In 1925, as the Qing Dynasty royal family was moved out of the city, the "Committee for Handling the Aftermath of the Qing Dynasty" formulated and adopted the "Provisional Organizational Outline of the Palace Museum", and the Palace Museum was also formally established, due to the war, insufficient money and other reasons, the Qing Imperial Family did not pay attention to the maintenance and maintenance of the Forbidden City, so that many places were damaged, and when the management of the Forbidden City department hired craftsmen to repair, the scholars saw the floor tiles but found a surprising "secret", and could not help but shake their heads repeatedly: "Zhu Di is too cruel!" ”
It turned out that the ground of the Forbidden City, which was built 600 years ago, was all paved with a kind of "gold brick" with a tight material, and the sound of gold and stone was heard when it was tapped, and the appearance was even smoother.
In ancient folklore, people have always been rumored that the emperor's golden ruan hall for handling government affairs, the ground is paved with gold bricks, extremely luxurious, the real situation is of course not so, but the workers check the material of these floor tiles but find that the degree of luxury is not less than the gold.
According to historians, the bricks of the Forbidden City came from the town of Ganyao in Jiashan County, Zhejiang Province, and the ancient special-shaped bricks produced by them were confirmed by the Ming Emperor Zhu Di as the bricks for laying the imperial palace, so they were called "
Kyo bricks
Because the value of bricks at that time was as high as 1 or 2 gold, and there was a saying of "golden bricks", it was an extremely rare cultural relic.
Beijing brick can be so expensive, not without reason, its production method is very elaborate, first of all, the material selection of soil, not only requires viscosity, and the soil contains high aluminum content, can be ground into powder. After the soil is selected, it is necessary to go through seven processes such as excavation, transportation, drying, vertebrae, pulp, grinding, and sieve to complete, which will take up to 8 months.
In the process of firing, but also to bran grass smoked for a month, piece of firewood burned for a month, a month of firewood burning, pine branches of firewood burning for 40 days, after the burning of these four different fuels, it took more than 130 days, the kiln specializing in firing Beijing bricks, is also very hot, there was a "bamboo branch word" describing the difficulty of The Beijing brick kiln: "The sunset of the cargo ship moored on the shore, the female companion moved the brick and laughed. A face of kiln coal sticky sweat black, Anon looks naturally beautiful than flowers. "Beautiful as a flower" female kiln worker, after a while of work, will also become a big black face.
After leaving the kiln, the Beijing bricks should be slowly polished in the round aquatic weeds to smooth the bricks, and then soaked in tung oil.
Such a fine project, then the efficiency can be imagined, according to statistics, each kiln once produced only 7,000 Pieces of Beijing bricks, of which there are many defective products and waste products, dozens of skilled workers work for more than a year, the income is only five or six thousand bricks, because of the rarity, but also created its high price.
However, the entire Forbidden City, including the later Royal Garden, covered nearly 80 million Beijing bricks, and it is conceivable how much financial and human and material resources Zhu Di used. In the 1980s, the Palace Museum restored the interior and exterior floors of the three major halls, and also used 180,000 pieces of imperial kiln Beijing bricks, although it was supplemented by modern means, but it also cost a huge cost.
In addition, the Ming Dynasty court for work, is also extremely demanding, in 1406 the construction of the Forbidden City began, the bricks must go through a strict assessment, if a batch of bricks in the sampling inspection of 6 pieces can not meet the "knocking sound, no hole" requirements, this batch of gold bricks will be directly abolished. In addition, when the Ming dynasty studied the Qin system, the bricks must also be "the name of the worker", which is recorded where the craftsman made it and supervised by the official, so that when the situation arises in the future, it is convenient to pursue responsibility. Zhu Di's reckless approach eventually built a gorgeous imperial palace, which also brought a huge burden to the people.