Father can be an enemy country

Chapter 538 Visiting the Imperial Kiln

Knowing His Highness's intentions, Cheng Qian tentatively said: "Quanzhou and Guangzhou have been engaged in maritime trade for hundreds of years, and almost everyone in the local area has done so. Suddenly, the imperial court closed down the shipping department and prohibited them from trading overseas. , Their life is quite difficult. If you hear that there is an opportunity to reopen the Shibo Department, you must be very grateful to His Highness Long En."

"You can tell them what this king said." Zhu Zhen nodded, which was exactly what he meant.At present, he has not set foot in Fujian and Guangdong, so smuggling there is very rampant. Even after Chen Shanghai and Fang Datong were destroyed, nothing changed.

Han Yike and Liao Dingguo have asked him for instructions several times, and they want to crack down on smuggling and not allow ships that are not from the Shipbuilding Department to go abroad.

But Zhu Zhen has never agreed, because there is no local Shibo Department, and no local government cooperates with anti-smuggling. It is actually useless to just rely on the Shibo fleet to hit Fujian and Guangdong when it transits through Fujian and Guangdong.It will also involve the energy of the fleet and delay normal business.

However, smuggling along the coast of Fujian and Guangdong must be prohibited.

In this era, there are so many pirates on the ocean, and overseas countries are even more cruel and cunning.

Maritime trade needs to be escorted by a strong navy. Otherwise, even if you are not robbed by pirates at sea, you will be robbed by the local regime and local tyrants when you arrive at a foreign port.

Those overseas barbarians don't understand what is meant by 'win-win cooperation and sustainable development', why spend money to buy what they can grab, and sell it so expensive.

And raising a powerful navy is too expensive.This requires ensuring high trade profits.

To ensure high trade profits, it is necessary to monopolize trade as much as possible and drive any competitors out of the sea, not to mention the worst competitors - smugglers.

Therefore, it is imperative to set up a shipping department in Fuzhou and Guangzhou. Although Zhu Zhen is unable to escape temporarily, it is always right to lay the groundwork first and let those Fujian, Guangdong and Haizhou merchants know that they are coming.

Let's see if there are any little clever ghosts who have come to take the initiative to hand in the certificates.

~~
On the same day, His Royal Highness King of Chu will 'stop as soon as it's ordered'.

It's just the first meeting, so it's not easy to talk about it in detail, because it seems too utilitarian.Our Highness is a decent person, we need face.

The next day, His Highness the King of Chu and his party visited the Zhushan Royal Kiln Factory located in the north of Zhenbei.

Zhushan is actually a small hill facing the town, surrounded by the walls of the Imperial Kiln Factory, and the top of the hill cannot be seen from the outside.

The car of His Royal Highness the King of Chu stopped outside the mountain gate of the Royal Kiln Factory, in front of the tall banner of "Xianfeng Royal Kiln Factory Head Gate".

After getting off the car, Lao Liu was shocked by the scale of the imperial kiln factory: "Is it so big?"

"Your Highness, the factory area of ​​our Royal Kiln Factory is surrounded by walls for ten miles." Zhou Ji, the supervising eunuch, replied, "It's bigger than Fuliang County."

"Do you need such a big space?" Lao Liu said dumbfounded.

"Your Highness will know when you come in." Zhou Ji smiled and said, "It's really useful."

As he said, he bowed and wanted to ask: "Your Highness, please come in. While visiting, you can listen to the servants' explanation."

"Okay, you lead the way." Zhu Zhen nodded.

Zhou Ji led His Royal Highness and his party into the open door of the hall where the plaque of the imperial kiln factory was hung.

I saw a long corridor leading directly to Yimen in the gate, and there are two archways at the east and west gates of Yimen.

Since His Highness mainly came to visit the kiln, Zhou Ji first introduced the two factory areas behind the east and west gates.

"There are 21 works in the east factory area, mainly kiln houses such as Qing kiln, Longgang kiln, Fenghuo kiln, color kiln, etc., which are mainly places for firing kilns; the west factory area has 23 pottery works, including large-scale and small-scale works. , Antique works, carved works, printed works, paintings, etc., are the places where blanks are made, sharpened, glazed, and painted.”

Zhou Ji was there like a treasure, but Zhu Zhen was at a loss.Although he nodded frequently there, his eyes were a little slack.

How else can eunuchs be the best at serving people?Zhou Ji observed the words and expressions, and immediately invited His Highness to visit the production process according to the procedures.

His Highness really came alive, he likes to watch handicraft production the most, and he is very relieved.It's a pity that I can't make noodles and watch while eating.

A group of people surrounded His Highness and came to the front of the work shed. The busy workers quickly knelt and kowtowed.

"Tell them, don't kowtow, what to do. Just pretend that this king doesn't exist." Zhu Zhen ordered.

"Yes." Zhou Ji told the workers to get up quickly and work as usual.

Then he introduced: "This is Taolian making. The porcelain clay needed for making porcelain needs to be refined through panning and refining."

"Where did the porcelain clay come from?" Zhu Zhen asked with great interest.

"The porcelain stones used by the Imperial Kiln Factory are produced in Qimen, Pingli, and Gukou two hundred miles away." Zhou Ji hurriedly replied: "Workers pound the porcelain stones into mud with water trucks, and then transport them here for further refining. , can be used."

Zhu Zhen nodded and stepped forward, and saw a worker soaking porcelain clay in a water tank, stirring it to make the impurities sink.

Another worker filters the settled mud with a horsetail fine sieve.

Worker No. 3 pours the filtered mud into the clay sagger for sedimentation, making the mud thick and formed.

Worker No.4 puts the formed fine porcelain stones into the box, and presses the bricks to drain.

Finally, worker No.5 turned the washed soil evenly and put it under the shed for later use.

This is only the first step, and the work has been assigned to five workers, each of whom only does one task.It can be seen how fine the division of labor in Jingdezhen has been.

~~
Then the finished porcelain clay was sent to the second workshop, where it was mixed with ash to make slurry.Zhou Ji told Lao Liu that the ash used in the imperial kiln factory came from Leping County, 140 miles away.It is made of blue and white stone and fern grass.

This is His Royal Highness Chu came to visit, and it was his own kiln factory, otherwise this secret recipe would never be shown to others.

Next, is the saggar work.

"Porcelain blanks need to be clean when they are put into the kiln. They should not be stained with sand and dust, so they need to be placed in a sagger for firing." Zhou Ji introduced: "The soil for making saggers is also very particular. It is taken from Lichun Township and Gem Mountain. Nowhere else is suitable."

It's not secretive at all.

Then there is the workshop for drawing the blanks of the round tools and making the blanks of the cutters.Round utensils can be directly pulled out of the billet with a wheeler, which is very fast.

And square bottles, statues and the like, angular utensils can only be made by hand.This is also the reason why such appliances are expensive.

After the mud is made, it needs to be repaired and dried in the shade before it can be sent to paint blue and white.

The division of labor in this step is even more detailed. Outlining, rendering, and green hooping, flowers, birds, fish, characters, and writing all have their own full-time jobs, and they are operated by clusters.

Then go through chisel, painting, dipping glaze, blowing glaze, spinning billets, digging feet, before and after more than a dozen processes, hundreds of divisions of labor, before the billets can be fired in the kiln.

More than 100 workers have to work together before and after.Compared with other handicraft industries, the craftsman scratches his beard and eyebrows, and works alone from start to finish, which are completely two extremes.

Perhaps this is the secret of Jingdezhen being able to stand out and dominate the country.

(End of this chapter)