I studied in modern times

Chapter 1048 Finally, we lived in a glass house.
It is midsummer, the handle of the Big Dipper points south, the Eight Trigrams belong to Li, its god is Zhurong, and its emperor is Yanxin.

After the Dragon Boat Festival, the palace was completely renewed.

Even the irrigation canals that brought water into the palace were thoroughly cleaned by the Inner Palace Attendants Bureau and the Imperial City Guard.

The silt and other debris in the canal were cleared out, then loaded onto carts and transported out of the palace.

The toilets and other filthy places inside the imperial city were thoroughly cleaned and then loaded onto carts and transported out of the palace.

Then, Liu Weijian led his men to spread a large amount of quicklime into the ditches, toilets, and other places, carrying out a thorough disinfection inside and out.

Meanwhile, Zhao Xu's Funing Palace also began a full renovation.

Inside and outside the Funing Hall, all the walls, pillars, and utensils that had been treated with lead and cinnabar were scraped off, dug up, and even the foundation was dug up and then loaded onto carts and transported away.

As Zhao Xu made his move, the entire imperial city instantly came to its senses.

Then the same operation began.

Everything containing cinnabar, lead, and mercury was thoroughly cleaned up.

This includes the Inner Attendant Department and the Inner Attendant Department.

It quickly spread to the offices of the capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, the six ministries, and even the private residences of officials of the sixth rank and above.

Within Bianjing (Kaifeng), a vigorous campaign to remove cinnabar, lead, and mercury was launched.

Even the Taoist priests in the Taoist temples outside the city and the senior monks in the Buddhist temples began to follow suit.

This was both flattering the emperor and avoiding his taboos.

After all, Emperor Zhao in the imperial city had clearly expressed his aversion to cinnabar, lead, and mercury.

So, whoever doesn't follow suit...

That's tantamount to cutting yourself off from heaven!
It was a blatant declaration to the Emperor Zhao – Don't come to my house/this official residence!

No one would be stupid enough to do something that could kill their whole family.

In Bianjing, the entire city was engaged in a vigorous campaign to remove cinnabar, lead, and mercury.

Zhao Xu watched as Shen Kuo and his men installed thick, transparent glass panels in the study and quiet room in the east wing of the Funing Hall.

Once the installation was complete, Zhao Xu looked at the bright study and was overjoyed: "Thank you for your hard work, Shen Qing!"

"I dare not!" Shen Kuo said modestly, but inwardly he was very proud: "This is all thanks to Your Majesty's wise guidance, how could I dare to take credit?"

Zhao Xu chuckled, neither denying it nor denying it, but simply said, "I was just saying it casually!"

"All other matters are the result of your and the other master craftsmen's efforts in investigating things!"

During the Qin and Han dynasties, China was already capable of producing glass artifacts.

For example, dragonfly eyes from the Warring States period would be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in modern times.

Since the Tang Dynasty, the technology of glassmaking has made great strides.

Some people have even been able to fire objects that resemble modern colorless glass.

For example, Zhao Xu has seen many exquisite glass artifacts from the Tang and Song dynasties in modern museums and private collections.

Among them, the top-quality glass artifacts unearthed from the underground palace of Famen Temple in the Tang Dynasty are comparable to modern industrial products.

Crucially, these artifacts were all made using the blown glass technique.

Yes!

During the Sui and Tang dynasties, glass and so-called colorless glass objects were already being made using the glassblowing technique.

These technologies were also passed down in the Song Dynasty.

Many scholar-official households possessed glassware.

During his lifetime, Zhao Xu's father even had a complete set of glass decorative items—the largest of which was a blue glass plum vase!

Of course, none of these things are easy to make.

It takes a lot of money, repeated firings, and many failures to make a usable object.

Therefore, Zhao Xu instructed Shen Kuo to establish the "Glass Bureau" within the Bureau dedicated to manufacturing military equipment, recruiting hundreds of experienced glass artisans from the Inner Palace, the Six Ministries, and the general public.

