The camera returns to the daytime, to the passage next to the Chinese medicine hospital warehouse.
It was still quite cold in Beijing in March, and because people were not well fed, everyone lacked sufficient energy, so pedestrians were all huddled in their cotton-padded jackets and hurried along.
Liu Shengli, the director of the Digital Hospital, was leading his men to the train station to receive a batch of supplies. When they passed by the warehouse of the Chinese Medicine Hospital, they suddenly saw Director Shen screaming excitedly.
Liu Shengli asked doubtfully:
"Hey, Lao Ma, look at that guy over there, is he Shen Guoming from the Chinese Medicine Hospital?"
Ma Weiping, the vice president of the Digital Hospital, pushed up the brim of his hat and took a closer look:
"Hey, it really is that old fellow! How did he end up at the train station? Let's go take a look."
Active-duty soldiers are very vigilant. Liu Shengli suddenly grabbed Ma Weiping and said softly:
"Don't go over there, let's retreat first."
Ma Weiping asked curiously as he walked:
"Old Liu, Old Shen is an old comrade of ours. Why didn't you even say hello? Why are you running away? Did you owe him money back in the army?"
"Bullshit, how could I owe him money? Didn't you see how excited Shen Guoming was just now? Use your brain to think about it, what could be the reason that could make Shen Guoming so excited?"
Facing Liu Shengli's guidance, Ma Weiping also became thoughtful:
"If the hospital had achieved some major success, or a breakthrough in medicine, he should have been sitting in the dean's office, excited. But he chose to be so excited in front of this warehouse at the train station. Clearly, this warehouse contains something he values most..."
"food!"
Liu Shengli and Ma Weiping suddenly guessed it in unison.
"Don't tell me, it really could be food. I heard that starting next month, the food department will no longer sell food to major units, leaving the employees of each unit to solve their own food problems at work. The canteen at the Chinese Medicine Hospital should also be out of food, right?"
"Yes, I've heard about this too, so Shen Guoming should be frowning now. How could he be excited? Look at his expression just now. He was about to jump for joy. This old guy must have gotten some food."
When Liu Shengli said this, he looked at Ma Weiping, and they both said in unison again:
"Get him!"
Liu Shengli also became excited at this time:
"I'm not leaving today. I'm keeping an eye on the Chinese Medicine Hospital warehouse. If there really is food, they wouldn't dare store it at the train station. They'd definitely find a way to transport it away. They wouldn't dare to do that during the day because there are so many people around. The best opportunity to transport it is at night when it's dark."
Ma Weiping also rubbed his hands: "Hehe, if there is no food, it's our bad luck, and if there is food, it's Shen Guoming's bad luck!"
The two of them chatted and laughed as they walked towards the exclusive warehouse of their own unit.
On the other side, Dean Shen had no idea that he had been targeted by someone. The world is so strange. Dean Shen was afraid that others would leak the secrets, but in the end he himself became the breakthrough point for the leak.
As the largest freight station in the city, Fengtai Railway Station has built a large number of warehouse areas, which are rented by major units in the capital to facilitate the storage and transportation of materials.
The digital hospital’s warehouse is right next to the Chinese medicine hospital.
When Liu Shengli and Ma Weiping brought their men to their own warehouse, several young men in military uniforms quickly guarded the surroundings, appearing very cautious.
There were also several soldiers in uniform waiting in the warehouse early. When Liu Shengli and Ma Weiping walked into the warehouse, they stood up and saluted.
"Hello, Chief!"
Liu Shengli returned the greeting and then asked anxiously, "How is it? How much food did the superiors allocate to us this time?"
"Report, we received a total of 20 tons of food this time, including sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, sorghum rice, and millet flour. Oh, the superiors also allocated 1 ton of soybeans specifically for our hospital."
Because of hunger, malnutrition diseases such as edema are particularly common.
In the absence of high-quality animal protein, soybeans became the only food for the human body to obtain protein. So for a time, soybeans became a scarce nutritional product and strategic material and were no longer available on the market.
Patients with edema can buy a small amount of soybean supplements with a doctor's prescription.
However, ordinary people have no way to make tofu from soybeans, so they have to fry them and eat them. As a result, very little plant protein is absorbed, and it only serves to fill the stomach.
Liu Shengli frowned when he heard this: "Only 20 tons, and that's coarse grain? How can that be enough? Just enough to fill the gaps between our teeth?"
The Digital Hospital is different from the Capital Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The Capital Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine does not have an inpatient department, and the food supply only needs to take into account the employees.
As a special hospital, the digital hospital provides both traditional Chinese and Western medicine (mainly Western medicine), and has an inpatient department with quite a few inpatients.
The key point is that most of the inpatients here are in military uniforms, so the hospital needs to do its best to ensure three meals a day for the inpatients. It would rather the staff have nothing to eat than let the patients go hungry.
The consequence is that digital hospitals are like money-eating beasts that need a lot of food.
However, there is one thing that digital hospitals are better than traditional Chinese medicine hospitals. Traditional Chinese medicine hospitals belong to the private system and have to solve their own food problems. If the hospital has no way, let the employees find a solution themselves.
