Earning money and food through trade is not just beginning. After opening up the sea mouth and occupying the seaside land, the most convenient and fast way to dry salt is in addition to fishing.

In particular, after the occupation of Haizhou (now Lianyungang area), four major salt farms were built one after another. Not only was the domestic salt used in the base area guaranteed, but it was also sold to Liu Erzu, Peng Yibin and other rebels, providing a large amount of military expenses for the Red Turban Army.

However, although money is important, in order to tide over the difficult period of grain shortage, it is still necessary to purchase grain from the south, and attracting grain merchants is the most important thing.

In the long run, the goods of the North-South trade were not limited to grain. Strategic materials such as cotton and iron, as well as daily necessities such as brocade, silk, and tea, can not only enhance the strength of the army, but also increase a lot of wealth for Meng Jiucheng through commerce and trade.

The war is chaotic, and the mutual market between the north and the south has been interrupted for a long time. Handmade products and overseas incense and other southern goods can be sold for several times the price in the north; The northern goods include leather goods, medicinal materials, pearls and jade, etc., which can be transported to the south and can also make several times of profit.

In other words, Meng Jiucheng not only had to attract southern merchants, but also won over northern merchants to enhance the liquidity of commodities. While increasing commercial tax revenue, it also injects vitality into the commercial activities of the base areas.

Therefore, Meng Jiucheng extended a warm invitation to the Nanshang in Lanshan, and also invited the big businessmen in the base area to gather in Qingdao to solicit opinions from all parties for the establishment of a commercial port.

Although from the strategic point of view, Qingdao is a newly occupied land, and the depth is not large. But the reputation and superior environment are incomparable to Rizhao and Haizhou. Because Banqiao Town, as a city shipping company, not only the Song merchants knew, but even the merchants of the Wa Kingdom and Goryeo also knew.

Meng Jiucheng strives for the long term, but he doesn't just focus on Song Shang. If Qingdao is well built and the policies are appropriate, it will once again become a transit port for merchant ships from the Song, Wa, and Goryeo countries, thereby prospering commerce and increasing income.

After the invitation was issued to all parties, Meng Jiucheng rushed to Jiaozhou Bay and began to arrange defense facilities to make up for Qingdao's lack of foreign strategic depth.

As a coastal hill, there are many mountains in Qingdao, and there are also floating mountains, Taiping Mountain, Qingdao Mountain, Beiling Mountain, Jiading Mountain, Signal Mountain, Fulong Mountain, and Shuishui Mountain. Therefore, Meng Jiucheng felt that building forts and digging trenches to form a solid defense system in the Qingdao area was a very practical consideration.

Moreover, there is no need for reinforced concrete, fortress heavy artillery, and the construction of fortifications is not too time-consuming and labor-intensive. And with flying thunder cannons, pine cannons, and stone throwers, and condescending defense of danger, the combat power of the Red Turban Army is very strong.

Inspecting and arranging, Meng Jiucheng led a group of officers to complete the planning of the defense system in a few days. Although it was still a little sloppy, construction had already begun, and the garrison of the fourth battalion was also ordered to move to Qingdao.

Qingdao was a small place at that time, and it didn't even have an official name. But Meng Jiucheng immediately transferred 4,000 men and horses to garrison, and mobilized thousands of people to dig trenches and build a city, obviously to build a city here.

A gambler who has lost all his money dares to bet on his hands, feet, and life. But when there is no need to fight to the death, few people will want to take risks, and most of them will adopt a strategy of winning while maintaining stability.

Meng Jiucheng is like this, this is no longer the time when he has just started an incident, he needs to go into battle shirtless and survive in the Jedi. The whole strategy has been rolled out, and he needs more time to stabilize and develop.

Don't focus on the gains and losses of one city and one place, this is just a helpless choice in a specific situation. If they can hold it, or have the hope of holding it, who will give up the territory they occupy?

Sitting in Qingdao in person, Meng Jiucheng's work is not too heavy, and he has his own people, soldiers, and prisoners who have just been caught.

And a few days later, the people he invited had not yet arrived, and the workshop that had received the order, escorted by cavalry, had sent the first batch of mirrors. Meng Jiucheng was ecstatic, because he knew that a huge cornucopia had been held in his arms.

The earliest mirror-making process was the application of tin foil to transparent glass and the reaction of mercury and tin to form a tin-mercury compound on the glass.

Venice did not hesitate to use murder and concentration camp-style management to keep this craft secret, and the French spared no expense to buy off the mirror craftsmen. And this is still hundreds of years later, and the workshop under the guidance of Meng Jiucheng started from the manufacture of transparent glass to the production of mirrors, which was hundreds of years ahead at once.

Hundreds of years, what does it mean, it means huge profits, it means huge wealth.

When Meng Jiucheng admired the first batch of mirrors, there was a dazzling yellow and white light shaking in front of him. Although the production of transparent glass is very low, the defective rate is very high, and it is not as transparent as later generations; Although it is quite time-consuming to make a mercury mirror, it takes more than a full month for the chemical reaction to complete.

But scarcity is expensive. You know, even hundreds of years later, when Queen Marie of France got married, the king of Venice only gave a small glass mirror as a gift. It was a very precious gift at the time, worth 150,000 francs!

"Frame the mirrors beautifully, and then make a batch of delicate, beautiful and elegant boxes." Meng Jiucheng pressed his ecstasy, and explained to the few craftsmen who followed, and did the final packaging for this batch of mirrors.

There was no way, and the transparent glass was made in different sizes, so it had to be processed according to the final shape. And decorating with a frame, plus a beautiful packaging, will undoubtedly bring out the preciousness of the mirror. The idiom of buying and returning pearls illustrates the importance of packaging.

Although it is still not as bright as a silver-plated mirror, it is much stronger than a copper mirror. Meng Jiucheng picked three or four relatively large and better mirrors as advertising products to make an impact. Of course, it was not used to please women, but it was prepared for Song merchants who came to Qingdao.

Historically, until modern times, China could not even make a piece of transparent flat glass, only opaque glass.

But how to explain the fact that China in the feudal era also created countless splendid cultures? Is it to blame for the feudal system? It doesn't seem to be the case. When Meng Jiucheng returned to his residence with the mirror, he couldn't help but have such a question.

It is true that China's science and technology are advanced, but to be precise, China's practical technology is advanced, and science, especially basic science, is underdeveloped. The reason may be that China's scientific and technological development is driven by the government, and the research and development of science and technology is a government action.

Clearly, the government is interested in practical technologies that can solve real problems and create economic benefits, but not in the science that explores nature. Because the latter investment is huge, it will not yield much results in a short period of time.

Just like now, the products made in the workshop are used for emergency purposes, in order to cope with the war and to increase military and financial strength. Although Meng Jiucheng built a laboratory that was still rudimentary, he invested some money and manpower to engage in inventions and creations that were slow to produce results.