After the whole family was swept away, I lay down flat

Chapter 414 Follow the clues
On the carriage home, Ma discussed with her grandchildren what to do next. When she got home, she didn't care about anything else, so she first sent Uncle Cui and Aunt Cui to go back to the Ma clan to find the older clan elders or elders to inquire about Madam Ma's life when she was young and unmarried.

When the Ma family's old aunt brought her adopted daughter back from abroad, someone might have known the latter's origins. Although it has been a long time, there are still people in the Ma family who have lived a long life. Even if they don't know the details, they should have heard some rumors.

Ma asked her grandchildren to look for Xie Wenzai and inquire about the imperial seal. She stayed in the upper room of the main courtyard and wrote a letter, intending to ask her brother Uncle Ma to come forward and find the old shopkeeper and old lady who had been used by the Ma family's old aunt. Guys inquire. Although many of these people followed Zhou Shuyi to Beijing, a small number were too old or were attached to their relatives and friends in their hometown and were unwilling to leave. After they left Mrs. Ma's command, many of them were hired by the Ma family to do things. Uncle Ma should know more about this news.

While Ma was busy in the upper room, Hai Jiao and Hai Tang had already shown the mark pattern drawn by the latter to their cousin Xie Wenzai.

Xie Wenzai looked at it and felt that it did look like the mark of the inner palace, but it was slightly different from the marks he was familiar with and he was not sure what era it was from.

But just because he doesn't know, doesn't mean others can't help.

He immediately took the Haitang Haijiao brothers and sisters to the next door room to look for Lu Bainian.

Lu Mo was older than him and had entered the official service earlier than him. Before he was transferred to serve under Wu Wen'an, the Secretary of the Ministry of Household Affairs, he had been the chief of the Qing Li Department of Yu Heng of the Ministry of Industry for several years. He was responsible for manufacturing, sending and receiving various official items. Although the artifacts are not in the inner palace, they still interact with the craftsmen of the inner palace from time to time, so they must know these mark patterns better than others.

Lu Bainian did not disappoint them.

He held the drawing and recalled it carefully for a long time, and finally remembered: "This should be the mark used by the imperial government during the Yongchang period. It is indeed fifty or sixty years ago." He put down the drawing and looked at Haitang, "You Said that the mark was engraved on two combs? "

Haitang nodded: "They are two combs made of ebony and gold. The gold paint has faded a lot, but I can barely make out the flower shape."

Lu Bainian put the paper and a sketching brush in front of her: "Try to trace it and see what kind of flower shape it looks like."

Haitang took the pen, dipped it in ink and started painting immediately. Seeing that she was writing without any hesitation, Hai Jiao was obviously very confident, so he didn't bother her and asked Lu Bainian in a low voice: "Grandpa Lu, is there something special about this flower shape?"

Lu Bainian said: "The flower shape is second, but the fact that this comb is made of ebony is more surprising."

He told Xie Wenzai, Hai Jiao, and Haitang brothers and sisters that during the reign of Emperor Yongchang, the inventory of ebony wood in the imperial palace was in short supply many times. The reason was that Emperor Yongchang himself liked utensils made of this material, and not only the furniture and furnishings in the palace were made of it. Made of ebony, even small items such as daily pen holders, paperweights, and pen holders are made of ebony as the main material. However, the inventory of ebony wood in the inner warehouse is limited. In order to meet the emperor's needs, the imperial government basically scraped away all the ebony that could be found in the folk, and purchased it from Nanyang on a large scale, so that the folk ebony was almost extinct. This situation did not improve until Emperor Yongchang's son Longding, the late Emperor, succeeded to the throne.

Since the materials are limited, and Emperor Yongchang loves ebony very much, the utensils made by the inner government must be given priority to the nobles in the palace, and will not be sold outside at all. However, if they are high-ranking officials, nobles, or relatives of the emperor, the emperor may also reward them. Every item of this kind can be found in the internal government account books. From the craftsman and date of production to the powerful officials who received the reward, everything will be clearly recorded, making it impossible to explain away. So where did the pair of ebony and gold combs in Mrs. Ma's dressing box come from?
Haitang is now very skilled at tracing flowers. Nowadays, there is no requirement to be beautiful. She only needs to draw the flower shape clearly, without having to draw it too finely.

