Why was Changyu founded in Yantai?
As early as 1871, when Zhang Bishi visited Consulate of Francein Jakarta, Indonesia, a French consulate treated him with French wine. A delicious taste spread over the mouth as soon as Changbishi drunk the wine. As introduced by the French consulate, the soil, climate and temperature in northern China such as Tianjin and Yantai are very suitable for planting grape and brewing wine.The speaker hadno particular intention in sayingthis thing,but the listener read his own meaning into it.In 1891, Sheng Xuanhuai, an officialof rectifying armed forceinShandong Denglai (the present Penglai) as well as a supervisor of the East Customs, invited Zhang Bishi to Yantai for railway development bytelegram. During the spare time, Zhang Bishi took this opportunity and surveyed the grape planting situation as well as the hydrological condition of soil in Yantai,confirmingthe fact that Yantai was really a naturalparadisefor the growing of grapes.In 1892, underthe strong support of Sheng Xuanhuai, Zhang Bishi invested 3 million taels of silver to purchase two mountains in the eastern and southwestern part of Yantai and employed 2,000 workers to open up a vineyard covering an area of nearly1200mu with 250,000 grapevines purchased from Europe; in addition, he alsopurchaseda coastal ground covering an area of 61 mu on the east of“Yantai Hill”, on which a two-floor office building was established. Along the riverway on the west of the building, a road named“Changyu Road”was built. By then, the first modern industrial winemaking company was borninitiallyin China.