In April of the first year of Wanli, the city of Beijing was already enveloped in greenery. All the palaces in the Forbidden City are in bloom. The thick mulberry paper was torn off the windows of each palace and replaced with breathable and translucent gauze.
Some windows in the Qianqing Palace and Ciqing Palace were replaced with green glass. These glasses are the first batch of flat glass fired by the in-house craftsmen under the supervision of Zhang Jing. Although the size is uneven, the thickness is different, and there are many bubbles and impurities, Queen Mother Rensheng likes it.
Zhu Yijun once advised Queen Mother Rensheng to wait until flat glass production was stable before replacing them uniformly. Queen Mother Rensheng said: "The sky is lit by tallow candles, which makes my eyes hurt, but I can't wait." She would rather change the windows to adapt to the glass than wait for the second batch.
Therefore, on the warm pavilion of Ciqing Palace, some of the wooden bars on the window lattice became triangles, some became trapezoids, and some were even circular. With the hard work of the carpenter, he tried to decorate it into a symmetrical and beautiful shape, but it was not ugly enough to irritate the eyes.
At this time, in the bright Nuan Pavilion, palace ladies wearing golden phoenix-embroidered cardigans and green gauze thread-trimmed skirts were playing mahjong with the Queen Mother.
The mahjong was specially made by the emperor under the supervision of the two palaces of filial piety, and a total of two pairs were made. All of them are jade carvings, 288 of them are green and without a trace of color. They have used up all the jade materials donated by the Myanmar Military and Civilian Xuanwei Department since the Hongwu period.
Zhu Yijun estimated that each pair placed in an auction house five hundred years from now would cost more than ten to two billion. Even now, if you want to find such a large piece of jade material that is uniform and unvaried in the world, you can't find it anywhere outside the Forbidden City.
Queen Mother Rensheng sat down at the bank, and when she drew the cards again, there were ten slips among the thirteen cards, and there were four pairs. She was so happy that the corners of her mouth twitched, and she tried desperately to suppress her excitement, but the smile was all over her face. .
Mrs. Wang, the wife of Xin Ningbo, who was accompanying her to play mahjong, was very happy to see Ci Yan and guessed that the Queen Mother was a big star. He looked up at the palace maid Yue'e behind the Queen Mother. The palace maid nodded, touched her head with her hands, pinched her nose, and squeezed her eyes. She couldn't make any small movements.
Less than half a cup of tea later, Mr. Wang played a card of nines. Queen Rensheng pushed the card down and said with a smile: "The Tan family's cannons are really good!"
When he saw the cards, it turned out to be a luxurious seven pairs. Queen Kujo already had three cards. Wang played the last card, which was indeed a "cannon".
Wang opened her purse, counted out a handful of golden beans, brought them to the Queen Mother, and said, "My uncle knew today that I came to play mahjong with the Queen Mother, and he told me: 'Those who live in the Queen Mother's family should be in good spirits and go home. "Pull some more, but I didn't expect the Queen Mother to be so lucky, I can only be filial to you!"
The Empress Dowager Rensheng was overjoyed at what she said, and said with a smile: "Since the emperor honored me with this new leaf tablet, we have found a new owner! If I don't touch it today, I really won't think about food and drink! Come again, come again!" Yue'e and others wanted to help shuffle the cards, but the Queen Mother said: "No need, it's more fun to build this 'city wall' yourself!"
While talking, the battle was over in four rounds. Na Yue'e advised: "Queen Mother, the emperor said that this kind of mahjong makes people sit for a long time, which is not good for the body. After playing four rounds, you will feel more relaxed."
Although the Queen Mother Rensheng was unhappy, she also listened to the advice. Just because when she first came into contact, she played day and night, and the pain in her cervical spine was unbearable. Now she stopped being stubborn, so she stood up and walked around, drinking tea and chatting with everyone.
When the other two wives went out to relieve themselves, Mrs. Wang saw the opportunity and knelt down and said: "I am so shameless today and I want to ask for a favor."
Queen Mother Rensheng's face dropped, and she sneered: "The emperor said that if his wife comes to the palace to play cards, she will inevitably beg our family, and it's true!"
Mrs. Wang's face was so red that she was about to bleed, and she cried, "I have no shame to say this. My uncle is wallowing and acting bad at home, and only takes out his anger on me and the child. I can't do anything about it——" He pulled up his sleeves to reveal the bruises on his arms.