Before she finished writing the flower, Lu Mo Nian had already recognized it: "This is the pattern of the longevity flower. It is actually a kind of treasure flower, but the pattern of longevity is added to make it more auspicious. It is often used in various boxes and cups. There are also mirrors, combs and the like on the plate, but they are rare. Later, clothing materials with longevity patterns were also produced, and many ladies liked to use them to make clothes. This pattern was almost only popular during the Yongchang period, which was almost the ninth year of Yongchang. At that time, a female member of the clan behaved inappropriately during the New Year Palace Banquet, which angered Empress Zhang. Empress Zhang ridiculed her for the ugly longevity flower pattern on her dress. After that, few people used this pattern again. "

Emperor Yongchang only reigned for ten years. Empress Zhang favored her and gave birth to her only heir, the late Emperor Longding. During the Yongchang and Longding years, Zhang was the most powerful woman in the harem, whether as queen or queen mother. How could the women of the clan, royal family, dignitaries and courtiers dare to use something she didn't like? This kind of pattern naturally disappeared so quickly.

Lu Mo Nian also felt it was a pity: "In the last years of the late emperor's reign, not long after Jin was established as the crown prince, and his position was not yet very stable, the late emperor sent the crown prince to go to the Temple of Heaven to worship heaven on his behalf. I was working in the Ministry of Industry at that time, and I remember this. The order was in a hurry, and some sacrificial utensils had to be made in a hurry. Some craftsmen suggested that a batch of sacrificial utensils made by the Imperial Household for the Crown Prince during the Yongchang period violated Empress Zhang's taboo, so they were destroyed as soon as they were finished. They were idle and were well kept in the warehouse. They were all new, but the superiors still rejected them and asked for new products to be made quickly.

"We have been busy for many days. I kept an eye on the progress of the craftsmen day and night. I almost lived in the workshop and just barely caught up. The Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs spent a lot of money that time, and there were obviously ready-made products. , but it is still wasted. Now that I have ascended the throne, the inner treasury has become so poor that I can't even afford the money to renovate the palace..." Looking back on the unused sacrificial vessels back then, he still felt it was a pity.

But that was more than thirty years ago. As for whether this pattern has become popular again in the capital over the past thirty years or whether the idle sacrificial vessels have been used again, he doesn't know. No matter whether it is relatives, friends, old friends, or companions who were subsequently exiled to the northwest, they would not pay attention to these trivial matters.

Although Lu Monian didn't know much, Haijiao Haitang could already infer one thing from his words: if Mrs. Ma's ebony comb with gold accents was obtained from normal channels, it must have been made during the Yongchang period, and it was Before the first month of the ninth year of Yongchang. Considering that ebony wood was almost monopolized by the royal family at that time and was rare among the people, and the families who could obtain the products of the imperial family were all high-ranking officials, Mrs. Ma's background was probably very prominent, and she might even be a relative of the emperor.

She had been in Chang'an for decades, and she had behaved well in her early years. She was obviously well-educated, and she looked like a daughter of a high family. That's why many people believed that she was a fallen noblewoman, worthy of A great general of the Zhou family. The fact that she had such a pair of ebony combs produced by the Imperial Household seemed to be a disguised proof of her extraordinary background.

But in this case, things don't make sense.

Hai Jiao showed a puzzled expression: "If her background is really so prominent, then how could she become the adopted daughter of a wealthy businessman, the old aunt of the Ma family? And she also has to marry the old man of the third family of the Zhou family to fill in the house? Where are her parents and family?"

Haitang took the opportunity to ask Xie Wenzai and Lu Bainian: "Fifty or sixty years ago, were there any families of royal relatives or dignitaries in the capital who lost their daughters? Or were their daughters kicked out of their homes for making mistakes?"

Xie Wenzai couldn't think of it, but Lu Bainian thought about it and nodded: "Yes! There is one in the clan!"

(End of this chapter)