Riding the wind of rebirth

Further back is the back hall, where the owner ate his daily meals. In the kitchen, there are two large water vats and a stove, highlighting the prosperity and abundance of the family at the time.

However, Zhou Zhi felt that the stove had been repaired, because there were still chalk and ink drawings on it. If it were an old stove, these would have been completely blackened long ago.

"Wow, so Xin Xin's family is also a large family like the Shen family," Zhang Xinyi exclaimed.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Ye Xin didn't understand.

“Look at this stove, it has six burners. I remember your family’s stove also had six burners, right?” Zhang Xinyi said.

“Look at the fire holes in this stove, one, two, three… there are six in total,” Mai Xiaomiao said. “Zhouzi once said that in ancient times, the more fire holes a family had, the more prosperous the household would be. The earliest grain station in Lianhe Township was the Tusi Building, where there was a large eight-fire stove that could provide meals for hundreds of people.”

"How can that be the same?!" Ye Xin laughed in anger: "The reason others have multiple stoves is because they have many servants at home. What's our situation? It's because we have many people serving us!"

Beyond this point lies Zoumalou.

The Zoumalou was a place for "supporting scholars". Master Shen had a wide circle of friends and a large business. Every day, people came to visit him in an endless stream, and many would stay for a while. There were also servants and secretaries to deal with inside and outside the business, and all these people were arranged here.

The Shen family was a constant presence, but guests came and went, hence the name "Zoumalou" (meaning "Road for Traveling Horses").

This building has a U-shaped layout with a perimeter of over 200 meters and 45 rooms of various sizes. It has six courtyards from the gate tower to the main hall, connecting the overpass and side rooms to form an "outer ring" of the Shen family. The architectural style draws on the strengths of Huizhou, Shaoxing, and Suzhou styles, which is very rare among similar buildings and has great appreciation value.

These rooms have now been converted into special exhibition halls, showcasing interiors of Qing Dynasty-style residences, including embroidery rooms, bridal chambers, bedrooms, and side rooms.

Legend has it that Shen Wenyuan's daughter was exceptionally talented. To avoid marriage, she spent her days in the embroidery room studying embroidery with her bridesmaids, eventually earning the reputation of "her embroidery skills are renowned." The embroidery room here is decorated according to that era. Under the plaque "Her embroidery skills are renowned" on the wall hangs a tapestry depicting maids resting. On both sides of the wall are meticulous paintings of maids. On one side of the wall is a large couch, and on the other side is a large chair, both made of sandalwood. The style seems to be from the Qing Dynasty and is quite exquisite.

The bridal chamber was designed according to the style of wedding rooms in Jiangnan towns at that time. The bed, cabinets, chests, and other such items did not particularly interest Zhou Zhi, since his collection of these items was far superior. What interested Zhou Zhi was the decoration of the bridal chamber at that time: the embroidered curtains and quilts with dragons and phoenixes, the paper-cuts pasted on the mirrors and furniture, and the ancient paintings with themes of children playing hanging on the two walls, symbolizing the wish for children. These were very interesting, but they were not commonly seen in other places.

Leaving the bridal chamber, we arrived at the master's bedroom, where there was an item that could be considered the most prized possession of the entire Shen Hall—the Thousand-Craft Bed with its Thousand-Step Design.

"This is the largest type of Chinese bed, popular during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The entire bed is huge and complex in structure, just like the house we live in. It is divided into several sections. A bed of this caliber, such as the 'Thousand Crafts Bed,' is usually divided into four sections. The first section is for shoes; the second section is for changing clothes and grooming; the third section can hold the toilet and bathtub; and the fourth section is the actual sleeping area. Under each section and the three openwork panels on the bed, there are many small drawers for storing snacks, jewelry, toys, and other small items."

"What toys do you play with on the bed?" Mai Xiaomiao was a little confused, then clapped her hands and found the answer for herself: "Ah, I know, it must be for the baby to play with, like the cloth tiger and sachet that Grandma made."

Ye Xin and Zhang Xinyi nodded in agreement, thinking that this was the correct approach.

