Even in later generations, it is not easy to build a seaport, let alone the Ming Dynasty hundreds of years ago.

In order to do this matter beautifully, Ji Qingwen specially invited Song Yingxing and Tang Ruowang, two Chinese and Western scientists.

In particular, John Tang, who had supervised the construction of many churches and had some experience in architecture, had a preliminary construction plan in mind after exploring the fishing village of Songjiang Mansion.

But this missionary from Europe, who had been immersed in the Ming Dynasty for a long time, learned a little bit of the cunning unique to the Chinese, and after knowing the bottom of his heart, he came to Ji Qingwen, and talked about other things, first to discuss the conditions: to help supervise the construction of the harbor, yes, but to allow him to build a church on the edge of the harbor.

Ji Qingwen was begging for help, and he felt that after the new construction of the harbor was completed, many Westerners would inevitably arrive with the ship, and it was also necessary to build a church.

He then sent a letter to the imperial court, and after obtaining the approval of Emperor Chongzhen, who was quite enlightened in terms of religious beliefs, he enclosed a vacant lot for John Tong to build a church—but he also said that the construction of the church could not begin until the wharf was completed.

This condition was acceptable to John Tong, and he finally devoted himself to the construction of the wharf.

According to Tang Ruowang's suggestion, Ji Qingwen first spent more than 10,000 taels of silver to buy a tidal flat next to the fishing village, and then purchased countless yellow sand, rocks, wood, ropes and other things, and prepared shovels, shovels, hoes, hammers and other tools to fill the mud on the tidal flats with rocks and yellow sand to form a stable coastline.

He also sent people to take advantage of the hot weather and the sea water was not very cold, to go to the sea to lay solid wooden stakes as foundations, and desperately fill in yellow sand, rocks, reeds, straw bales and other things when the tide was falling.

These building materials, which are filled at low tide, will wash away four-fifths of them at high tide, leaving only about one-fifth at most. However, after repeated filling, the foundation gradually accumulated on the bottom of the sea.

With the foundation, the rest of the works have the foundation.

Therefore, under the command of Song Yingxing and Tang Ruowang, the Shaanxi rebels, who had become coolies, stepped up the construction period, and began to build wharf facilities while continuing to strengthen the foundation under the sea.

Unexpectedly, when the project was progressing to an average level, a typhoon suddenly came, which wiped out the seaport of considerable size.

At this time, Ji Qingwen even purchased land, purchased building materials, and paid wages, which had exceeded 100,000 taels of silver, but fortunately, Zheng Zhi Longyi was bold, and took advantage of the strong wind blowing when the typhoon passed, and the fast ship sent 300,000 taels of silver and countless knives and muskets, which solved Ji Qingwen's urgent need.

With silver, everything is easy to do.

Moreover, although the typhoon was violent, it could not destroy the foundation that had been built under the surface of the sea. With such a foundation, it was natural to rebuild the wharf with half the effort, and after half a month, a small but neat wharf was built.

Ji Qingwen saw that there was a lot of wood and stone leftover from the purchase, so he ordered people to build a cofferdam next to the wharf to surround the entire wharf, and sent recruited village warriors to guard the entrance and exit of the cofferdam, not only to prevent the small people from entering the wharf to make trouble, but also to prevent the pirates who were also merchants and criminals from entering the city without permission to cause trouble.

In this way, the pier in Songjiang Prefecture was finally built after three full months.

During this period, these chaotic people brought by Ji Qingwen from Shaanxi worked day and night, and it can be said that they have endured all the hardships, and they don't know how many times harder than farming in Shaanxi.

Fortunately, Ji Qingwen, the big foreman, not only gave him a sufficient and timely salary of five taels of silver every ten days, but also ordered people to make big fish and meat, eat and drink every day, and he was naturally very happy to work.

After three months of work, the anger of these rebels has been worn out a lot, and with the money obtained from serious work, they naturally forget to do evil.

So Ji Qingwen let them act as dock workers on the harbor to load and unload goods and repair equipment, and the control over them gradually relaxed.

Up to now, Ji Qingwen has mastered the fine tribute brocade produced by the Suzhou Weaving Yamen, the survey documents issued by the imperial court to Nanzhili, and the newly built seaport that can berth large sea ships, so he is more comfortable doing business.

In addition to selling the royal colored brocade produced by the weaving yamen, it also purchased porcelain from Jingdezhen, pottery from Yixing, rice paper from Huzhou, inkstone from Duanzhou and other special products, and transported them to the wharf to sell to maritime merchants.