Queen Mother Chen saw her crying in panic, but she couldn't bear it. First he said angrily: "You bastard! A man's family can't stand up, but you and your children suffer." Then he sighed and said kindly: "Tell me, what is it? But we agreed in advance that if it is difficult to handle, I will go to the emperor. I can’t even open my mouth.”
Mrs. Wang cried and said: "It's not a big deal. A few days ago, when the emperor came to the imperial court, more than a hundred officials were not present when the censor called them, and our bastard was the first one. I dare not hide it from the queen mother, but my uncle is really slacking off. - —There have been several cases before, but they were all fines. I didn’t expect that this time the emperor would have an attack and he would be exempted from the title of uncle!"
Queen Mother Rensheng frowned after hearing this. Why: "If it's something like an engagement or an annulment, it's easy for me to talk about it. Our family doesn't dare to agree to the appointment or dismissal of the foreign court."
Mrs. Wang cried: "Please be kind to the Queen Mother. The title that our ancestors paid for with their lives has been lost today because of such a thing. I have no choice but to die to thank my ancestors! Who can we count on if we are left with orphans and widowed mothers?" After that, he kowtowed, choked with sobs and unable to speak.
Empress Dowager Rensheng felt troubled and gave herself a few words in her heart, secretly saying: "I don't dare to let the foreigner come to play anymore." She could only say something lively: "Well, I know, I will seize the opportunity and tell the emperor. Say, if it really doesn’t work, there is nothing we can do.”
Wang's original intention was to beg the Queen Mother to spare Tan Guozuo the punishment of Xinning Bo. Seeing that the Queen Mother looked worried, she did not dare to ask again and hurriedly thanked her. When the Queen Mother cried because of her, she lost the mood to continue playing, and today's card game broke up.
...
At this time, in the Wuying Hall, Zhang Jing and his craftsmen were reporting to Zhu Yijun on the manufacturing of flat glass.
Zhu Yijun had known about the crucible before, so he asked the craftsmen to use the glass liquid burned in the crucible to blow it with an iron pipe. As for how to blow it, he didn't know at all.
Some craftsmen studied for several days, using a pipe to rotate and blow, blowing up a big bubble of molten glass, laying it flat and then cutting it off, so that the molten glass would naturally lay flat to form a flat glass.
It's just that this method uses centrifugal force, so the middle is naturally thicker and the edges are thinner. If it is not placed flat and stable, it will inevitably come out a little twisted, which is why the ugly appearance of the glass windows of Ciqing Palace comes from this.
At this time, Zhang Jing said: "Your Majesty, the craftsman at this time is good at blowing glass. He has a trick to blow the glass into a cylindrical shape. He can cut it in the middle with a sharp blade and place it on both sides, but it will be flat and neat." After that, the two craftsmen presented two pieces of glass two feet square. When Zhu Yijun looked at it, it was indeed smooth.
Zhu Yijun saw that the Hou Jianghu introduced by Zhang Jing was strong but had slack cheeks. It seemed that he had really put in effort and started to think about it. He looked very happy and said, "Well done! What reward do you want?"
At that time, Takumi didn't expect that he would have another day to meet the saint, and he was so excited that he almost peed his pants. Kneeling there, all I could do was kowtow and I couldn't say a single word.
Zhang Jing knew that Zhu Yijun was good at writing large characters, so he joked: "Your Majesty, why don't you reward him with secondary characters? His family will have an heirloom."
Zhu Yijun nodded, picked up the brush on the big case, wrote the four characters "Great Craftsman Ji Shi", signed "Yu Bi in the First Year of Wanli", and took out the private seal with the four characters "Ti Yuan Master" from his wallet and stamped it. .
Then he said: "This glass blowing method, you don't need to be too proud of it, but you should bring good apprentices so that they can master it and introduce new things." After a pause, he added: "I will reward you with two hundred taels of palace silver, two pieces inside and outside, and give them to the inside." Let the rest of the government set an example."
Zhang Jing was startled and said: "Your Majesty, this reward is too generous. The most the Emperor can give Mr. Zhang is two hundred taels."
Zhu Yijun smiled and said: "It doesn't matter. At this time, the craftsmen's affairs must be widely publicized among the craftsmen, so that everyone can learn from his efforts."
At that time, the craftsman thanked him for the reward and left the palace as if he was stepping on cotton. Under the protection of two guards, he returned home with the gifts from the emperor, and the whole shop was in a state of shock.
...
