During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Beijing was the first good place for beijing teachers, and the construction and repair of the imperial city has always been a key task, requiring a large number of craftsmen. To this end, a large number of skilled craftsmen have been brought together from all over the country, each of them has shown their abilities and carved carefully, making outstanding contributions to the construction of the Beijing Division, and leaving a brilliant architectural myth.
Tenon and tenon technique of "Kuluban"
In the fifteenth year of Ming Yongle (1417), Ming Chengzu Zhu Di began to build a large-scale Forbidden City in Beijing. Ku Xiang enlisted with his father and participated in the construction of the imperial palace. Ku Xiang came from a family of carpenters, and his grandfather and father were both skilled and well-known carpenters. In particular, his father, Pu Fu, presided over the woodworking of the Jinling Imperial Palace in the early Ming Dynasty, and was quite prestigious in the architectural world. Pu Xiang was influenced by his family since he was a child, coupled with his father's strict education, and his skills improved rapidly. At the age of 16, he was able to "master the camp" and was known as a "craftsman".
After coming to Beijing, Ku Xiang was quickly promoted from "YingJian Craftsman" to "YingjiaoShoucheng", that is, the chief designer and chief engineer of the Forbidden City. According to the "Huangming Tongji", "Xiang, a native of Wu County, is also a carpenter." Father's blessing, Neng (Lord) camp, Yongle zhong as the head of carpentry, retired from the old. Instead of Xiang, the Beijing Palace was built. "Ku Xiang is good at drawing the design of the palace, and the drawings drawn by the emperor are very satisfied; he is also good at calculation, just look at it to know how much material is needed, what the size is, especially good at tenon and tenon technology."
Most of the palace buildings in the Forbidden City use wood as building materials, in order to solve the problem of wood connection and ensure that the building is strong and durable, the tenon and tenon technology is mastered by the pure fire, and the traditional tenon and tenon technology of the mainland is vigorously promoted in the construction. Tenon and tenon is a basic skill that ancient carpenters must master, and the tenon is used properly, and there is no metal nail between the components, and it can also reach the degree of "seamless".
In the construction of the Forbidden City, the tenon technique was used by Ku Xiang in dozens of ways, including steamed tenon, hoop head mortise, through mortise, half mortise and so on. In particular, the introduction of the bucket arch in the tenon technology into the construction of the Forbidden City has a better effect. The bucket arch is connected to the roof and the lower column, which plays the role of "standing on top of the sky" in ancient Chinese architecture. When encountering an earthquake, under the lifting and turning of the bucket arch, the building body is loose but not scattered, and it can skillfully resolve the impact of the earthquake with soft kegang like Tai Chi.
There is also a story of Ku Xiang when he built the Forbidden City using the tenon technique. At that time, the threshold of a large hall was sawn short, and Ku Xiang sawed down the other end of the threshold to a section of the same length, making a mortise slot on each side of the threshold, and the threshold could be installed or removed. This is the "King Kong leg" that is talked about by the architectural circles of later generations. When Zhu Di came to inspect, he discovered the design of Pu Xiang and greatly appreciated it, calling Pu Xiang "Pu Lu Ban".
As the largest and most completely preserved ancient imperial palace complex in the world, the Forbidden City has experienced many earthquakes since its construction for more than 600 years, but it has been safe and sound, and the mortise and mortise technology used by Ku Xiang has made great contributions.
"Style Ray" architectural hot sample
A "style ray", half of the ancient history. The Lei family of the Qing Dynasty participated in the design and construction of almost all royal buildings, including the Forbidden City, the Yuanmingyuan, the Summer Palace, the Changchun Garden, the Temple of Heaven, and the Chengde Summer Resort.
The first generation of "style thunder" is thunder developed. Lei's grandfather and father were both famous carpenters. Later, Lei Was recruited to Beijing to build an imperial palace because of his excellent carpentry skills. His ingenuity and skill, he was appointed to the head of the Ministry of Works. His eldest son, Lei Jinyu, also made outstanding contributions to the construction of the imperial palace, serving as the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Prime Minister Chin Gong Department. Since then, the Lei family has been a senior architectural designer of the Qing Dynasty for more than 200 years before and after the seven generations, and has presided over the royal architectural design, which is known as "style Lei" by the world. The excellence of "Style Ray" can only be seen from the hot samples it makes.
In the ancient architecture of the mainland, the early Han Dynasty already had a pattern design; by the Sui Dynasty, one-percent scale patterns and models were used; and in the Qing Dynasty, architectural three-dimensional models combined with patterns and models were continued to be used, that is, hot samples. The hot samples were specially made for the emperor's royal visit. As a royal architectural designer, "Style Ray" produced a large number of architectural hot samples, which are very delicate and realistic.
