A new story | family heirloom

Expert appraisal

Shen Xinzhi, who lives in the town of Dry Kiln, recently encountered a troublesome matter, when his father was dying, he said that the Beijing brick on the coffee table in the middle hall must be preserved, that is the heirloom of the Shen family, but unfortunately he secretly sold half of the piece by himself, and asked Xinzhi to help find a way to find it back and restore it, otherwise he would not have the face to see the ancestors.

Xinzhi wanwan did not expect that a brick would make his father look like a sinner, and he could not put it down on his deathbed.

In order to find out the origin of this brick, he specially invited Boss Lin, who was engaged in the antique business, to let the other party see what was exquisite in it.

Under the guidance of Xinzhi, Boss Lin came to the tea table in the middle hall, looked at the half of the square bricks cushioned under the incense burner, and from time to time gently wiped the dust on the edge of the square bricks with his hands, and then said in surprise: "Yo, it is really an old object, a good thing!" ”

"Old objects I know, half a broken brick is still a good thing?" I see that it is no different from these square bricks under our feet? Seeing that Boss Lin was interested in this brick, Xinzhi asked with some puzzlement.

"This can not be compared, you have a commodity brick under your feet, this piece is different, you look at the side, that is the royal use of the logo, I don't know if the words on this are true or false, can you let me take it down to see?"

"Okay, okay, I asked you to come here just to ask you to identify it, to see if there is a way to restore it, or to fulfill your father's last wish."

After listening to Xinzhi's words, Boss Lin moved the incense burner to the side and held up the half of the square brick in both hands: "Go, let's go to the courtyard to see." ”

By the sunlight, Boss Lin looked at it carefully with a magnifying glass, and then said in an affirmative tone: "The words on this brick should be the same age as the brick." Qianlong three years, I will calculate, 281 years ago, is really an old Beijing brick ah! Unfortunately only half a piece. ”

"Yeah, that's how my father walked in a tangle." Shinshi said.

"You see, this brick doesn't look like it was broken after being smashed, how smooth this side of the inscription is, this is a groove in the middle, maybe the master deliberately made two halves of male and female when making it, if that's the case, it's really a treasure."

"Oh, when you say that, I think of something. I remember when I was a child, my grandfather often told me the story of the ancestral Beijing brick making, and I really talked about such a thing, and I always thought that my grandfather made it up. ”

Royal supplies

Dry kiln out of the Beijing bricks, that is clearly recorded in the historical materials, from the Ming Dynasty, here is dedicated to the imperial palace to burn Beijing bricks.

To say that there are many places to burn square bricks, why do you choose a dry kiln, it is because the Beijing bricks produced here are slow work and fine work, a Piece of Beijing bricks used by the imperial palace, you have to go through dozens of processes such as soil selection, mud training, pulping, billet making, yin drying, kiln firing and so on.

The finished Beijing bricks produced by the dry kiln are delicate and smooth, solid and bright, and the sound of tapping is sound, and it is not destroyed for thousands of years and is not broken, it can be said that each piece is a fine product in the boutique.

In the past, Jiangjing Village, where Zhixin's grandfather lived, made a living by firing kiln bricks, and earlier ancestors only fired green bricks and black tiles.

Although there were only a few brick kilns, but at that time everyone was very poor, there were very few people building houses in a hundred miles, so the sales were very limited, and the kiln workers could only barely survive, since becoming the imperial palace kiln to burn Beijing bricks, the life of the murakami people was only moist.

It turned out to be just an ordinary square brick, after being identified as a Beijing brick, as a royal product, its use and management became very strict, especially the Beijing brick after the side money, it was never allowed to be privately hidden and resold, in order to ensure that there was no mistake, the imperial court also appointed a full-time governor to supervise the whole process of making Beijing bricks in the dry kiln.

Shen Jiazu, who has been a Beijing brick all his life, watched the adults burn the Beijing bricks, and he had an idea in his heart, that is, he wanted a Beijing brick of his own, but as he grew older, he also slowly knew from the words of the adults that if he was found to be secretly hiding The Beijing bricks, the light would be imprisoned, and the heavy would be beheaded.