Because of the special nature of the digital hospital, food is allocated by higher authorities, which is the biggest benefit in normal times.
But if the skin is gone, where will the hair be attached? Now the whole country has food supply problems, and the entire army is also not immune. Therefore, the food allocated by the superiors is getting less and less every year.
Ma Weiping checked the quality of the grain and came back shaking his head:
"Old Liu, this won't work. This batch of food is all coarse grains. Coarse grains can't satisfy hunger. I'm afraid it won't last for a few days."
Liu Shengli was also troubled, but his military principles remained:
"Forget it, let's move all the food to the inpatient department cafeteria and prioritize the patients' food. As for the staff, they'll have to endure hardships. Let's close the staff cafeteria..."
Ma Weiping thought for a moment and suggested:
"How about we try food substitutes like chlorella, wheat straw buns, artificial meat, and leaf protein?"
The production process of chlorella is quite complicated. First, mix the algae seeds with urine, put it in a water tank or pool and expose it to the sun. After it is exposed to a certain degree, the algae is filtered out of the urine and disinfected, and then it can be eaten.
There are many ways to eat this thing. Some are to make nests with coarse grains, some are to make it directly into porridge, and some are even to use it as bun filling.
In some places, Chlorella is used to try to make cakes, bread, candies, dishes, algae porridge, algae sauce and other foods, which taste naturally fragrant and delicious.
Some places use chlorella powder to feed babies, and the effect is comparable to that of milk powder.
Ahem, that’s what it said in the newspaper.
Wheat straw buns are easy to understand. They refer to starch made from wheat straw, rapeseed straw, rice husks, bean stalks, bean shells, corn roots, corn stalks, corn husks, corn cobs, and sorghum stalks.
Guangqi Hechi once conducted an experiment, which found that one hundred kilograms of wheat straw could be made into sixty to seventy kilograms of wet starch. This starch, mixed with some flour and rice flour, could be made into steamed buns, flower rolls, pancakes and noodles, with the same quality as those made from flour.
As for how 100 kilograms of wheat straw can produce 60 to 70 kilograms of wet starch? I don't understand. Anyway, that's what the newspaper said.
Among various crops, corn plays a particularly prominent role in making substitute foods. Not only is the corn husk removed from the corn kernels an excellent substitute food, but the corn leaves, stalks, roots, and even the outer husk of the corn cob and the core can also be used to make substitute foods.
(Lin Musen and Lin Sanqi, father and son, were quite ignorant. They thought that corn cobs ground into grain would be struck by lightning, but they had no idea that even the stalks and leaves could be used.)
In addition, the south is better than the north or the Central Plains. You can eat the stems and leaves of sweet potatoes, the tubers of cassava, and the roots of taro as substitutes.
For example, sweet potato leaves can be picked, washed and dried, and then used as a vegetable or mixed with rice; the tips and petioles of the sweet potato leaves can be blanched in boiling water, salted and marinated for a day, and then they can be made into dried vegetables.
People in the south grow cassava, which is "low-labor and low-cost", and use its tubers and leaves to make food. They believe that cassava contains a lot of starch and sugar and tastes sweet.
It can be eaten alone or mixed with rice, and can also be used to make delicious steamed buns, dumplings, snacks, jelly, etc.
Anyway, in order to get a bite to eat, all kinds of tricks were used.
This is also the reason why Dean Shen attaches great importance to Lin Sanqi. When such a skilled food producer appears in a famine year, he will be treated like a treasure no matter which unit he is in.
When Liu Shengli heard that the hospital was asked to make substitute food, he also sighed:
"Old Ma, you're a doctor too. You wouldn't really believe what the newspapers say about these food substitutes being nutritious and delicious, would you? These food substitutes might cause more trouble than you can handle. The simplest one is that you won't even be able to poop, and you could end up suffocating to death. Do you believe it?"
At this time, a young man in military uniform came over and saluted and said:
"Commander, we've been defending the warehouse the entire time and haven't even had breakfast or lunch. Can we get some sweet potatoes to fill our stomachs?"
Liu Shengli refused without thinking:
"No, these sweet potatoes are for the patients. If we eat one more, the patients will have one less. Maybe it was this one less bite that caused the patient to die. Every grain of food is precious now. I know everyone's difficulties, but please overcome them."
The young soldiers in uniform had no complaints. They saluted and retreated. Then, several young men looked at the tons of food in front of them and swallowed their saliva.
In fact, Liu Shengli's heart was bleeding when he refused. Thinking of this, he became determined to cheat others.
"You guys, hurry up and find some ladders. I'm going to be a bandit today. Focus on observing the Chinese medicine hospital's warehouse across the street."
The warehouse was built with its windows all at the top, about two or three stories above the ground, and one had to climb a ladder to see outside.
The Chinese medicine hospital didn't know that its warehouse was being targeted, so that night, 10 large trucks drove over and prepared to transport the food away overnight.
Liu Shengli waited for a long time and finally saw the Chinese Medicine Hospital take action, so he was excited all of a sudden:
"Everyone, pay attention! The target has appeared. Shen Guoming, that damned landlord, really has hidden so much food. Everyone, get ready and grab it!!!" (End of this chapter)
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