But the bright moon shines on the ditch

Chapter 87
It is the emperor's birthday. Needless to say what is going on in the Imperial City on this day.

In the morning, the emperor would burn incense and bathe, worship his ancestors, and pray for good weather and peace. In the afternoon, he would inspect the imperial city, have fun with the people, and host a flowing banquet to entertain centenarians in Kyoto and distinguished guests from afar. Together with the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty, they participated in grand events and had fun in the gardens.

The three major battalions were in standby all day long, and the Royal Guards stayed at every step to protect the safety of the emperor and officials.

Fortunately, everything went on in an orderly manner. At the dinner party, after the envoys from various countries showed their host country's respect for Emperor Wanqing one by one and another form of show off, Honglu Temple came forward at the right time and presented the final congratulatory gift, the Royal Kiln Factory. In addition, hundreds of private kilns in Jingdezhen spent several years firing ten pieces of precious porcelain.

Each of these ten pieces of ceramics can be called the "King of Porcelain". When the servants walked up the jade steps, the envoys from various countries were stunned and shocked.

Even though Emperor Wanqing was the birthday boy and had seen countless good things in his life, he still couldn't help but lose consciousness for a moment when he saw the ten porcelain queens filed in.

The first impression is that the colors are gorgeous and dazzling, making people forget themselves and dare not breathe or speak loudly for fear of startling the beauties under the lotus throne of Guanyin.

The second feeling is that the craftsmanship is exquisite, far superior to the previous one.Hundreds of years of skill inheritance, from gray tire to white glaze, from rough pottery to fine porcelain, even the Persians who have the best Suma Liqing in the world cannot make ceramics, and in this dynasty, all they have is The pursuit is far from the birth of ceramics, but eternity.

The third feeling is shock, shocked by every perfect detail, decoration, outline, glaze and shape, all of which show the nobility of the royal family and are full of oriental heritage. It is in line with the poem: white glaze blue and white. It is made by fire, and the flowers are clearly transparent from the glaze.You can refer to the innate wonder of nature, Wuji comes from Taiji.

There is a circle in the sky, all within it, making people stunned at first sight, falling in love with each other again, and unforgettable in the end.

When the last piece designated as "Imperial Porcelain" also appeared on the stage, the whole audience was silent. After a moment, there was an uproar.

This is a large vase that combines the most advanced technology and color glazes of the dynasty. It is about three feet high, about one foot in diameter, and one and a half feet in diameter.The vase has an open mouth, a girdle neck, the neck gradually widens, a melon-shaped belly, a circle foot outwards, and gold-colored Kui-shaped ears on both sides of the neck.

The whole vase is divided into 16 glaze sections from top to bottom, and the various glazes are separated by golden circles.The mouth is decorated with gold color, purple ground pastel color, and green ground pastel color for one week each.The neck is decorated with imitation Ge glaze, blue and white glaze, and turquoise green glaze for one week each.The shoulders are decorated with kiln glaze and fighting colors.The upper part of the abdomen is decorated with pink and green.The abdomen is decorated with twelve golden consecration lights painted on a blue ground, and auspicious pictures are painted inside. Six of them are patterns composed of flowers, bats, crickets, wishful thinking, and swastika belts, which mean "good fortune and longevity for generations", and the other six are "Three Yangs". "Kaitai", "Danfeng Chaoyang", "Taiping Xiang", "Auspicious Days More", as well as pavilions, landscapes, ancient pictures, etc.The lower abdomen and feet are decorated with Ge glaze, blue and white, green ground pastel, red ground with gold, imitation official glaze, Ji blue glaze with gold, etc.The decorations on the bottle body are also complex and diverse, including intertwining flowers, intertwining lotus patterns, group flowers, burnt leaf patterns, back patterns, hooked chrysanthemum patterns, etc...

All in all, the appearance of "Imperial Porcelain" ignited the climax of Wanshou and heightened the atmosphere to the extreme.

The emperor immediately issued an order to award the reward, and all the officials in the imperial kiln factory and An Jiu were commended.Especially in Anjiu's case, the ministers could not protest. The emperor immediately revoked the original punishment of "exiled by death penalty" and promoted him to the rank of fifth-rank ambassador. He was stationed in Jingdezhen and was in charge of Tao affairs. He was only responsible to the emperor.

In this way, not only was the name of the Taoist Supervisor who was once only an "Associate Manager" restored, and he became a capital official alongside Fuliang County Yamen and Raozhou Prefecture, but also because his official position was in the fifth rank, he was personally appointed by the emperor and would no longer be subject to local authority. Rule over.