Only Zhouzhi, I want to say that your imagination is too limited, but I think I'll pass, otherwise the girls will pry into your pure hearts.

“A bed like this is practically a small wooden courtyard, because you need to lift your foot to get onto the bed. That’s why this kind of bed is called a ‘stepping bed’, so you can reach the platform that grows out from the bed.”

"And look at the carvings on the bed, the decorative panels on the ceiling, the inlays—the exquisite craftsmanship is truly remarkable. These are all incredibly labor-intensive," Zhou Zhi explained. "A craftsman's work in one day is called 'one work,' but a bed like this would require 'a thousand workdays' to complete, hence the name 'Thousand Works Bed.'" Now that Zhou Zhi is an expert on Ming and Qing dynasty furniture, explaining the intricacies of Ming and Qing furniture using this bed as an example is a piece of cake for him.

"These types of canopy beds, which are enclosed on three sides and even have windows on the bed, are called 'walled canopy beds.' In ancient times, they were actually part of the dowry of officials and wealthy families. Wealthy officials and wealthy families would start building them from the birth of their daughters, or the mothers would pass on their dowry to their daughters. In short, they were mostly used as wedding beds during the wedding. Because they were expensive and the craftsmanship was complicated, they were generally used as a symbol of the family's strength and status when their daughters got married."

“My mother’s hometown also has a similar one, but it is much smaller than this one. However, it is still a high-quality piece, made of pine and jujube wood. It cannot be compared with the one in front of you, which is made of rosewood, sandalwood, and boxwood. This is basically the pinnacle of wood carving in Jiangnan.”

“This bed, for example, is decorated in three ways. The structural parts use the natural color of precious wood, the lower outer panel is inlaid with openwork relief of rosewood, the middle panel is decorated with white jade, ivory and other materials, and the upper part is decorated with vermilion lacquer and gold paint to decorate the panel carved with opera scenes.”

"Let me remind everyone of one more small detail. You can count how many panels there are in total for the theatrical costumes of the characters?"

“Thirty-six yuan,” Mai Xiaomiao counted quickly and said.

"Then take another look, how many people are on each ceiling panel?"

"Huh?" Ye Xin looked at it carefully: "Except for the one at the top with only one person, the rest are all three!"

"That one alone is sleeping too!" Mai Xiaomiao laughed. "What a lazybones!"

“That’s a scene from a play about immortals, called Chen Tuan Sleeping in Abundance, which fits the theme of a bed,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “This single immortal, plus the male and female owners on the bed, makes a total of three, so together it should be…”

"There are a total of 106 wooden figures, plus the owners, making it exactly 108, an auspicious number!"

"This is so exquisite! How much did it cost back then?" Ye Xin asked.

“Woodwork like this, which uses jade and ivory, can only be completed by highly skilled craftsmen. According to the records of Emperor Qianlong’s construction of the Qingyi Garden, an ordinary carpenter’s daily income was 1.54 qian, while a highly skilled carpenter’s was more than 2 qian,” Zhou Zhi said. “If we say that the labor cost for this bed alone was 1,000 days and 1,000 hours, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but if we calculate the overall cost based on that, it’s probably not far off. It would come to 20,000 taels of silver.”

The girls looked at each other, seemingly at a lot of money, but unable to say exactly how much.

"It's easier to understand if we replace it with rice. When Emperor Qianlong confiscated rice from Jiangnan, the price was 15 wen per liter. One tael of silver could buy 150 jin of rice. The value of this bed is roughly equivalent to 3 million jin of rice."

"So expensive!" Now everyone had a clear impression.

"Or you could replace it with land. During the Qianlong era, land prices in Jiangnan skyrocketed due to land annexation. A mu of fertile land could fetch seven or eight taels of silver. If you replaced this bed with land, that would be three thousand mu of land."

The feeling was even more palpable, leaving Ye Xin speechless: "Three...three thousand acres of land, all for this bed?!"

"Now you know just how rich the Shen family really is, right?" Seeing everyone's shocked expressions, Zhou Zhi finally showed satisfaction: "There's one more thing to consider, which is the wealth gap at that time. Only by adding that can you truly understand what 'extreme extravagance' means." (End of Chapter)