When Huo Guang saw that Liu Tan suddenly became full of energy after he finished speaking, he immediately began to wonder if he had said something wrong.

He is not afraid of anything else now, but he is afraid that Liu Tan will get excited. Once he gets excited, it means he will cause trouble again.

Before he could ask, Liu Tan smiled and said, "Captain, that's a good idea. It's indeed more convenient to make it into military rations."

After hearing this, Huo Guang first felt relieved, but then became confused. That's not right. It's not like Liu Tan's style not to make things more exciting.

It must be said that Huo Guang really understood Liu Tan, because Liu Tan was already thinking about how to make military rations that were simple, convenient and delicious.

Liu Tan had also seen the helmet cake that Huo Guang had mentioned before. It was basically a dry cake, or to say "dry" was an exaggeration, it was simply hard. So this helmet cake actually has another nickname, stone cake, which is different from the cake grown on stones in later generations. This one simply refers to being as hard as a stone.

However, in Liu Tan's understanding, the military rations he had seen in later generations were basically well-matched, with vegetables, meat, rice, and even fruit and chocolate. The level of luxury was probably unimaginable to people of this era.

However, this kind of thing is impossible to produce in this era. With Liu Tan's status, it is a luxury to eat some fruits and vegetables in this broken place, let alone provide them for the soldiers.

So he could only start from other places, and the simplest military rations were probably compressed biscuits.

He no longer wanted to make hot pot or something like that because it was too unstable.

Imagine you’re in the middle of a battle, and someone from the other side comes with a knife and cuts the bag of quicklime and water, and then you’re instantly surrounded by steam. Wouldn’t that ruin the atmosphere?

Of course, one very important point in making good compressed biscuits is that they need oil, otherwise the compressed biscuits will be no different from stone cakes.

As for oil... it seems... there is no need to worry. After all, Liu Tan just collected a large number of cattle and sheep. After a winter, the cattle and sheep may not be very fat, but there will always be some oil.

Liu Tan did not require the same taste as in later generations, he only asked for it to be better than now. It just happened that it could be used in this expedition. Since this city was said to be a transit station, it was not very close to the robbery country, and it would take one or two days to march there.

However, just like before, he didn't know what the formula was, so he needed to figure it out on his own.

Well, fighting has nothing to do with him. He has already decided to let Li Buyan and Wei Buyi lead the troops. As for Huo Guang, he doesn't seem to be interested either. Jiang Chong can join in the fun, but he cannot be appointed as the main general.

Oh, actually the main general is still Liu Tan, but he just volunteered to be a puppet.

Liu Tan let them study where to rob the country, while he turned around to study military rations.

This time he felt that Huo Guang's expansion of his mansion was very foresighted. According to his previous arrangements, there was basically no space except a place to sleep and receive guests.

And now he not only has a garden but also a kitchen.

When Liu Tan asked someone to bring beef, mutton and millet flour to the kitchen, the two cooks inside hid in the corner and trembled.

In the past, when Liu Tan studied food, he would just give orders and at most he would taste it. How could he have ever gone to the kitchen himself?

But this time, the chef he brought with him was unfortunately injured. He was shot in the buttocks by an arrow and has not recovered yet, let alone cooking. So his chef was temporarily selected from the army.

The chefs in the army are best at boiling everything. Asking them to make some exquisite dishes is harder than going to heaven. Fortunately, Liu Tan is not picky about food, otherwise he probably wouldn't be able to stay there for a day.

Therefore, when making new things, Liu Tan could only come in person to give instructions. Of course, it was impossible for him to do it himself. The first step of lighting the fire was enough to stump him.

The flour made from glutinous rice was a bit rough, so Liu Tan had to ask someone to make a small stone mill, and then asked someone to make a gauze mesh with fine wire to sift it. Any flour that could not be sieved had to be ground again.

In fact, this is just the first step. The compressed biscuits of later generations actually use puffed grain powder, which is extruded from a compound of grains and cereals.

Now Liu Tan only has yellow rice, so he will try this method.

As for extrusion and puffing, if there is a machine, the machine can quickly produce such puffed powder with high temperature and high pressure in an instant. But for Liu Tan, it can only be done manually.

Basically, there are only three steps: heating, steaming, and puffing. It’s not that Liu Tan wants to skip the sterilization step, but he doesn’t have the conditions to do so.

Originally, Liu Tan was worried that the yellow rice flour would directly solidify into a lump after being heated and steamed, but he didn't expect that his worries were in vain.

These steps are easy to do, but the most difficult part is the extrusion process.

At what point does extrusion qualify as puffed flour? No one knows, not even Liu Tan himself. The fact that he even knows the concept of puffed flour puts him at the top of the class among male college students.

At first, Liu Tan used a stone trough similar to that used for making rice cakes, but he didn't expect that it had no effect other than squeezing out dust.

Liu Tan touched his chin and realized that if he really wanted to squeeze the rice noodles, he had to do it in a confined space, leaving them with nowhere to escape. Only in this way could they be squeezed into the shape he wanted.

Moreover, it seems that it is not easy to achieve the results he wants by relying solely on brute force.

So Liu Tan thought of a manual dough press in later generations. The structure of this dough press was very simple. It was a cavity with an extruder on it that could be spirally pushed.

The key point is on the spiral-propelled extruder. Liu Tan subconsciously wanted to ask Miao Rui to call all the craftsmen over and tell them that there was more work to do.

But when he came out of the kitchen, he remembered that he was at the border and he didn't bring his craftsmen with him this time, so... there was no one available.

Liu Tan stood at the door in melancholy for a long time, and finally had to run to Huo Guang to ask for a carpenter.

Forget about blacksmiths. The military has strict management of blacksmiths, and these people don’t have any skills. Their role is to repair damaged weapons.

Thanks to the great resilience of the trees in the Gobi Desert, Liu Tan finally chose wood, and then made a blueprint and asked the carpenter to make a spiral propulsion and extrusion tool according to his blueprint.

Not to mention, the carpenter tried his best to win Liu Tan's favor.

Finally, in order to be able to heat at high temperatures, a bronze barrel was used with a wooden threaded pusher.

But wood doesn't last long, and threads, in particular, wear out faster.

In addition, in order to create the effect of high-temperature extrusion, the bronze barrel was thrown directly onto the fire to bake, which also had a certain impact on the wood.

Liu Tan felt a little uneasy when he saw the extruder that had turned black, worn and cracked after squeezing only one cylinder of expanding powder.

If this continues, the cost will be too high and there will be no way to promote it!

When Huo Guang came over, he saw Liu Tan, covered in yellow rice flour, staring blankly at a piece of wood and a bronze barrel of unknown shape.

He twitched his lips and walked over and said, "Your Highness, the date for the expedition has been agreed upon."

Liu Tan stood up, dusted off the yellow rice flour on his body, and asked, "When?"

Huo Guang: "Three days later."

Liu Tan was shocked: "So fast?"

I think you want my compressed biscuit plan to fail!