Then, they were given a task—to fire flat, colorless, transparent glass and develop a mercury glass mirror.

This can be very profitable!
Therefore, Zhao Xu gave them unlimited funding!

Under Shen Kuo's leadership, the artisans and officials of the Glass Industry spent two years mastering the firing/blowing techniques for colorless, flat, transparent glass.

The reason for such rapid progress is, of course, that many of the prerequisite technologies had already been explored by predecessors. For example, during the Warring States period, China had already incorporated wood ash into the firing process of glass.

After the Northern and Southern Dynasties invented the technology of calcining wheat straw and quicklime into caustic soda, they used these materials to fill glass!

After the Sui and Tang dynasties, various colored and even colorless transparent glass objects began to emerge and entered the lives of scholar-officials and nobles.

Therefore, Shen Kuo and his Liuli Bureau actually only needed to overcome three things: first, the technology for mass production of cheap glass; second, the technology for mass firing cheap colorless and transparent glass; and third, the technology for firing flat glass.

The first two steps are the most time-consuming.

Because today's artisans have their own methods for producing and manufacturing all sorts of things.

Moreover, most people's methods are inherited from their ancestors.

Many techniques are not written down and are passed down from father to son.

This has led to a situation where many people neither understand their own methods nor why they are being used.
All they know is that their fathers/grandfathers/masters did it this way.

They did just that.

Improvement? Enhancement?
nonexistent!

Therefore, in the first year, the main task of the Glassmaking Bureau was to organize artisans and then divide them into glassmaking groups according to different firing styles.

Then officials were appointed to lead these groups and begin one tireless experiment after another.

The craftsmen fired the pottery, while officials stood by and recorded their firing steps.

Then, the comparison began. The commonalities among the various firing groups were identified, and the differences were brought out.

Next, we tried and failed step by step, while encouraging each group to communicate and verify with each other.

Finally, in November of the second year of the Yuan You era, the Liuli Bureau was able to mass-produce various types of glass.

Not only are costs greatly reduced, but more importantly, large batches can be fired at once.

However, most of these glass pieces are colored glass.

Green, blue, colorful...

A wide variety of things.

After these items were successfully fired, Zhao Xu put them on the market.

And you know what? It's selling pretty well!

It was popular not only among scholars and wealthy merchants of the Song Dynasty, but also among merchants from countries such as Khitan, Tibet, Tangut, Dali, and Jiaozhi.

The officials from Xihe, in particular, were extremely pleased with it.

They especially loved to make glass beads and wear them around their necks or offer them as a sacrifice in temples.

Thanks to these people, Zhao Xu managed to recover a significant amount of blood.

Then, they increased their investment in the research and development of Ruriji.

At the beginning of the year, we made a breakthrough in the difficult process of firing colorless and transparent glass—still by exhaustive, tedious methods.

During the firing process, the artisans of the Liuli Bureau accidentally discovered that adding a small amount of manganese powder greatly increased the light transmittance of the originally variegated Liuli!
Then they started to follow this technical route and made great strides forward.

That's how they developed the technical process for mass-producing colorless glass.

By April, Ruri had also overcome the challenge of firing flat glass.

We should try everything – one method at a time!
By chance, a craftsman discovered while blowing glass that if he first blew the glass into a cylinder, and then cut and flattened it while it was still hot, he could achieve the desired result.

Flat glass was invented just that simply!

Finally, the Emperor Zhao's study was able to have glass windows installed!
This winter, we might even be able to eat out-of-season vegetables!

For some reason, Zhao Xu remembered a modern joke—if you work hard, by the end of the year, your boss can buy a luxury car and hire young models!

Therefore, the entire Liuli Division was generously rewarded.

Craftsmen who overcame the major technical difficulties were directly granted official positions.

Although, he was only a court entertainer.

However, in the Song Dynasty, where officialdom was paramount, an official was an official!

They are still privileged elites!

(End of this chapter)