bookcurios Chapter 828 Why would a monkey eat such good candy! A little flavor is enough.
Chapter 828 Why would a monkey eat such good candy! A little flavor is enough.
At the entrance of the Northeast Pharmaceutical Factory, the sun was setting.
Cheng Gui, a young girl with dark circles under her eyes, stood at the factory gate, tiptoeing and gazing longingly. In her mind, she imagined the "experts" mentioned by the "big shots" on the forum—what a dignified, composed, and experienced master craftsmen they must be.
Just then, the sound of hooves and creaking wheels came from the end of the dirt road. A mule cart swayed and wobbled closer, with three people sitting on the cart, one of whom, a younger man, was particularly noticeable.
Wearing faded work clothes, with a tuft of hair sticking up stubbornly as the mule cart jolted along, he was looking around at the birch forest by the roadside, with a hint of...leisure on his face.
The mule cart stopped at the factory gate. The young man jumped off the cart nimbly, dusted himself off, and when he saw Cheng Gui standing at the gate, he gave her a bright smile, revealing a set of white teeth: "Comrade, is this the Northeast Pharmaceutical Factory? I'm looking for Technician Cheng Gui."
Looking at the face that looked even younger than her own, especially that distinctive tuft of hair, the little girl Cheng Gui's expectations were shattered in an instant.
She stood there stunned for a long time before murmuring incredulously, her voice trembling with tears, "Waaah...the higher-ups finally sent someone to help? But...but why send someone so small..."
Upon hearing this, Jiang Xia's smile froze for a moment. "Hey, comrade, what you're saying... My youthful appearance is just a natural advantage given to me by my mother! You can't judge a book by its cover! My name is Jiang Xia, and I've been sent by higher-ups to assist you in solving the drying process problem."
After checking his work ID, Cheng Gui, the young woman, led Jiang Xia towards the workshop with some skepticism, her heart pounding: Could such a young man really handle this? Had the teachers on the forum made a mistake?
Following closely behind Jiang Xia were Company Commander Tang and the dejected Old Wang, who had been disciplined.
Upon arriving at the workshop, Jiang Xia didn't rush to offer his profound insights. Instead, he first had Cheng Gui show him the "traditional drying oven," then carefully examined the clumped dry syrup sample, and even flipped through Cheng Gui's densely filled notebook and production records.
"Hmm... poor hot air circulation and uneven temperature caused some parts to overheat and char, and some parts to not dry completely..." Jiang Xia muttered as he looked at it, tapping his finger on the rough metal shell of the drying box. "I understand the principle now. The ideas of 'guide plate' and 'air duct' mentioned by those experts on the forum are correct, but the terms are too 'academic' and they didn't tell you how to do it specifically."
Cheng Gui wanted to retort on the spot: "The expert did draw a sketch, but there are some parts I can't understand..."
Thinking about the grueling process of memorizing the regulations, he immediately shrank back and swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue.
Yeah! I can bear this pain alone, but I don't want to drag this young comrade into it...
Hey, Comrade Cheng Gui is such a kind-hearted person. No wonder he can use traditional Chinese medicine to benefit future generations. He's really different from some of those flashy girls who dig a hole and then run away.
Jiang Xia turned around and grinned at the young girl from Cheng Gui who was staring at him expectantly, and the factory manager who had rushed over after hearing the news: "No problem, easy to solve!"
He picked up a piece of chalk from the ground and started drawing on the relatively clean cement floor next to the drying box: "We don't need to do such complicated calculations. Look, the hot air goes in from this side, straight in and out, so it will definitely blow on some places and not others. Let's add a few baffles inside to make the air 'take a detour' and force it to go through every corner!"
His sketch was far more intuitive than the formulas on the forum: a few simple sheet metal plates, installed diagonally on the inner wall of the box, forming a meandering "air duct".
"This deflector can be made by a fitter in the factory using thin sheet metal. The shape is roughly like this... As for fixing it, just weld a few angle iron brackets and screw them on with screws. It makes it easy to adjust the angle."
“Also,” Jiang Xia pointed to the air inlet of the drying chamber, “we can add a simple fan here. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy, just something that can blow air and make sure there’s enough air pressure to blow in. As for the power… I think that old, unused motor in the corner of the workshop can be used. We can modify it to have a belt drive…”
Jiang Xia spoke and gestured, using extremely colloquial language, even a bit "rustic," but every step hit the nail on the head. The solutions were simple, low-cost, and could be implemented immediately.