After inheriting his father's business and growing up, Grandpa Zhixin also joined the ranks of firing Beijing bricks, and slowly became a brick-making master, watching the fine products made by his own hands being transported away one by one, and the desire to have a Beijing brick of his own became stronger and stronger.

Several times, Grandpa Zu wanted to take advantage of the governor's inattention and secretly replace the genuine products that had just come out of the kiln with defective bricks, but the governor was not a vegetarian, and from the moment he opened the kiln door, he and his subordinates were inseparable, repeatedly checking the seals on the Beijing bricks, counting the number, and ensuring that nothing was wrong.

The model on the Beijing brick

It is no wonder that an official kiln cannot burn several kilns a year, and as a full-time supervising official, this matter is not done well, so how to explain it to the imperial court? The method of stealing beams and changing columns did not work, and Grandpa Zu had to find another way.

One day, the neighbor carpenter was making stools, and when he saw the foot of the stool, he immediately opened it, and soon a bold idea was generated in his mind, since the whole Beijing brick could not be stolen, why not break it into pieces to realize the dream.

After having this idea, Grandpa Zu began to pay attention, used all his skills, and carefully made the so-called "defective brick", which is now used to pad the incense burner.

It looks like half a brick, in fact, when Zu Taiye was making a billet, he was still a whole piece of elaborate, but when he became a billet, he cleverly added the carpenter's craft, used the Beijing brick with a fast knife to make everything into two, made a concave and convex tenon on the middle section, and then reunited the mud billets together to become a complete piece of Beijing brick billet.

Considering that he could not have both pieces, Grandpa Zu cut another piece of mud, paired it with two halves, and also made hands and feet on the two halves and a corner of the newly matched piece, once fired, it would naturally crack into a defective product with missing corners.

After doing all this, Grandpa Zu used mud to paste the fine seams, and it was not at all obvious from the appearance that it was two pieces of synthesis. The finished product is strictly managed, and the management of defective products is not loose.

According to the regulations, the governor should deal with the defective products of the Beijing bricks in a timely manner, and after each kiln of the Beijing bricks is fired, there will always be defective products, at which time all the defective products must be smashed with a hammer in front of the governor, and then transported to the quagmire to destroy.

Knowing that there were beijing bricks made by himself in these defective products, in the process of smashing, Zu Taiye specially left a heart eye.

When he saw the two pieces of first-class quality, only a cracked corner of the defective product, the subordinate immediately left a mercy, seemingly held high hammer, in fact, the hand is not heavy, just smashed the cracked half of the side, deliberately saved the other half of the broken brick, let it mixed in a pile of broken bricks, and then poured into the mud.

It was hard to stay up late at night, Grandpa Zu sneaked out of the house, by the faint moonlight in the sky, to the pool to find out the two and a half bricks, with a gentle insertion with his hand, the two and a half pieces immediately merged into one, becoming a complete Beijing brick, Grandpa Zu was happy to blossom in his heart, after returning home, he did not dare to tell his family, and buried it deeply under his yard overnight.

Father's last wishes

After getting the coveted Beijing bricks, Grandpa Zu kept his mouth shut and quietly told his son until before he died, and his son, who was also engaged in the refining of Beijing bricks, naturally did not dare to reveal the wind.

It was not until later, when the ancient kiln no longer undertook the task of firing Beijing bricks, that the descendants dug out the Beijing brick in the courtyard and placed it on the living room coffee table. If it were not for three years of natural disasters, Beijing bricks would surely be passed down from generation to generation.

As a member of the family, Shinshi's father saw that the rice tank at home was empty, the wild vegetables in the field were all dug up, and the family was about to die, and immediately thought of the tribute brick.

Also do not know whether the Beijing brick is worth much, hidden from his family, he secretly took half a piece of Beijing brick to Shanghai, found an antique shop in the old city god temple, after showing the owner the Beijing bricks, the owner saw that it was a dry kiln firing of Beijing bricks, knew that it was a good sale to buy, and immediately paid twenty yuan to buy it.

