Fall In Love with the Technology Tree - Chapter 162

    Dear visitors, welcome to the National Porcelain Museum. Since the advent of the first real porcelain in the late Han Dynasty, my country’s ceramic culture has gone through a glorious and splendid two thousand years.

    In the past two thousand years, countless treasures have been born. Some cannot be replicated even in today’s technologically advanced world, while others contain cultural values ​​that are thousands of times more than their own value and can be called national treasures.

    In the National Porcelain Museum, there are more than 280 pieces of national treasures preserved. In terms of porcelain cultural relics, it is not inferior even to the Palace Museum.

    Now, please follow my footsteps and start a rich visual journey.

    …

    Next, we will go to the central exhibition hall on the third floor to visit the treasure of the town hall. Yes, this gentleman was right just now, it is the famous kiln alexandrite, or Cao Ziyao alexandrite.

    As we all know, although some primitive celadon appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was Cao Sheng who really pushed the ceramic technology to maturity, scale and art.

    As early as when Cao Sheng was a teenager, he clearly pointed out the important role of “furnace temperature” in iron smelting, porcelain firing and sand melting. As a wealthy and powerful third generation, Cao Sheng recruited a group of craftsmen to make refractory bricks and high-temperature furnaces for him, including the artisan Ai, known as the “father of porcelain”.

    Soon, the celadon of the Cao family will be sold at home and abroad, accumulating huge wealth for the future expansion of the Cao brothers. By the time the historically famous twins reached adulthood, the Cao family would have white porcelain and glass of consistent quality.

    But Cao Sheng is still not satisfied. In 174 AD, he led a fleet south to Jiaozhou to experiment with colored glazes and kiln changes in the largest parrot kiln at that time. It is said that Cao Sheng experimented with more than 500 pottery clays in Jiaozhou, and fired more than 29,000 pieces of round porcelain stones the size of a palm. In the end, only three pieces were kept, the real one in ten thousand—

    These are the three “Cao Ziyao Changes” we see now.

    Luminous sun, double petals, and galaxy, even two thousand years later, their beauty is still a miracle that cannot be replicated.

    Yellow glaze and red glaze are vivid and warm, which are rare even in parrot kilns, which are famous for producing colorful glazes. What is even more rare is that it has a symmetrical concentric configuration on both sides, which is like the darling of God in the kiln changes produced by God’s will.

    It is said that when the sun stone was released, the golden light was dazzling, and it suddenly eclipsed other alexandrites in the same furnace. Crimson, orange-red, orange-yellow, and golden-yellow add radiance and radiance to each other, making this porcelain look like a real sun. It is a pity that Cao Sheng thought that its color was too flamboyant, so he did not wear it, nor gave it to Cao Cao to wear it.

    The sun stone has been left in the parrot kiln, and it has been worshipped by craftsmen from generation to generation as the treasure of the town kiln. It was not until after the modern society and the maturity and stability of the museum industry that the obsidian stone was donated for tourists to visit.

    The yellow and red small colored porcelain produced by Ying kiln later became its own style, and most of them were the tributes to the sunday by the craftsmen of the past dynasties. Among them, the Shuangcai kiln at the end of the Wei Dynasty turned into a hundred flowers mini-vase is the most outstanding, which is also a A national treasure. The lesser ones are the red-hoofed eight-steed pot-bellied lamp, the fire-burned gourd vine, etc., which have also sold for tens of millions of dollars at auctions in the past two years.

    Next, let’s talk about the “double petal” of this pink and white kiln alexandrite on the left hand side of Lunar Sun. Along the way, you should have discovered that the ancient powder glaze is rare, and the powder glaze produced by the kiln is even rarer. Like the “double-petaled stone”, the shade gradient is gradual, the texture is clear, and the powder glaze that stretches layer by layer like a petal is even more rare. It is impossible to ask for it. To describe it as once in a thousand years is to underestimate it.

    Porcelain kilns all over the world using copper ore as glaze have worked hard for more than 1,500 years, but no second pink glaze with petal pattern has been produced. Before the double-petal stone was unearthed, there was a suspicion that this kiln alexandrite was exaggerated by historical data or purely fictional. It was not until Emperor Huan of the Yan Dynasty devoted the whole country to the research and development of powder glaze, which cost countless amounts of money, and obtained a 220-petal powder-glazed kiln-turned long-necked bottle in the official kiln at that time, eliminating domestic concerns about the authenticity of double-petal stone. Most questioned.

