Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1531 Breaking the Secret

Later, when I was discussing the plain yarn Zen clothes unearthed from Mawangdui with Master Yang, I mentioned that the most difficult part of replicating this Zen clothes was the silk, because silkworms in the Han Dynasty were smaller than modern silkworms, and they were still Sanmian. of.

This unintentional sentence really provided an idea, so I started to look up the information when I got back.

The so-called "sleeping" means that silkworms will go into hibernation without eating, and then molt.

After a molt, the size of the silkworm will grow a circle, and the further back, the greater the difference.

The first thing is of course to check whether the silk fabrics from Mawangdui Han Tomb are mulberry silk.

Because there is another kind of silkworm in China - tussah.

There are many papers in this area. Through the identification of silk fiber types, it was determined through cross-sectional sectioning, longitudinal projection, differential thermal analysis, amino acid content, and X-ray diffraction. The silk fibers from Mawangdui Han Tomb are significantly different from tussah silk. different, but very similar to modern mulberry silk. Therefore, the fiber raw material of this batch of silk fabrics must be domestic silk.

This shows that although the Sanmian silkworms of the Han Dynasty were very small and the silk they spun was very thin, they were indeed mulberry silkworms.

This is the premise for things to continue.

Check again, and it was recorded earlier in Jia Sixie's "Qi Min Yao Shu" of the Northern Wei Dynasty that "in this world, there are three people who lie down to give birth to silkworms, and four people who lie down to give birth to silkworms."

Although the record is so early, it seems that four-lying silkworms were not popular. Until the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Zhen's "Nongshu" also recorded: "Silkworms sleep in the big sleep, and after fifteen or sixteen years, they suddenly become old. The number of silkworms depends on this number. Northern silkworms mostly have three sleeps, while southern silkworms all have four sleeps."

Qin Guan, a great poet in the Song Dynasty, also wrote a "Book of Silkworms", which introduced the sericulture technology of the Northern Song Dynasty in detail. He also mentioned the three-sleeping silkworms and the four-sleeping silkworms, which were also divided into north and south.

This shows that at that time, Simian silkworms were mainly concentrated in the Jiangnan area.

Looking at archaeological papers on ancient silk fabrics, we can find that silk developed in the Song Dynasty. Compared with the Han Dynasty, the diameter of silk has become much thicker.

The Song Dynasty attached great importance to culture, and the paper used for paintings even came from Jilin, Goryeo. The literati played with it almost regardless of the cost.

Therefore, the silk used for calligraphy and painting in the Song Dynasty should have been made from the best-quality southern Simian silk at that time.

So, if today's silkworms start to spin silk and make cocoons after the third sleep, even if the diameter of the silk cannot return to the thickness of the silk of the Han Dynasty, can it be equivalent to the diameter of the silk of the fourth sleep of the Song Dynasty?

Continuing to search for information, Zhou Zhi found that even in the Qing Dynasty, the poet Huang Xieqing wrote in "Changshui Bamboo Branch Ci": "Silkworm seeds need to be taught to sleep for four days, and mulberry seeds need to be bought for fresh branches."

This shows that even in the Qing Dynasty, the four-dormant silkworms were still among the most carefully selected. This also shows that the three-dormant silkworms may still be common in the northern region at that time.

At that time, Yang He was still at the Agricultural University, and Zhou Zhi called him and asked him to find an expert to ask whether it was possible to make modern silkworms spin silk in Sanmian.

It turns out that this is not a complicated matter. Although the modern four-sleep silkworm is big and silky, it is a delicate baby with a very weak constitution and needs careful care. If you are not careful, it is easy to suffer from third-sleep or fifth-sleep.

These are considered defective products and should be avoided as much as possible during the production process. Now Zhou Zhi wants to "reverse Tiangang", but it is also a very simple matter. One is to use drug induction to directly make the silkworms that should have been sleeping arrive early. Sanmian starts to spin silk to make cocoons. Another way is to do what the village girls did in "Changshui Bamboo Branch Ci" again in daily production, but this time it is changed to carefully select Sanmian silkworms, and then Their genetic characteristics are solidified. The latter was too late at the moment, but the former was a very simple matter. The school also had a fixed contract base for scientific research. Those rural silkworm farmers specialized in raising silkworms for the college's scientific research.

As long as you pay, there are plenty of pesticides and pesticides, just pick a batch and process them.

This batch of silk was finally tested and found that although it was still much thicker than the mulberry silk of the Han Dynasty, it was almost the same as the silk used for calligraphy and painting in the Song Dynasty.

So this batch was sent to Master Yang again, and Master Yang was so happy. With this successful attempt, and the flower panels reverse-engineered through computer programs, it is still difficult to restore Song Jin to the highest degree?

But this cannot be done with the first batch. The first batch was made for Zhou Zhi to imitate Song silk. Now this baby is a treasure and cannot be offended.

This first batch of Sanmian silkworm imitation Song silk has now brought Rongbaozhai to Zhou Zhi.

It was also a gift to others who were sleepy, because Rongbaozhai had just accepted a hot potato, which was to restore the Ming Dynasty Tang Yin landscape painting for the Shanghai Museum.

The landscape painting is a silk painting core. Due to its age, the painting is aged, damaged, incomplete in painting, and has serious creases and fractures. It is in urgent need of restoration.

The museum requires that the restoration process be carried out in strict accordance with the five major processes of ancient calligraphy and painting restoration: "washing, uncovering, repairing, supporting, and repairing" and strictly abide by the three principles of "minimum intervention", "maximum information retention" and "maximum security" .

"Here are the elbows?" Hearing that Zhou Zhi had arrived, Xu Bangda personally came out to greet him, which actually startled the customers in the store.

Xu Bangda is known as "Xu Banchi". He is famous in the field of calligraphy and painting appraisal and restoration. He is even a painter himself. His skills and abilities are more than enough to hold exhibitions. He has not appeared in front of the public for many years.

Now he is so polite to a young man, which makes people feel surprised at the identity of the young man.

In fact, Xu Bangda didn't care about the young man's face. He clearly looked at the things in the young people's hands: "Did the things come out?"

"Fortunately, I did not disgrace my life." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "Mr. Xu, Song Juan was made for you. You won't hide the craftsmanship anymore, right?"

"You should stop talking nonsense. If you want to do your job well, you must first sharpen your tools. We must get Song Juan out first, otherwise we won't be able to do this after a few years."

As he spoke, he wanted to pull the silk towards him.

Unexpectedly, he was thoughtful but did not let go: "If you don't tell me today how you restored ancient paintings of the Song and Ming Dynasties, I won't give you this thing. I just want to know where you can find the silk that you used to restore. The silk ones that match the ancient paintings?”

"Hahahaha..." Xu Bangda was as happy as a child who had succeeded in his trick: "If it hadn't been hidden, you probably wouldn't be able to recover from this Song Juan even today, right? Hahahaha..."

"Old man, don't keep your words, it's time to reveal the answer!" Zhou Zhi had already been feeling itchy.

"Actually, there is no way." Xu Bangda said with a smile: "All we can do is tear down the west wall to repair the east wall. The answer is that after we unmount the painting, we will carefully remove the lining silk, because the lining silk and The painting is basically from the same period. We will use the intact part of the lining silk as repair silk. After repairing the painting, we will use modern silk as the lining. This can at least ensure that the painting remains as old as before. "

"So simple?" Zhou Zhi suddenly felt that he had been tricked by Mr. Xu. What he had wasted so much effort on creating was such a "secret"?

What kind of secret is this? !

(End of this chapter)