He not only drew a sketch, but also thought of what materials to use, how to make it, and even what ready-made waste materials in the factory could be used.
At first, Cheng Gui and Factory Director Wang were skeptical, but gradually they listened intently, their eyes growing brighter. Cheng Gui, in particular, found that every suggestion Jiang Xia made fell precisely within her comprehension and execution capabilities. The theoretical problems that had troubled her for so long were transformed into concrete, actionable steps in his hands.
“Comrade Jiang… Comrade Jiang Xia,” the young girl from Cheng Gui said excitedly, “Now that you say so, I understand! I’ll go do it right away!”
The factory manager slapped his thigh excitedly: "Good lad! You've got a knack for this! I'll arrange for someone to work with you right away! Whatever materials you need, the factory will provide full support!"
Jiang Xia dusted off his hands, his tuft of hair smugly waving: "Don't worry, this is just a small modification. It can be done in two or three days if you're quick. Then we'll adjust the temperature and airflow to make sure you produce qualified dry syrup!"
Seeing Jiang Xia's confident demeanor, Cheng Gui finally believed that the people recommended by those "big shots" on the forum were indeed extraordinary.
This young man, who arrived in a mule cart and sported a tuft of hair, was truly knowledgeable! A seemingly thorny technical problem instantly became clear and feasible under his guidance.
Is it really that simple...?
That's definitely not the case...
Look, Old Liu from the production department has come out again with a worried look on his face, holding that thick production record book in his hands.
"Factory manager... there's something else," Old Liu said, rubbing his hands together with a troubled look. "Our... our sugar reserves are almost empty. According to Comrade Cheng Gui's formula, sugar is the main ingredient in this dry syrup, and the amount used is quite large..."
Upon hearing this, Jiang Xia looked at Zhang Chenggui with some curiosity: "Comrade Chenggui, what is the main role of sugarcane here?"
Zhang Chenggui closed his notebook and explained earnestly, "Comrade Jiang Xia, you're a mechanical engineer, so you might not know this. This isatis root has a rather bitter taste, and mumps is a disease that children are more prone to."
To make medicine more palatable for children, we chose to use sweet-tasting sucrose as a flavoring agent and molding compound when designing the dosage form, making it into a dry syrup that tastes much better when dissolved in water.
After saying that, the young girl from Cheng Gui also looked worried, "Hey, the previous batch of 32 tons of sugar, it's all used up so quickly..."
"How much? 32 tons? That's a lot!" Jiang Xia grinned.
"Yes! At the end of last year, the higher-ups allocated a quarter's worth of the sugar factory's output to us for making this medicine..."
Hiss... It seems that the higher-ups valued this traditional Chinese medicine preparation from the very beginning, otherwise they wouldn't have allocated so much sugar. It wasn't because of foreign buyers that they made such a fuss.
Because sugar is a real commodity in short supply for us nowadays. No, it should be said that sugar has always been a commodity in short supply on the international market, with a price of $130 per ton, making it unaffordable for even a naive country like China.
It doesn't seem like much, right? You could probably buy it if you gritted your teeth, but the problem is, you can't buy it! Even if you could, we don't have ships to bring it back...
With no way to purchase from outside suppliers, they had no choice but to rely on their own efforts.
However, due to well-known reasons, the main sugarcane producing areas in the south are limited, and sugar beets in the northeast are far from being grown in large areas.
Therefore, the domestic sugar supply has always been very tight. Although beet sugar factories were built vigorously in Northeast China and other regions during the First Five-Year Plan, the national per capita annual sugar consumption was only about 0.1 kilograms...
Even so, in order to promote the effective medicine Banlangen syrup, Motherland allocated a considerable amount of funds to the Northeast Pharmaceutical Factory from its extremely tight sugar quota. This undoubtedly reflects a mother's deep love for her children, hoping that her own offspring can have access to effective medicine.
A mother's love for her child is never earth-shattering, but rather a constant, gentle stream...
"Oh, Motherland really loves her children so much..." Jiang Xia felt a warm glow in his heart.
But... it's only natural for a mother to love her child, but this medicine is mainly going to be sold to... especially those who use it (Jiang Xia pictured a lively monkey in a tropical rainforest)...
Thinking of this, Jiang Xia revealed that familiar, slightly sly grin: "Hehehe..."