It can be called the "top of ten thousand people" in porcelain.

An Jiu immediately bowed his head and thanked him, with tears streaming down his face.

The emperor saw that Xiaojiu had lost weight and darkened this year, so he looked at his elder companion and smiled, feeling a bit like an elder, and called him over to give him some encouragement.An Jiu took the opportunity to talk about his loyalty, and cried until he couldn't breathe with tears and snot in his nose. He truly performed a heart-warming performance of a monarch and his subjects, which was deeply touching.

Of course, after years of experience, he has long understood the consequences of being arrogant because of favors. He will cry and cry and make trouble. He does not dare to take credit casually. Apart from telling the story of his contribution, he does not write it off. Credit to others.

When the emperor heard this, he was even more approving.

Soon, the reward spread to the hotel.

The young eunuch who came to announce the decree looked happy. He first praised the representatives of the folk kilns, and then asked Liang Peiqiu to join him in thanking the emperor in person.When everyone heard this, they held their hands and congratulated each other. Zhang Lei looked worried. Wang Yunxian, because he knew nothing, happily prepared new clothes for the face saint and styled her hair in a bun.

Liang Peiqiu didn't dare to keep the envoy waiting for a long time, so she went out quickly. Before leaving, she glanced at Wang Yunxian, and saw that he had his big round eyes open, waving to her with joy and envy, and told her to pay attention with worry. She was filled with worry about her words and deeds, and finally said: "Yunxian, do you still remember our agreement?"

Wang Yunxian found it funny, pretended to be ignorant, and shook his head: "Which agreement?"

Liang Peiqiu was annoyed that he was still joking around at this time, so she rushed over and grabbed his ear: "Then I'll say it again, listen carefully... I'm going to have an uncertain future, no matter what happens, you have to live well, you know? "

"Oh, so it's this!" Wang Yunxian had no doubt that he was there. "Don't talk nonsense about the uncertain future, and don't think too much! I saw that the little eunuch was laughing so hard that his eyes almost disappeared. The emperor must have been very happy and shouted You probably want to reward me personally. Just behave well and go back quickly."

"Okay, then I'll go."

He nodded and urged: "Go quickly, walk faster, be careful that the emperor will get impatient and regret it!"

"Bah, bah, crow's mouth."

Before she left, she didn't forget to talk back and let him spit on the father-in-law.Wang Yunxian pretended to fool her, looking at her walking away with a smile on her lips.

He had long been accustomed to playing and messing around with her, and he really didn't dare to think about how the other one would survive if one of them was gone.

After the old man's death, they discussed the current situation in Jingdezhen several times and were forced to make the "right" choice.But in his view, all right and wrong in this world have preconditions.The premise for Wang Yunxian is that Liang Peiqiu's prohibition cannot be violated.

Nothing is right or wrong in anything related to her.

He will choose her, forever, even one-way, choose her.

/
Not long after Liang Peiqiu left, Wang Yunxian didn't wait. Thinking that he would return to Jingdezhen soon after meeting the emperor, he started to clean up the room.

They bought some dry food when they went out a few days ago. To prevent him from eating all the dry food before setting off, they strictly distributed it. Liang Peiqiu was in charge of most of the dry food and distributed it to him according to his itinerary.

Wang Yunxian was a non-staff person in the hotel, and he didn't have much to talk about. He was really greedy. His stomach kept growling in the middle of the night. He was so hungry that he felt dizzy and had to eat all his portion in advance.Simply taking advantage of Liang Peiqiu's absence, he planned to order some private food to avoid being scolded and begging for mercy from her in the future.

Thinking like this, he naturally rummaged through the boxes and cabinets for a while, so at the bottom of Liang Peiqiu's luggage, Wang Yunxian touched a few pieces of paper.

Liang Peiqiu had been dealing with kiln affairs all the way, and it was a bit strange to have documents and silk in her luggage, which were only buried at the bottom of her clothes.

Wang Yunxian didn't know what psychology drove him, but he took out the paper by accident, unfolded it, and his expression changed instantly.

In just a few breaths, all blood disappeared.

/
At the same moment when Wang Yunxian ran out of the room, in Honglu Temple, which was only two streets away from the hotel, Zhou Qiguang, who was not qualified to attend the banquet, was asked by his superiors to stay and work overtime to collect the gift lists presented by envoys from various countries and officials from various places. Check them one by one, make a copy, and store them in the warehouse.

It was also at this time that he saw the list of tribute gifts from Jingdezhen.

The first one is ten pieces of precious porcelain.