In the production process, the "style thunder" material is very exquisite, using cardboard, straw and wood as the main raw materials. The production process is also very rigorous, and it needs to go through multiple procedures such as sawing, shaping, mounting paste, asphalting powder, and painting. Because ironing is required during the production process, it is called "ironing sample".
The hot sample works of "Style Lei" are very exquisite and vivid, from the outside to the inside, from the small to the eaves of the outer eaves, the mountain stone trees are presented one by one, so that the architectural structure and form are clear at a glance. Not only can every small board of the hot sample be moved, but they also make every small part of the roof tiles, columns, doors and windows, and even the tables and chairs, several cases, beds, and other small parts of the interior furnishings into activities. It was made so that it could be disassembled layer by layer, making it easier to move the exhibition and preservation.
It is precisely because of such a precise and chic hot sample that a splendid and magnificent royal building was built with this model.
The clever stacking rockery of "Shanzi Zhang"
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial gardens and private gardens in Beijing developed rapidly, and the gardening of Dieshan was very popular, which gave birth to many gardening experts, and the "Shanzi Zhang" family was one of the outstanding representatives.
"Shanzi" is another name for the rockery, and the person who counterfeits the mountain is called "Shanzi Craftsman", which is also the pronoun of the Stacked Mountain Craftsman. The founder of "Shanzi Zhang" was named Zhang Ran, known as Tao An, and was the second son of Zhang Lian, an architect of the Songjiang Garden in Jiangnan. According to the "Qing History Manuscript Zhang Lian Biography", during the Kangxi Dynasty, the university scholar Feng Quan was hired to go to Beijing, and Zhang Lian resigned in his old age to "send his Zhongzi Xing", and Zhongzi was Zhang Ran. At that time, Zhang Ran was already famous in Jiangnan, and was called to Beijing for more than 30 years.
Zhang Ran participated in the construction of many royal gardens in Beijing, such as the Yuanmingyuan, Yingtai, Yuquan mountain Jingmingyuan, and Changchun Garden in the western suburbs. Zhang Ran stacked stone gardening style is diverse, can be beautiful, can be simple, can be quiet. Qing Lu Yanzhe's "Biography of Zhang Tao'an" commented: "The stone of Yanling is strange, the stone of Gaoyang is simple and elegant, and the stone of stability is quiet." ”
The reason why Zhang Ran can produce so many exquisite works is inseparable from his excellence, meticulousness and innovation. Zhang Ran first fully investigates the terrain and terrain every time he builds a garden and a mountain, and then draws, and the gardening picture jumps on the paper. When he was constructing Wanliu Hall for Feng Pu, Zhang Ran painted "Landscape Map of Yiyuan Garden", which sketched the scenery of Wanliu Hall and laid the foundation for the gardening of Stacked Mountains.
Zhang Ran built a garden stacking rockeries, most of which are tushan mountains, this method of stacking mountains inherited from his father Zhang Lian, on the whole, the outer side of the tushan mountain is wrapped in mountain stones, mixed with pines and cypresses, and there is a style of intercepting the corner of the real mountain. Then, the mountain range is interspersed with rocks and embellished. Zhang Ran uses stone to match the environment, the huge stones of Yingtai are very magnificent, the Jingming Garden is simple and elegant, the open atmosphere of Changchun Garden, and the Wanliu Hall reflects the interest of the countryside.
Changchun Garden has built a number of artificial rocks, most of which are piled up as mountains, and the stones are used for local stones in Beijing. Zhang Ran's artificial rocks are stacked in the backyard of DaoheTang, and the overall mountain is beautiful and rocky, with winding stone roads under the stone peaks, and bamboo cultivation planted on both sides, which are verdant and pleasant. Add layers and bright colors to the entire garden.
The Yangzhou salt merchant scholar Cheng Ting entered Beijing to visit Changchun Garden during the Kangxi Emperor's sixty-year-old birthday celebration, and his later "Essay on Stopping" described the rocky scenery of Changchun Garden as follows: "The garden is about ten miles around, and the wall is not as high as the height. The green in the garden is sluggish, the red is full of red, the Tufu Pingtuo, not yet the strange stone of the Qi Peak, xuan yao Yasu, not decorated with algae painting carvers also; the wall layman on the horse for a moment to catch a glimpse. The walls are made of rocks as ice cracks, and after each rain, the five colors glow and shine. ”
Later, Zhang Ran's son Zhang Shu inherited his Dieshan gardening business. Since then, "Shanzi Zhang" has been passed down from generation to generation, and there are still descendants until modern times. The innovation and practice of "Shanzi Zhang" in Beijing has contributed to the development of Chinese garden art.