of those things myself.

In the next two months, it is better to do something that is adapted to local conditions. In addition to breeding koji, I also want to improve the sea salt boiling process in Donghai and Guangling counties, and try to make salt without boiling, just by sun drying, so that a lot of manpower and fuel can be saved.

However, more manpower and materials need to be deployed in the initial stage to ensure that the experiment is successful before the autumn harvest. After the winter, when there is no farming season, the people can be asked to perform labor service or work in lieu of relief to build salt fields.

Huai salt has been the most productive since ancient times, and Cao Cao did not occupy any coastal counties. Once this technology is improved, we can reap all the benefits without having to worry about Cao Cao plagiarizing it.

After the double harvest of rice and wheat this year, there will no longer be a shortage of local food. We have improved our fishing techniques over the past few years, and the harvest of sea fish is huge. Previously, we had to eat them all in time to supplement the shortage of rice in the civilian population. Now that there is a surplus of food, we should pickle more fish meat to make it easier to store, so that the army can have more meat reserves in the future. The expansion of Huai salt production is just in time. "

Liu Bei followed Zhuge Jin's thoughts and found that the rhythm of this farming plan was really great.

Liu Bei's army has been improving fishing technology for more than two and a half years, and the fishing gear has been upgraded for two or three generations. However, there was no large-scale reserve of dried meat before this, because the output of Huai salt was still not large enough, and the surplus was not enough to pickle hundreds of thousands of stones of meat.

Secondly, during the three years that Liu Bei was in charge of the Huainan region, his territory had gradually expanded, and he had to use the surplus grain from the old territory to subsidize the newly occupied areas to avoid large-scale starvation.

No matter how many fish we caught before, most of them were eaten quickly and did not need to be pickled.

This year we finally have surplus grain and fish, which is very suitable for large-scale salted fish, and the solar salt method is indeed suitable for practice - although Liu Bei does not quite understand what the solar salt method is now, he can only understand it literally, as if it means that salt can be produced from seawater without the use of fuel.

"Okay, Ziyu, it's good that you have a plan in mind. Just do whatever you want without asking for instructions." Liu Bei nodded decisively, allowing Zhuge Jin to do whatever he wanted in the subsequent stages.

Zhuge Jin got the authorization and decided to give everyone a small surprise to prove his ability in innovation. So he clapped his hands lightly, and immediately two maids came forward to listen to his instructions.

Zhuge Jin whispered a few words in his ear, and the maids immediately went out and brought back a large porcelain jar a short while later.

When Liu Bei saw the celadon jar, he was quite curious: "What is this?"

There was no celadon in the Han Dynasty. This thing probably did not appear until the Eastern Jin Dynasty. However, Zhuge Jin had improved the steel pouring method and the furnace blasting equipment in the previous year, and he had already gained a lot of experience in how to heat up various furnaces.

So the new blower was used in the kiln for firing ceramics, and the kiln was built with refractory bricks, and the first generation of celadon was fired easily. However, the product was not very stable, and the color of the celadon is a bit black, but it is still much better looking than the original earthy yellow porcelain.

Liu Bei had seen the latest celadon kiln products of Zhuge's family in Jingdezhen, Poyang County, but other civil and military officials in Liu Bei's army who had not been to Yuzhang and Danyang had never seen it, and Zhang Liao was even less likely to have seen it. So when several people in the hall saw this container, they were already quite surprised, thinking it was some kind of dark jade.

Chen Deng, Tian Yu, and Zhang Liao, just by seeing the container, they opened their mouths slightly and inhaled softly.

In front of everyone, Zhuge Jin opened the dark blue porcelain jar, used a wine horn to scoop out two spoonfuls of pure white sticky substance, and poured it into the vermilion lacquered wine cup in front of him. A smell similar to sour dairy products filled the air.

Liu Bei was the closest, and he could not help but cover his nose with his hand: "Is this the sobering cheese? Why is it so sour? It must have been stored for many times longer than ordinary cheese. You usually don't even want to eat sour soup noodles, how dare you try something so sour?"

Zhuge Jin smiled proudly: "This is also the fermentation product of another kind of bacteria mass that Aliang sorted out when he was studying old dough koji. In fact, sourness is not terrible. The key is to avoid the presence of foreign bacteria and not to ferment randomly.

This product is fermented with koji that is mainly lactic acid after repeated screening. Before fermentation, the cow and sheep milk must be boiled to kill the original bacteria, and then relatively pure lactic acid koji is added to focus on the acidification of the milk itself.