He didn't pay attention at first, he just glanced at it quickly, eager to see the items fired by private kilns and imperial kilns behind, and wanted to confirm whether Hutian Kiln had completed the tasks he set out at the time, so as to calculate Hutian Kiln's current debt situation. .

I didn't want to turn back, but I caught sight of a series of familiar words from the corner of my eye. I stopped turning the page, turned back, and fixed my gaze on the top column.

Imperial Porcelain: Large bottles with various glazes.

King of porcelain: doucai Sanqiu cup, enamel rose green bamboo poetic cup, red ground consecrated enamel cup with peony pattern, azure glaze sunflower wash...

Not to mention the imperial porcelain, the three king porcelain pieces that followed him had the same name as the Sanfubao cup he created and burned during his lifetime, and even the patterns of roses, green bamboos and peonies were exactly the same. Could it be a coincidence?
Every craftsman has his own ideas.

There are no two absolutely identical pieces of porcelain in the world.

It's not surprising that one and two processes are the same, but a finished product needs to go through 72 processes, and the final result is the same, which has to make people suspicious.

Xu Zhiliu's fingertips rubbed the familiar words, and his fingertips seemed to be able to feel the temperature, touch, and hardness of the fetal soil when he kneaded it.He put the embryos under the eaves to dry, and watched them taking shape little by little in the sun, with fetal bones and souls. Then he personally sent them into the kiln entrance, lit the fire in the furnace, watched the flames engulf them, and then went in and out again and again. , glaze, fire, glaze, dry…

This process was repeated over and over again between his heated fingertips.

He stood up suddenly and walked quickly towards the imperial city in the night.

He hadn't gone far when he heard a rush of footsteps.Those footsteps were neat and powerful, walking in an orderly manner on the path behind Honglu Temple.This is a shortcut to the imperial city. Except for the ministers who go to court every day, few people know about it.Usually when his thoughts were messy and he was tortured by nightmares and couldn't calm down, he would pace back and forth on this deserted path, thinking about the moment to attack.

However, at this moment, the trail is no longer as peaceful as before, especially after night falls, footsteps that should not have appeared appear, making it even more bizarre and weird against the backdrop of the dark night.

Xu Zhiliu noticed something keenly. The cat was behind the wall, looking up through the stone pier and looking out its eyes.

There was a long team of about a hundred people on the trail. Everyone was dressed in black and masked. They were armed with weapons, either crossbows or long knives. They were marching as quietly as possible while looking around and observing the surrounding environment vigilantly.

Suddenly, a man caught up from behind, standing outside the wall a few steps away from Xu Zhiliu. He put his finger to his lips and blew a whistle.

The black-clad army all stopped and waited for the next order.

After a while, the man said: "You heroes, we have formed an alliance through blood. From now on, there is no turning back. Think of the drought in the north and starvation for thousands of miles, but the Dog Emperor is here eating, drinking and enjoying himself, completely ignoring the life and death of the people. Now So, why not overthrow this dilapidated sky and let him know what it feels like to not have enough to eat! Even if it fails, with this feat, he will be able to rest in peace when he meets my parents, wife, and children on the road to hell!"

After saying that, he slowly raised his hand and waved forward.

The black army waved their weapons silently in response to the man's call.Although silent, Xu Zhiliu was deeply shocked by the scene in front of him.

A few years ago, he heard that the Northland had been experiencing continuous wars and frequent natural disasters, and it was not peaceful there, so he had guessed this day.The common people were living in dire straits, the imperial government was financially strapped, and officials in the middle were exploiting people at all levels. In the end, when it was implemented at the local level, there was only endless exploitation and killing.

Some people have the ability to discern the crisis and move their families to the south, but the vast majority of people regard that land as their homeland and their lifeblood, and they are unwilling to leave their hometown no matter what, so they endure hardships year after year. , waiting for wives and children and death.

Once this step is reached, it is understandable that one is forced to rebel.But he never expected that at this special node, there would be a private armed force composed of stragglers, jumping over many checkpoints, breaking through the guards, and heading towards Huanglong on the day of Wanshou.

What a powerful force this is.

Who would risk death if they were not forced to have no way out?

Xu Zhiliu knew that these were a bunch of poor people.

However, the thought that flashed through his mind at this time was not to prevent them from going to the third camp and the Imperial Guard to die, but how to use these poor people who were destined to die to reach the top of his own Qingyun.

So, after a brief thought, Xu Zhiliu returned to the front yard and picked up a fast horse.

It was almost summer, and the evening breeze was warm, without a hint of chill.

