Wenren Sheng watched the great battle in the north while stepping up his own work.
He needed more silver, more territory, and more manpower.
The office of Military Preparation Circuit was enough.
When the Zheng Family dominated the Eastern Ocean, they had begun as nothing more than a lieutenant general.
The position of lieutenant general carried far less weight in the south than that of Military Preparation Circuit.
Wenren Sheng continued expanding his sources of supply and sales customers.
At the same time, he vigorously established all sorts of workshops and took in refugees.
In short, all these matters required people, so he simply recruited people with all his might.
As long as he kept a close eye on grain, ensuring there was enough for everyone within the system to eat and maintaining a two-year reserve, that would be enough.
The best thing to exchange for his goods was not silver, but rice and other foods that could be stored for long periods.
The Red-Haired People were both delighted and depressed by this.
They were delighted that they no longer had to spend sparkling silver to buy Great Ming goods, but depressed because grain was not a high-value commodity suitable for sea transport and was usually used as ballast.
Fortunately, the Red-Haired People, who had started out in trade, were extremely adaptable. Since they could not win by force, they chose commercial means instead: to reduce costs, they could not transport grain from afar. Since they could not buy land along the coast, they went to plant rice, sweet potatoes, corn, and more on the Eastern Ocean islands they had already conquered...
This included Annam, Da Yuan Island, the area around Batavia...
After harvesting the starch, they processed it into all kinds of long-lasting foods, such as extremely dry brick