I think about this, and I feel sorry that many other relatively pure fungus koji that Aliang has sorted out are just thrown away. In fact, most of the koji in the world are useful. What we are afraid of is not that the koji will become sour, but that the ingredients of the koji are impure and mixed, which can easily damage the stomach and intestines.

If lactic acid, acetic acid, wine yeast and flour yeast are in their proper places and are sorted and purified, they will all be useful. For example, most of this butter cheese is lactic acid fermented without any other bacteria, which is really amazing for sobering up."

Zhuge Jin said this and demonstrated by taking a bite. After seeing his actions, Liu Bei no longer worried about the food safety of yogurt.

Zhuge Jin's cowardice and fear of death were well known to everyone! At the beginning of the month, he didn't even dare to drink the sour noodle soup!

Now, people dare to drink this kind of cheese that smells even more sour than noodle soup, which is enough to prove that this thing is definitely not poisonous! And it will definitely not cause diarrhea after drinking it because of sourness!

In fact, Zhuge Jin was still very cautious. Before he dared to take out this yogurt today, he had already let the convicts in the prisoner camp try it several times.

Then he repeatedly purified and screened the Aspergillus bacteria until no convict had diarrhea for three consecutive days. Zhuge Jin was sure that he had obtained relatively pure, high-quality lactic acid bacteria, and only then did he dare to eat this yogurt himself.

Seeing that he was eating so cheerfully, Liu Bei immediately took the wine jar and took two sips. After taking a sip, he found that although the wine had a strong sour taste, it did not make him feel sick. Instead, it had an immediate effect of sobering him up.

This is much more comfortable than drinking hot and sour noodle soup!
"Ha - what a pity Yide is not here! This thing is absolutely suitable for him! When he is drunk like that, it would be great to have a cup to sober him up!"

When the generals saw that Liu Bei was enjoying the drink, they also came forward and scooped a corner from the yogurt jar. Although the sour taste was strong and strange at first, they soon found that the sour taste was very refreshing.

"It turns out that Kong Ming spent a month thinking about the old dough, Qu Jue. Not only can it be used to make steamed buns and pancakes, but it can also have such infinite changes and wonderful uses. I underestimated the use of Qu Jue!"

Everyone was amazed, and no one thought that Zhuge Liang's research on Qu Jue was a waste of time anymore.

Among all the people, the one who was most shocked was Zhuge Liang himself.

Because in the past month, he was mainly thinking about the old dough, and as for the grouping of yogurt, beer, and acetic acid bacteria, it was mainly because his brother was reluctant to waste them and helped to sort them out. So until today, Zhuge Liang actually didn't know how yogurt was fermented.

At this moment, while eating yogurt and thinking about what his elder brother had just said, he suddenly grasped a key point that others had not grasped. Regardless of the occasion, he directly caught his elder brother and asked him the truth:

"Brother! You just said that to make this kind of yogurt, you need to first cook the cow and goat milk, then cool it down, and then add the lactic acid koji you separated? You only tried it seven or eight times, and you got the current effect?"

Zhuge Jin hadn't realized how extraordinary his second brother had discovered, so he just casually admitted, "I did say that, what's wrong?"

Zhuge Liang was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly slapped his thigh:
"I know why the separation and purification of koji for yogurt is much faster than that for dough. Because dough is made with raw dough, and it is impossible to cook the dough before fermenting! But yogurt can be made by cooking the cow's and goat's milk first and then fermenting!

There must be bacteria in raw milk and raw dough, which are of the same nature as the bacteria in old dough! If the original bacteria are not cooked and killed, no matter how pure the bacteria in the old dough are, once it is mixed with new dough, it will be contaminated by the bacteria in the new dough!
Maybe everything we eat and drink will be naturally contaminated with bacteria! That's why the secret scroll that my elder sister read to prevent babies from being contaminated by time and air said that the scissors should be heated red when cutting the baby's umbilical cord! Between heaven and earth, there are bacteria on the surface of everything! Only by burning it thoroughly or boiling it can it be killed!
Why didn't I think of that! From today on, I won't study old dough anymore, I've had enough! I want to study sour cheese koji!"

Zhuge Liang suddenly had an idea and decided to abandon his research on yeast and switch to the lactic acid bacteria camp.

Zhuge Jin was stunned. He didn't expect that just one of his words would make Aliang discover another truth.

My brother still has the talent of Pasteur.

Since my second brother wants to study lactic acid bacteria, let him do it and satisfy his curiosity. Zhuge Jin can study salt drying by himself.

The other people attending the banquet were even more confused.

However, they also felt very honored because today they finally witnessed with their own eyes how the Zhuge brothers inspired each other.

An amazing discovery often comes to Zhuge Liang suddenly when he takes a sip of yogurt.

(End of this chapter)