But for some reason, Xu Zhiliu felt cold.

/
That night, when a small chief registrar of Honglu Temple was summoned to the emperor in an unusual manner, everyone's eyes turned to the lonely, sickly figure in the center of the hall.

The figure looked up to the supreme authority of the dynasty and bowed to the man's knees.

At that moment, something broke on the jade steps.

Xu Zhiliu once aspired to take exams and become an official in the court. He originally wanted to clear his father's wrongdoing, and he also wanted to uphold justice and open up a fair and just path for thousands of people like him who had no way to seek help.

However, his family fell into decline and he was forced to engage in business. He was betrayed repeatedly and died out of hatred.Now he is barely surviving in the body of another person, and finally puts on the civil service uniform that he has longed for, but he has lost his original self forever.

Although he could still be Zhou Qiguang, be a good and upright official, reverse the case for his father, avenge the people, and avenge himself, but he had to face an irreversible fact - Xu Zhiliu died, and not only his body died with him, And the clarity, morality and vision he once had.

He is not Xu Zhiliu, nor Zhou Qiguang.

He is just who he is now.

The guards of the imperial city were not just for a living. They had already interrogated him and made preparations when he appeared.By the time he was received and praised by the emperor, corpses were lying outside the moat and blood flowed into a river.

The moment Liang Peiqiu heard the sound of fighting, she looked back and saw that the high wall was not noble at all, but only made people feel oppressive.She asked the eunuch leading the way: "Father-in-law, how long does it take to get there?"

Before asking the question, she had walked around the palace and had no idea where she was.The eunuch who first went to the hotel to announce the decree handed her over to the young eunuch in front of her after being inspected by Donghua Gate and left alone.

Seeing that the road ahead was getting more and more deserted and quieter, she felt flustered for no reason and had an ominous premonition.

The little eunuch comforted her and said, "We're almost there."

I said that, but I walked half a stick of incense and still didn't arrive.When an abandoned palace appeared not far ahead, Liang Peiqiu's heart skipped a beat. She realized she had been tricked and ran away.

The little eunuch had already made arrangements. The moment she turned around, two more eunuchs emerged from the bushes behind her.The three of them rushed forward, twisted her arms, tied her up and put a cloth bag on her.

She struggled to ask who they were, but no one answered.

Just when she was about to yell, a calloused hand came over and covered her mouth and nose.

She immediately had difficulty breathing, her eyes became dizzy, and her consciousness became confused.Just when she was in a daze and lost consciousness, a sound of killing suddenly came.

A sharp voice shouted: "Oh, where are these thieves from? They are really desperate for their lives!"

"What should we do? If the Forbidden Army finds out, we will be finished!"

"What else can we do? Quick, loosen the people and throw them out first."

"But, didn't the higher-ups command that no one should be left alive?"

"You are stupid. The thieves have come in, how can she still survive?"

As he spoke, there was a rustling sound, and Liang Peiqiu was lifted up and thrown out with all his strength.The moment her body hit the ground, the expected pain came as expected. She gritted her teeth and tried her best to endure it. Tears flowed out unconsciously until a faint light appeared in front of her eyes.

It's the light of the night!

A burst of joy came to her heart, but she didn't dare to be happy too early. The sound of fighting was approaching in her ears, and in the corner of her eye, the pursuers holding torches high were surrounding and surrounding them.

She knew that, just like what those people had just said, when the thieves came over, even if she wasn't hacked to death, she would be trampled to death if she just lay paralyzed on the ground.

She can't sit still.

In the pain of almost falling apart, Liang Peiqiu pinched her leg flesh again, braced herself, took a deep breath, and climbed into the bushes nearby.It was impossible to escape now, so she could only hide for the time being. Fortunately, those people didn't have time to attack, and she didn't faint completely. She used enough strength to push herself up, and rolled into the grass with the help of her strength.

At this time, several men in black ran over covered in blood. After looking at each other quickly, they rushed towards the inner city without hesitation.

Liang Peiqiu was lying in the bushes, with stars falling in front of her eyes, and a few moths flying toward the fire.

Not long after, the sound of killing approached, and when he raised the knife and dropped it, blood splashed onto his face, which was warm.Liang Peiqiu's hand quietly reached into her chest, and after making sure that the manuscripts such as the Book of Mankind and Baicai Reform were in good condition, she closed her eyes.

The blood on his face cooled down little by little, completely cold.

　The imperial porcelain mentioned in this chapter is the tallest piece of porcelain currently collected in the Forbidden City, and is also called the Porcelain King.If you are interested, you can search it.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)