The father did not tell the family where the money came from, but used it to buy all the rice, saving the life of the whole family, but also let him fall ill, until his death.

After being reminded by Boss Lin, Xinzhi finally knew that the life-saving money in his father's hand was originally exchanged for selling Beijing bricks.

Since it can be sold, it can also be bought back, but then I think, no, if the whole Beijing brick is estimated to be good to buy, now it is half a piece, but also paired.

"You can try a message online and maybe you can find the other half that matches it." Boss Lin reminded.

So Xinzhi posted a notice about finding half a Beijing brick on the Internet. However, there are many posts under the notice, but none of them are related to the other half of the Beijing brick.

The road on the Internet is not working, how can I fulfill my father's last wish? Xinzhi fell into deep confusion again.

Until one day, when Xinzhi drove back to the countryside of Jiangjing to visit relatives, and inadvertently passed an earthen kiln that was smoking, his heart immediately lit up, and he couldn't get it on the Internet, so I couldn't do it myself? That way, you can return to Zhao completely.

The next day, Xinzhi took the half of the Beijing brick and came to the old earthen kiln that was still burning square bricks, and found the inheritor of the Beijing brick who was the same generation as his grandfather, and the neighbor Lao Gong, who was also related to him.

After explaining the meaning, the old grandfather readily agreed, but after seeing the half of the Beijing bricks, he made a request to Xinzhi, saying that the square bricks made now, there are many processes that rely on the machine, to be paired with this Beijing brick, but also have to refine the soil method, otherwise there is not much significance, but now that he is older, he does not have so much strength, he wants to be purely handmade, afraid that he has more than enough heart and insufficient strength, and he has to help Xinzhi to do it together.

Since the old grandfather said so, Xinzhi gladly agreed, in front of the old grandfather, he called the boss for a long vacation, saying that one day the Beijing bricks were restored, which day he went to work, and then became the assistant of the old grandfather, and he did the imitation and restoration of the old Beijing bricks with one mind.

The treasure of the finished Bi returned to Zhao

Ordinary square bricks are easy to make, but Beijing bricks are not something you can make if you want to. For a self-made newcomer, these dozens of processes are not mastered in a day or two, from the beginning to the real firing, Xinzhi and the old grandfather spent a year.

In this year, in addition to humbly learning technology from the old Agong, the two also took advantage of their spare time to go to Shanghai, Suzhou and other places many times, visited many antique shops and flea markets, and also saw many old Beijing bricks, in addition to taking photos, they also expanded the seals on the Beijing bricks.

After returning home, he studied the seal on his own Beijing brick, and after repeated screening, he finally determined the two seals on the other half of the Beijing brick to be repaired.

The old grandfather told him that the seals on the tribute Beijing bricks were all made by mold, and the mold was sure that it could not be found, and he could only think of another way, so on this newly imitated Beijing brick, XinZhi was carved out with a knife, a knife and a knife, and the painstaking efforts in this could not be expressed in words.

The process of making Imperial Kiln Kyo bricks

On the day of the completion of the work, Xinzhi was so excited that he called and sent a circle of friends overnight to inform relatives and friends to come to the earth kiln the next day to witness the completion of the heirloom to Zhao.

Early the next morning, Xinzhi spread the specially purchased red carpet in the earthen kiln, placed the seamlessly copied Beijing brick on the tribute table, and also brought a Taishi chair and placed it in front of the tribute table.

Seeing that his relatives and friends had arrived, he let the old grandfather sit on it and kneel in front of him, saying that through this year's personal experience, he really liked the technology of making Beijing bricks, and today was to open everyone's eyes, and also to let everyone witness their own worship ceremony.

Saying that, he prostrated his head respectfully and respectfully, formally worshiped the old grandfather as a teacher, and opened the life path of firing Beijing bricks.

Producer | First of all, Hongming

Edit | Yu Xin

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