My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 52 Porcelain is made

Empress Dowager Dou, of course, is not Empress Dowager Lu.

Whether it was her superb governance skills or her ruthlessness towards the Liu clan, Empress Dowager Dou could not compare to the empress Lu Fei.

As for the Dou family's relatives, they are by no means the Lu family's relatives who were so arrogant and domineering back then that they even filled the family with princes.

——In addition to the head of the household, Queen Mother Dou, the Dou family also includes Queen Mother Dou’s brothers: Nanpihou Dou Changjun and Zhangwuhou Dou Guangguo, the two sea-fixing needles.

Among the younger generation, there is Dou Pengzu, the prince of Nanpihou. Although he is not an extremely talented person, he still has the appearance of a middle-aged man.

The collateral nephew Dou Ying, Prince Dou, is also a leader among the younger generation and has already worshiped the crown prince Zhan Shi.

Although the throne of the throne is pending and the crown prince's uterus has no owner yet, Dou Ying has already done the work of crown prince Zhan, which is called the "family order", and he is already in an invincible position.

——No matter who becomes the crown prince in the end, Dou Ying, Prince Dou and his grandson will all become the prince’s steward and his confidant in the absolute sense.

Just like in the past, Chao Cuo served as the prince's family order for the current emperor Qi.

Full of anxiety, she summoned her daughter Liu Piao and her old friend Yuan An successively. Empress Dowager Dou's already depressed heart only became more complicated.

Needless to say, Liu went to prostitutes: Seeing that his mother began to have doubts, and even doubted whether he had followed the old path of Empress Dowager Lu, Liu went through prostitution for a while, which finally made Empress Dowager Dou feel more at ease;
But Yuan Ang, who entered the palace immediately after Liu's prostitution, directly talked about Lu and Bo's relatives without any subtlety.

——The Lu family was arrogant, so after the death of Empress Dowager Lu, she completely perished;
——The Bo family was full of humility, but the only one who emerged was the arrogant Bo Zhao, who could not escape the fate of "the emperor himself set up a mourning hall".

These two lessons are by no means profound;

And throughout the ages, the turmoil caused by brothers becoming brothers is not terrible...

For a moment, Queen Mother Dou was in a state of confusion.

But Emperor Qi and the Chang'an court did not pay much attention to the East Palace.

——In the summer of the first year of Emperor Qi’s reign, the Xiongnu delegation entered Chang’an and proposed peace again.

Emperor Qi argued hard, and while agreeing to the marriage and sending a dowry, he also rejected all the excessive demands of the Huns.

The final result was not satisfactory to either party, but it was within the acceptable range.

The Huns didn't get everything they wanted, but they also took advantage of it - they took back a delicate Princess Liu (a clan daughter) back to the grassland without spending a single soldier, and earned a lot of dowry materials by the way. .

The Han family, as always, failed to retain the dignity of the Chinese dynasty and humiliated and made peace, but it basically achieved its strategic goal: within one to three years, the Huns will not move south in large numbers.

After the marriage was completed, external hidden dangers were temporarily resolved, and the court's focus naturally fell on the next major event: reducing the vassal status.

Just before cutting off the vassal, Liang Wang Liu Wu also set out from the capital Suiyang again, heading west to Hangu and then towards Chang'an.

During the second visit to Chang'an in just one year, everyone in the world marveled at how favored Liang Wang Liu Wu was.

But the Chang'an court knew that Liang Wang Liu Wu's visit to the court was not just a 'hajj'.

Liang Wang Liu Wu has entered the court this time, and when he once again embarks on the long journey back to Liang from Chang'an, the Chang'an court will officially sound the horn of reducing vassal status, and wave it to attack the clan princes of Guandong - especially Wu Wang Liu Bi's butcher knife.

The chaos in Wu Chu x country will also officially enter the countdown...

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In the summer and June of the first year of Emperor Qi's reign, there was a Wayao in the western suburbs of Chang'an City.

The Shaofu Supervisor Zhang Yi, the emperor's eldest son Liu Rong, and Liu Rong's two younger brothers were all present.

Also present were almost all the craftsmen in the Shaofu who were good at pottery craftsmanship.

——Today is the day when the first batch of finished products of the 'Han Shaofu Official Kiln' comes out of the kiln.

