After talking about the cotton, Zhou Jun asked Granny Peng: "The craftsman's workshop has moved to Anxi. Are there any difficulties in preparing silk raw materials?"
Peng Po shook her head: "In Anxi, Yutian Town (Hotian, Luopu) and the southern part of Shule Town (Kashgar, Yarkand) are both producing areas of silk raw materials. Among them, the silk produced in Yutian Town has rough patterns.
Unrestrained, the dyeing is simple and bright; while the silk from Shule Town has fine and rigorous silk patterns, and the dyeing is colorful. The former can be used to weave light luo, and the latter can be used to weave heavy luo, each has its own merits."
After Zhou Jun heard this, he said to Mao Shun and Po Peng: "The construction of flower machines for weaving and spinning must be stepped up, and the recruitment of craftsmen and weavers must also be stepped up... The production of Anxi silk must be based on the existing basis.
Expand production to at least ten times."
Mao Shun was stunned after hearing this: "Although Anxi also produces silk, due to limitations of water sources, vegetation, silkworm seeds, etc., the cost of weaving a piece of silk is higher than that of the Central Plains and Jiangnan. If there is a large-scale expansion now,
In addition to the colorful pattern chung luo produced by Hualou Machinery, which still has advantages in the market, other products such as light luo, silk cloth, brocade, etc., cannot compete with the Central Plains and Jiangnan silk in terms of cost and selling price. They may
The gain outweighs the loss.”
Zhou Jun shook his head and said: "There is no need to worry about this. In short, the workshops that produce Anxi silk need to be expanded as soon as possible. The more, the better, and the faster, the better."
Mao Shun and Po Peng looked at each other and nodded in agreement.
Zhou Jun turned his gaze to Dong Yanniang aside and asked, "If I remember correctly, you were a minister in the palace before?"
Dong Yanniang quickly replied: "Yes."
Zhou Jun: "Can you make pottery and porcelain?"
Dong Yanniang: "I know a lot about Tang Sancai, Huan pottery, celadon, green porcelain, etc."
Mao Shun said to Zhou Jun: "Although I have the title of director of the Glaze and Porcelain Department, the one who is really in charge is Yan Niang, my deputy. Her skills in glazing and porcelain firing are far better than mine.
"
Zhou Jun asked Mao Shun: "I have read the "Jianghong Jing" and have done special research on the production of celadon in the book?"
Mao Shun: "Yes, pottery such as Tang Sancai is brittle and has poor waterproofing. The glaze will fall off after being used for a period of time. It is not very practical. I am not optimistic about pottery. What I really want to improve is porcelain."
"
Zhou Jun: "Most of the royal porcelain craftsmen are in Hedong, Shannan and Jiangnan. If Anxi wants to make porcelain, is it feasible?"
Mao Shun: "Porcelain has two parts, the most important one is the glaze and the other is clay. Anxi's manufacturing of porcelain has both advantages and disadvantages."
"Let's talk about the advantages first. The imperial porcelain workshops in the Tang Dynasty produced high-quality celadon. There are three most common glaze colors used for glazing, namely, Western Region Blue (cobalt clay) and underglaze red (copper oxide).
) and bean green (iron oxide).”
"Underglaze red and bean green, these two colors of glaze often have problems such as burst spots and floating rust due to impurities and ingredients, so they are rarely used."
"Xiyu Qing (cobalt clay) is produced from open-pit mines near the Tianshan Mountains. It has low impurities, high purity, and good color. It is the best source of celadon glaze in the Tang Dynasty. Tang porcelain is also known as celadon because of Xiyu Qing.
."
Zhou Jun: "In other words, the best celadon glaze raw material in the Tang Dynasty is located in Anxi... What about the porcelain clay?"
Mao Shun: "Porcelain clay is the disadvantage of Anxi's porcelain manufacturing. For the best blue and white porcelain, the glaze must be Western Blue, and the porcelain clay is also particular. Yaozhou, Yuzhou, Gongxian, Quyang, Shouzhou, Hongzhou, Yueyang, Qionglai, etc.
The porcelain clay collected in these areas is of the highest quality, and other places are basically not considered."
Zhou Jun: "What is the porcelain clay in these places like?"
Mao Shun: "When I was young, I visited the china clay mines in these areas and found that there are two types of soil here. One is hard soil, mostly cyan, and the other is soft soil, mostly white. When the two soils are mixed,
Add water to mix it, and it becomes top-grade china clay. From then on, I began to suspect that the top-grade china clay mine was actually two different types of soil, mixed according to the proportion."
Having said this, Mao Shun got up and went to the bookshelf nearby, took down a book, turned to another page, and showed it to Zhou Jun.
The latter looked carefully and saw that the pages were densely packed with small characters, describing the soil characteristics of the well-known porcelain clay production areas in the Tang Dynasty, including color, texture, fire, melted water, magnetic attraction, weight and even taste.
Among them, the soft clay and hard clay suitable for high-quality porcelain clay are marked in vermilion, and their unified characteristics are summarized.
Mao Shun pointed to the words in the book and said to Zhou Jun: "If you want to get good porcelain clay in Anxi, just follow the summary in this book and go to various places to sample soft soil and hard soil, then get them back and mix them, and try again and again.
Proportion, and finally fired into a porcelain embryo."
Zhou Jun took the book, put it in his arms, and said to Mao Shun: "When I get back, I will give instructions to all parts of Anxi to search according to the map to find the most suitable porcelain clay."
Speaking of this, Zhou Jun remembered something and asked Mao Shun: "Since Anxi can find soft and hard soil and mix it to replace the Central Plains porcelain clay, then conversely, can the Central Plains region find celadon glaze raw materials to replace the Western Regions celadon?
?”
Mao Shun: "It's difficult. Western celadon is only produced near the Tianshan Mountains. Although there are similar glazes in the Central Plains, there are many impurities, so only some inferior products can be produced. For example, palace celadon and high-quality export products are all
It must be fired using Western Green."
Zhou Jun: "In other words, once the celadon workshops in the Central Plains region lose the raw materials of celadon from the Western Regions, although they can still produce porcelain, they will not be able to produce good cyan glazes?"
When Mao Shun heard this, he felt a little strange, but he still nodded and said, "Yes, that's the truth."
Zhou Jun nodded lightly and said to Mao Shun, Po Peng and Dong Yanniang: "In the next few days, Anxi Craftsman's Workshop will focus on developing and manufacturing three products, namely cotton yarn, silk and celadon. Among them,
It’s all up to three people.”
The three of them didn't even dare to say anything.
Zhou Jun was about to say something else when a loud noise suddenly came from outside the house, causing the whole house to tremble slightly.
Mao shook his hand and almost knocked over the teacup. After he realized what he was doing, he said angrily: "The barbarians in the west courtyard have been locking the door all day long, and have soldiers guard the main road, and no one is allowed to enter or exit.
Five, in this Taixue, there is a thunder on the ground, which makes people frightened and unable to live in peace."
Zhou Jun turned to look out the window, thought for a moment, and said to Mao Shun: "Master, why don't you go to the West Courtyard with me to have a look?"
Hearing this, Mao Shun stroked the beard on his chin and said, "Since Erlang has spoken, it might as well go and have a look."
So Peng Po and Dong Yanniang went about their own affairs, and Zhou Jun took Mao Shun and a group of soldiers to the west courtyard of Jianghong Imperial College to meet the father of modern chemistry, Jabir.