    Double petals, this pink Caozi kiln with 361 petals was first preserved in the Caoshiwu Fort on Chenxiang Island. In 189 AD, Cao Ying, the eldest daughter of Cao Yu and Princess Liuhuo, was born in Jiaozhou. The double-petal kiln alexandrite was given to this new member of the Cao family as a gift.

    Cao Ying loved this kiln alexandrite very much, and made it into necklaces, pendants, and headgear. There are three holes of different sizes on the “double petal”, which were left at that time. After Cao Ying’s death, the “double petal” was buried in the Liuhuo Tomb as a burial, and the sun was not seen for more than 1,900 years.

    More than 80 years ago, Zhanjiang City built Metro Line 2, and an ancient tomb of the early Wei Dynasty was dug. After it was confirmed to be a Liuhuo tomb, the central government directly instructed Zhanjiang subway to stop construction, and the director of the General Administration of Cultural Heritage took a helicopter to Zhanjiang to direct the rescue excavation. Fortunately, the “double stone” was placed in a thick coffin, and it was not damaged by the subway project like other funeral objects.

    Finally, the most legendary “galaxy stone” we experienced.

    If it is said that Lunar Day is the most symbolic, and the double petal is the most difficult to craft, then Galaxy has the highest cultural value.

    Its dark blue glaze is the hallmark of Ying Kiln. The fine sand on the bottom of the tire reflects a little shimmer under the light, which is as deep and charming as the starry sky. A touch of purplish-red kiln changes just fit into it, forming a nebula-like vortex. The harmony and perfection of the imagery made “Xinghe Stone” stand out from the blue kilns and won Cao Sheng’s blue eyes.

    This is the only alexandrite in the “Three Changes” that has been worn by Cao Sheng. From Jiaozhou to Liaodong, from Liaodong to the Central Plains, “Xinghe” has witnessed the collapse of the Han Dynasty and the magnificent entrepreneurship of Cao’s.

    About 190 AD, the “Star River Stone” was donated to Cao Cao’s third son, Cao Pi. Here we have to mention that Cao Zi was a prodigal. Our national treasures today, in his eyes at the time, were nothing more than gadgets that he burned himself and gave to nephews and nieces.

    Cao Pi probably didn’t know the value of the “star river stone”, so that’s the story of “exchanging stones for acne”.

    We all know that Liu Xie, the last emperor of the Han Dynasty, died of smallpox infection. Since Liu Xie’s death, Cao Sheng has devoted himself to finding a cure for smallpox. He discovered the method of vaccination from ancient books, and identified this way with his rich medical experience, but he suffered repeated setbacks on the road of searching for cowpox.

    Later, Cao Pi, a young man, was on his way and stayed at a hometown. Cao Pi was disobedient when he was a child, and now we say that the bear child is a disaster for the cattle in the hometown. The Cao family’s strict tutoring is not what they say. When he left, he said he would lose money. Pay what? Lost a piece of “galaxy stone”.

    Cao Pi developed a small herpes when he left his hometown. Once he returned to Xu County, he was diagnosed and treated, good guy, cowpox! Originally, the Cao family wanted to recover “Xinghe”, but at this time, they were too busy to promote cowpox. When I came back to my senses and wanted to investigate again, the “Xinghe Kiln Change” had already been sold by fellow villagers.

    Cao Sheng sighed at the time: “Giving up a stone in exchange for cowpox with thousands of living people is already a bargain. If you think about taking both ends, it is too greedy. “So the Cao family gave up the investigation of “Xinghe Stone”.

    It was not until more than 60 years later, when Emperor Wei Zhang was on the throne, that the “Xinghe” was transferred to the royal family of Cao Wei.

    “Xinghe Kiln Change” alias “Pox Immortal Stone” is also derived from this story. According to the folklore, the beauty of “Xinghe” attracted Poxian, who took the initiative to borrow a stone from Cao’s family with cowpox, and it took 50 years to return it.

    But the legendary experience of “Galaxy Stone” is far from over. In the following thousand years, it has been stolen and reappeared several times. Many legends such as “falling stars in the wild have good omen”, “reading at night with a stone” and “Xingquan in Saibei” are closely related to “Xinghe”. Among the past masters of “Xinghe Stone”, there are not only great writers who have learned from the past and the present, but also great generals who have been victorious in every battle, including the well-known…