At the same time, they also purchased spices, glass, table clocks, foreign liquor, and other goods shipped from overseas, and sold them to China.

In this way, Ji Qingwen's income from both ends of the water was around 200,000 taels of silver every month, which was an increase of 700,000 taels of silver compared to the annual income of 1.7 million taels of silver that he had calculated before the construction of the harbor.

But a few days after Ji Qingwen was proud, Emperor Chongzhen issued another decree to let Ji Qingwen double the annual tribute of silk and silver - from the original 800 horses of silk and 200,000 taels of silver to the annual tribute of 1,600 horses of silk and 400,000 taels of silver.

Ji Qingwen received the order, and he didn't have to guess, it must be the Jinyi guard sent by the emperor to command Li Yuanyin, who was beside him, and secretly reported the situation here to the imperial court.

However, this Li Yuanyin is quite sensible, only saying that Ji Qingwen has been rich recently, but he did not report his real income to the emperor, otherwise with Emperor Chongzhen's stingy and serious character, how could this 1,600 pieces of silk and 400,000 taels of silver be able to send it?

After having money, there will be more rights and wrongs.

And the first person to come to find Ji Qingwen trouble, it was none other than Zheng Zhilong, who he originally relied on very much.

It turned out that Zheng Zhilong had almost monopolized the sales of the colored brocade produced by the Suzhou Weaving Yamen, but after Ji Qingwen opened the seaport, his competitors at sea could naturally enter the port to trade, and as long as the price was right, Ji Qingwen would also sell these extremely sought-after brocades to them.

As a result, Zheng Zhilong lost his greatest advantage in competing with maritime merchants.

However, this is exactly what Ji Qingwen is happy to see.

Because he traveled from later generations, he knew that Zheng Zhilong was not a pure-hearted, loyal, filial piety, benevolent and righteous person, but a maritime merchant who had mastered the monopoly of trade in the East China Sea by various means. This monopoly will undoubtedly challenge Ji Qingwen's authority, and then establish a buyer's market in which maritime merchants determine the price of goods, and gradually take over the initiative of maritime trade currently dominated by Ji Qingwen.

Despite this, Ji Qingwen cannot completely abandon Zheng Zhilong now, and needs to use him to continue to strengthen capital accumulation and gradually build up his own maritime power.

Therefore, in the face of Zheng Zhilong, who still does not dare to completely tear his face, Ji Qingwen did not deliberately suppress it, but only said that Zheng Zhilong has a good relationship with him, which is not comparable to other maritime merchants.

In order to reflect the "not shallow" friendship in his mouth, he gave Zheng Zhilong three of the ten surveys he mastered every year for free, which can be regarded as a condition that can be talked about in the past.

As for these tribute colored brocades, as the most core competitiveness commodities in Ji Qingwen's hands, they still can't clearly promise that Zheng Zhilong will monopolize the operation, but continue to put them on the market with a clear price, and the one with the highest price will get it.

In this way, the operation of the entire terminal is on track, and it is three months later, and the early winter is approaching.

In the past three months, Ji Qingwen reined in the stubbornness he had cultivated after crossing to the Ming Dynasty, and took out the spirit of forcing programmers to work overtime before crossing without shouting bitterness or tiredness, and threw himself on the dock without leaving half a step, so that the little many children who came to Suzhou with Ji Qingwen instead of their father did not know Ji Qingwen, the "dog less" in Xi'an City.

However, people's endurance is limited, Ji Qingwen, who has worked for more than 100 days in a row, finally felt tired, so he temporarily handed over the affairs on the dock to Li Yan to manage, and returned to Suzhou City with Xiaoduozi.

Song Yingxing and Ge Sheng gave Ji Qingwen a feast to catch the wind and wash the dust, and it was finally eaten after more than three months.

After a meal of Haisai, Ji Qingwen led Xing'er and Xiaoduozi to live in the long-lost Suzhou Weaving Yamen.

The next day, Ji Qingwen got up early in the morning, and saw a neat stack of papers on the desk in his study, which recorded the production and expenditure of the weaving yamen in recent months.

Xiao Duozi had never seen Ji Qingwen so serious, so he was so frightened that he didn't dare to come forward to disturb for a while, and came over tremblingly to ask his master Ji Qingwen for a few taels of silver, and wanted to go to Suzhou City to play.

This is a trivial matter, Ji Qingwen didn't think about it, so he threw two silver tickets totaling twenty taels to Xiao Duozi, told him not to cause trouble, and then buried his head in reading the documents again.