In other words, we didn't have glass mirrors in China, so we used bronze mirrors. By the Ming Dynasty, glass mirrors were no longer rare in foreign countries, but they were still very new in China.

On this day, a British merchant ship docked at Quanzhou Port, and the crew all ran to the city to spend time and drink. One of the crew members ran out of money and leaned against the wall in the street to bask in the sun. He took out a small mirror the size of a palm and reflected the light into the eyes of the pedestrians.

At that time, there was a salt merchant walking down the street, and the sunlight reflected from the glass mirror made his eyes very uncomfortable. He was very angry, and when he came closer to look, he found that it was a foreigner, and the anger in his stomach disappeared more than half. When he saw the crew playing with a little treasure in his hand, the fire was completely gone. He asked the crew to pass the treasure, took it in his hand, and looked in the mirror. He was startled: he saw that there was a goblin who looked a lot like him in the baby with wide eyes and looked at him curiously, so scared that he subconsciously threw the baby away. The baby happened to fall on a stone, and with a "snap" it broke into five petals.

The crew member was so poor that only this small glass mirror was left. Now that the mirror was broken, he was anxious and angry. He squatted down and picked up the small mirror pieces one by one, and then stuck it to the salt merchant, asking the salt merchant to pay.

When the merchant asked, he realized that the thing was a mirror, which had the same function as our Chinese bronze mirrors, but was a hundred times clearer than bronze mirrors. So he took the mirror fragment from the crew, bit it with his teeth, licked it with his tongue, smelled it with his nose, and reflected the sun's rays like a child today. He found that each fragment could reflect his own scenery and characters in the outside world, so the merchant happily led the crew back home. The merchant asked the butler to call all four of his wives and gave each wife a fragment of a glass mirror. Those wives had never seen this thing before, and they were so happy that they didn't know how to do it. They winked at the mirror fragment one by one, not to mention how rare it was. The salt merchant had a lot of money, and seeing that his four wives were happy, he was a little carried away. He used the remaining mirror shard to reflect on his happy and excited face, and with a wave of his big hand, the housekeeper understood what his master meant, so he generously paid the crew a lot of gold and silver treasures, and let the crew go with a large package "pocket".

The sailor unexpectedly got a lot of gold and silver treasures, almost beautiful, carrying the big package, humming a little song back to the ship, shaking open the package, showing off to the other sailors. The captain asked what was going on, and he thought, "This guy traded a broken glass mirror for so many gold and silver treasures." If I use some strange mechanical gadgets, I can definitely exchange more good things. He made up his mind and went to sleep peacefully.

The next morning, the captain collected a few things, wrapped them in cloth, carried them on his back, and came to the salt merchant. He opened the package and showed the things inside to the salt merchant: a telescope, a pocket watch, and a globe. After showing them, the captain taught the salt merchant how to use the telescope and the watch, then told the salt merchant what the globe was, and finally said that these things were for the salt merchant. The salt merchant was so happy to see that the captain had given him so many good things. He danced with joy and told the butler to give his most precious things back to the captain as gifts. The butler agreed and went to prepare the gifts.

After a while, the butler respectfully held a small red box with both hands and walked out from the inside and handed it solemnly to the captain. When the captain saw the small box, he thought it must be something very, very valuable. With trembling hands, he took the small box, bowed to the salt merchant, and left contentedly.

The captain returned to the ship, and with great excitement, he opened the red box, which contained a small orange box. He opened the orange box, which contained a small yellow box. He opened the yellow box, which contained a green cloth bag.

Inside was a fragment of a glass mirror.