The shrine is famous for its jun porcelain, which prospers because of the shrine. As early as the Tang Dynasty, the Shenyuan had already fired colorful flower glazed porcelain, and during the Northern Song Dynasty, the production of jun porcelain reached its peak and was designated as a "royal treasure of the court", and the imperial court set up an official kiln near the Juntai in Yang zhai (present-day Yuzhou City), and jun porcelain was also named. The firing of tribute porcelain for the court realized the transformation of jun porcelain production from a folk kiln to an official kiln, ranking one of the five famous porcelains of the Song Dynasty in the mainland (jun, ru, guan, ge, ding).
The town of Jinga, located in the middle of the mountains, is famous for firing porcelain.
But how was the porcelain kiln for firing porcelain built?
There is an interesting folklore circulating here,
Let's take a look at it with xiaobian!
Treasures are placed in the kilns of lame immortals, and the Virgin mary is born of gold in the fire
Once upon a time, there was a young man who wanted to build a kiln here to fire porcelain. He first dug up the soil on the southern slope of the mountain, but when he tried it, the soil collapsed after it dried; he dug up the soil on the northern slope of the mountain, but he did not succeed, and when he encountered the water, he was paralyzed. How can this be done? He was embarrassed.
Just as he was stunned by the dirt, a scribe passing by in an ox cart, saw the scene here, asked him what he was doing, and the young man saw that the morale of the literati was very high, so he recounted the incident to the scribe. After hearing this, the scribe said: "I look at the mountains and rivers here, different from other places, it is a good place to burn porcelain, but the yang slope is hard, and the yin slope is soft, isn't it just right to reconcile the two kinds of soil?" The young man's heart lit up when he heard it, and he just wanted to thank Mr. Xie, who knew that the scribe was like a light smoke and disappeared into the mountains and forests. He thought: This must be the Great King of Tushan (the historical Shun Emperor, according to historical records, Shun was once "Tao He yu bin" and was worshipped by the kiln people as the god of Situ. He gave him advice, saying that Emperor Shun invented pottery in the past, but who was he? So, he immediately mixed the two kinds of soil together, tried, and sure enough, it did not crack, it was not soft or paralyzed, it was very solid.
If the soil is there, how can the kiln be built? After many unsuccessful experiments, either there is no place to enter the charcoal, or there is no place to smoke, or there is no place to dig up the ash residue... He was worried again.
On this day, he was sitting thinking bitterly, when he overheard a hearty laugh coming from behind him, and when he looked back, it turned out to be an old man on crutches pointing at him and laughing, he was very angry, and his face was gloomy and did not open his mouth. The old man said: "If you don't work at a young age, you will only sulk when you are paralyzed on the ground." The young man was even more angry after listening to it, and opened his mouth and said: "Old man, you will actually taunt me, it is so easy to build a kiln to burn porcelain, you have the ability, you build a kiln to try." Who knew that the old man said, "Well, if you come here again in the afternoon, the old man will build a kiln for you to see." The young man was both surprised and ridiculous, and thought that the old man was a little absurd. But he still came to the agreed place on time, wanting to see what was going on, but he only saw the old man sitting on the side, not saying, not laughing, and not moving. Just when I wanted to go forward to ask questions, the old man suddenly disappeared. He recalled the scene just now, the appearance of the old man - eyes, nose, mouth... Constantly reverberating in his mind, he suddenly realized: Man has seven tricks to survive, why can't the kiln be built according to the human form? Open a mouth to fill the charcoal, open a nostril to exhale... So he began to build the kiln according to the kiln he wanted in his heart, and after many modifications and experiments, he finally built the porcelain kiln. After the completion of the porcelain kiln, people said that the old man was the apparition of Sun Zhenxian Weng (later known as the kiln god) to help him.
The craftsmen who make porcelain are all dedicated to the god of situ, the god of kiln, and the god of fire, and after reading the legends and stories of the god of situ and the god of kiln, and then xiaobian will tell you about the fire god of Shenyuan.
When it comes to the fire god, everyone should think of the image of a red-faced man, but the fire god enshrined in the shrine is a folk woman.
Legend has it that the emperor of a dynasty had a strange dream at night, dreaming of a pair of vases that were red like cinnabar, as bright as chicken blood, and sparkling, which were very endearing. The next day, he sent his ministers around to investigate, and one of the ministers heard that Junzhou Shenyuan had fired similar porcelain, so he immediately gathered the emperor. When the emperor heard this, he immediately passed on the holy decree and asked the kiln workers to burn the vase he saw in his dream for him.
The firing process of jun porcelain is complex, people still can't fully grasp it, not to mention that the production conditions at that time were very backward, and it was even more impossible to achieve nine out of ten kilns, but who dared to disobey the holy will of the emperor? After much painstaking effort, a kiln worker finally burned the vase and presented it to the emperor, who was furious and said, "This thing is not at all the same as what I saw in my dream." Then a holy decree was passed down, that the vase of the dream could not be burned for ten days, and all the kiln workers were full of doors.
The kiln workers rushed to burn day and night, seeing that the deadline was approaching, but they still could not burn it. There was a kiln worker's daughter named Yan Hong, who was not only beautiful, but also kind-hearted, and learned the shape and firing of porcelain from her father from an early age. At this time, the catastrophe was imminent, and Yan Hong's heart was also very anxious.
One night she had a dream about an old man with crane hair and a childlike face, and the old man said as he walked: "Only when the virgin's blood is sprayed on the firing bottle when the kiln is opened, will it be burned into the kind of vase that the emperor wants." After Yan Hong woke up, she was determined to test the fire with her body, allowing her blood qi to penetrate into the bowl and condense on the vase. When the idea was decided, she immediately told her father that she had found a way to burn the treasure bottle and asked him to burn another kiln to try it.
When the fire burned to the critical moment when the glaze color was determined, Yan Hong climbed to the top of the kiln and jumped into the kiln cavity, only to see the red light in the kiln and the red waves rolling up. When the kiln was opened, a pair of vases of jade crystal, mirror brightness, and blood red stood in the bowl. In order to commemorate this beautiful, kind, and brave dedication girl, people built a temple and statue for her, so that future generations can remember her, which is the legendary Golden Fire Virgin.
Later, in order to commemorate the initiation of the King of Tushan, the kiln god and the Golden Fire Virgin, and expect to get their help when burning the kiln, the temple of the kiln was built for them in the shrine, and since then a couplet has been circulated in the shrine: "The lame immortal kiln puts treasure, and the Virgin of Fire produces gold in the fire." ”