Everyone, including the emperor's eldest son Liu Rong, was full of anticipation and anxiety, quietly waiting for that moment to arrive.

In the past few months, everyone here has put in a lot of effort for this moment.

The porcelain stone needed to make porcelain clay, or kaolin, was found by Zhang Yide and Liu Rong in Luocheng (later Jingdezhen area) and transported back with great hardships.

The thousands of degrees of high temperature required for firing porcelain was achieved with great difficulty by Shaofu craftsmen through repeated trials and improvements, and at the expense of a huge amount of manpower, material, financial and time.

The patterns on the glaze surface of the raw embryo are drawn one by one by the painters, and then the glaze is blown over them to finalize the shape.

To this day, it took more than three months to finally wait for the first finished product to come out of the kiln... "Huh~"

"I hope there will be dozens of usable finished products..."

Liu Rong does not have high hopes for the final yield.

——In this era without means of temperature measurement, maintaining a constant high temperature of around 1200 degrees is really not an easy task.

To be precise, it is something that is basically impossible to guarantee.

Constant temperature is easy to say: block heat loss, and then replenish fuel in a timely manner to maintain the temperature.

But what temperature is being maintained? Is it less than 1200 degrees, or is it more than 1200 degrees?
no one knows.

Even Liu Rong could only roughly conclude that the temperature was too high or too low after seeing the finished product of the first kiln.

Compared with Liu Rong's low expectations, which was not afraid of failure, Metallurgical Supervisor Zhang Yi's face was full of expectation.

——You can't blame Zhang Yi for being too conceited. In fact, Liu Rong has been too confident in the past few months.

In every process and process, Liu Rong can point out problems and ways to solve them. Even the raw material: porcelain clay, Liu Rong can point out the place of origin to Zhang Yi!
This gave Zhang Yi a very strange feeling.

Just like the porcelain that Liu Rong wants to make, it is not a new thing that has never existed before, but something that really existed in ancient times, and then was accidentally lost, and Liu Rong accidentally got the method of making it.

Since it existed before and Liu Rong had it so easily, Zhang Yi naturally had great expectations.

Amidst the expectations and apprehensions of everyone with different thoughts and expressions, the kiln entrance, which had been sealed with clay for a day and night and then opened early this morning, finally cooled down completely.

A craftsman stooped into the kiln, felt the temperature, and made sure it was OK. Then he covered the mold at the kiln entrance with a thick linen cloth and carefully handed it out of the kiln entrance.

Then two craftsmen waiting outside hurriedly stepped forward, reached out to take it, and then waved their small hammers on the spot, carefully smashing open the clay mold containing the porcelain jar.

——In this first kiln, Liu Rong ordered that all disposable molds be used. There was no need to ensure that the finished products were consistent in size, only that they were individually beautiful.

The clay mold was broken open in half, revealing a small part of the porcelain jar, which made Liu Rong feel relieved.

When the clay mold was completely smashed open, revealing the complete porcelain jar, which was mainly black and red in color, Zhang Yi, Liu De and others also grinned slightly.

The craftsman then carefully washed away the mud and dust on the jar with warm water, revealing the smooth glaze of the porcelain jar. The entire tile kiln fell into a long silence.

"This……"

"Is it burned?"

"Isn't it similar to pottery?"

"This this……"

The craftsmen were stunned, as if they didn't believe that this instrument, which was smoother than a mirror, was actually made by their own hands.

Although Zhang Yi was calmer, his breathing was obviously heavier. Although his hands were clasped in front of his abdomen as usual, his fingers were instinctively calculating, as if he was calculating the cost and profit margin of this item.

Only Liu Rong walked forward with a bright smile, squatted down, touched and looked at the porcelain jar.

After a long time, Fang stood up with a smile and looked around.

"The craftsmen have all contributed to the completion of this instrument and should be rewarded!"

After saying this, Liu Rong told Zhang Yi to send this first item to Weiyang Palace, and then took his two younger brothers towards Chang'an City.

In the past few months, Liu Rong spent almost all of his time in this tile kiln.

Now that the matter has been completed, it is time for Liu Rong to return to Chang'an.

——Porcelain is just a luxury product after all.

And Liu Rong is neither a businessman nor a craftsman...

(End of this chapter)