Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1804 New Evidence Discovered

"Eh? Aren't these two patterns among the twenty-two patterns of Qianlong?" Master Yang discovered the difference in the patterns of the two brocades as soon as he started working.

"This is a genuine Song Dynasty palace brocade. Because the craftsmanship is a bit complicated, the Qianlong Emperor simplified it a bit." Zhou Zhi said, "In fact, it is still the base pattern of the Badada Lantern Brocade, but it is divided into two types of square patterns and two types of round patterns. Various round patterns are filled between each type. Each large emblem is divided into two tones of royal blue and beige. There are two parallel lines of light blue between the large emblems. Various broken branches of flowers, birds, stationery and other patterns are filled between the textures and the large flowers. This flower is very large, at least five feet by three feet in size."

The so-called brocade is actually patterns woven on a huge surface, but there is not only one picture on this huge surface, but it is made up of countless identical pictures.

The pattern on a unit area is called a flower book.

Flower scripts come in different sizes. The smaller the flower script, the simpler and more repetitive the pattern on the brocade. In the language of information science, this means there is less information, and people get bored easily.

The larger the pattern, the more independent content it can hold, and the less repetition on the tapestry, so the picture is naturally more varied and contains more information, allowing people to watch it over and over again without getting bored.

However, as the weaving method was too complicated, the weavers soon gave up this weaving method. Later, when the technology of weaving pattern was lost, the creative skills were gone, and the weavers only knew how to "read from the book" and weave brocade according to the pattern.

Later, due to various reasons, the flower pattern was lost, and brocade, China's most complex weaving craft that reached its peak in the Song Dynasty, inevitably declined.

Even after the Ming and Qing dynasties, when Southern Brocade rose again and Emperor Qianlong obtained the "Twenty-two Official Patterns" to imitate, some of the extremely complex patterns were only produced by reducing the difficulty.

However, this work is done with the assistance of computers, which is to divide the picture into extremely small elements, and then read from the first element in the lower right corner to the upper left corner.

Then these elements are taken by row. The single-color set used in each row is the number of silk threads of different colors needed on this row. According to the rule of weft weaving, only one silk thread is placed on the warp in each grid, and the rest are placed under the warp. In this way, the pattern is copied.

The remaining work is to convert the pattern book into a program that can be read by the computer jacquard machine, input it into the machine, and then the imitation brocade can be woven.

However, in order to achieve the effect of imitating ancient silk, using a modern jacquard loom would definitely be too precise and accurate. Therefore, Zhou Zhi persuaded the Archaeology Department of Shu University and Master Yang to cooperate. Based on the four looms unearthed from the Han Tomb of Laoguanshan in Shudu, they restored the jacquard loom of Shu brocade, which was able to control two ground palms and eighty-four flower palms. They also built a mechanical device controlled by a modern jacquard loom to control it, combined with three-sleeping silk and ancient dyeing methods, and finally successfully imitated Shu brocade.

However, after receiving the paintings of four artists from the Six Dynasties mounted in the Song Dynasty, Zhou Zhi realized that he had been careless.

"The brocade looms at Laoguanshan date back to the Han Dynasty. Although they can control more than 10,000 warp threads in a width of less than 50 centimeters, they still haven't reached the peak level of the Song Dynasty's palace jacquard brocade seven or eight hundred years later." Zhou Zhi shook his head and said, "After computer simulation, we found that to achieve such a large pattern and such a complex pattern, the scale of the brocade loom needs to be larger. The ground loom still has two pieces, but the number of warp threads in each piece needs to be doubled, and the number of flower looms needs to be increased to 126 pieces."

Master Yang closed his eyes and thought for a while: "That would have to be twice as wide and long as the current loom..." "Four times as long." Zhou Zhi said, "But we all think it's unlikely, because the loom would take up too much space."

"Indeed. But the ancients must have a way to solve this problem, right?" Master Yang is a master of craftsmanship, not a master of mechanical design. He suddenly felt like his brain was about to boil.

"We have already guessed this. The brocade loom of the Han Dynasty had eighty-four flower palms, right? Each flower palm was placed at the end of the loom, and eighty-four pieces were already very long." Zhou Zhi said: "So in the Song Dynasty, it must have been modified to accommodate more flower palms for more complex patterns."

"Comparing the numbers eighty-four and one hundred and twenty-six, we can see that they have a common factor of forty-two. Eighty-four is twice forty-two, and one hundred and twenty-six is ​​three times forty-two."

"So we guess that in the Song Dynasty, the jacquard looms of Laoguanshan were no longer placed in parallel at the tail of the loom, but were turned into three-dimensional ones. Three layers were designed at the tail of the loom, and each layer was placed with 42 pieces of jacquard. In this way, not only more jacquard pieces could be accommodated, but the floor space of the loom was also shortened!"

"Great!" Master Yang couldn't help but be delighted: "Hahaha, it can only be like this! College students have smart brains!"

"Now that we know the principle, it won't be difficult to modify it." Zhou Zhi said with a smile, "I guess Dean Jiang will come to see you soon."

At this moment, Zhou Zhi's mobile phone rang. Zhou Zhi looked at the caller ID and said, "Hey, talking about the devil, the devil is here! Dean Jiang is here. Isn't that a coincidence?"

He pressed the call button: "Hello, President Jiang... Ah, I'm back. I'm in Shudu, discussing the restoration of the Song Dynasty Badada brocade with Master Yang... What do you mean by calling her? What's the matter? I know about the Niya ruins, which are in the Hotan area. It's a pity that I was too busy when I went to the northern border last time, so I didn't have time to take a look... What? The real arm in "Han Wu Shooting Dragon Picture" was discovered?! It's not leather but brocade?! Okay, we'll be there right away!"

"What's the matter?" Seeing Zhou Zhi's serious expression, everyone was shocked.

Zhou Zhi pointed to the painting of Emperor Wu of Han shooting a dragon on the whiteboard, which was pressed by a magnet. He said, "The biggest objection raised by the experts during this appraisal is that the arm on the elbow of Emperor Wu of Han has never been seen in previous paintings and calligraphy or archaeological objects. Therefore, although it is difficult to find faults elsewhere, the authenticity of the painting is still in doubt."

"Yes." Fei Guan said, "Didn't you say that when you introduced me just now?"

"President Jiang called and said that the real thing has been discovered. Although it is a Han Dynasty Shu brocade, it is thousands of miles away in an ancient tomb at the Niya Ruins in Hotan, northern Xinjiang!"

(End of this chapter)