163 [Glass is already rotten on the street in the Ming Dynasty]
On the way back from watching the lanterns, Wang Yuan couldn't help but ask: "What on earth do you think?"
"What do you think?" Song Ling'er pretended not to understand.
Wang Yuan said depressedly: "It's about marriage. If you don't marry me, who else do you want to marry? Is it because it will affect my career that you will never marry in this life, or you can just find someone to marry?"
Song Ling'er was silent for a moment and replied: "I haven't thought about it clearly. I'll think about it later. By the way, thank you for your advice for the Song family."
The matter was so nonsense. Wang Yuan offered suggestions to weaken the Song family's territory, and Song Ling'er wanted to thank him in turn.
Because when the imperial court was weakening the chieftain, in order to avoid forcing the chieftain to rebel, it generally wanted to absolve him of his original crime. This was a political exchange, just like weakening the An family. An Guirong wanted to save his life, but the price was
An's territory was divided into three parts.
Who made two chieftains commit capital crimes?
On the 25th of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival holiday was over, and Song Ling'er immediately ran to go through the entry procedures.
Gu Yingxiang had already prepared the relevant documents, personally handed the badge to Song Ling'er, and said with a smile: "Senior sister, you can be regarded as the first female guard in the Ming Dynasty since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. If this matter is spread, it will definitely attract criticism from the officials."
"I don't care about them. Your Majesty has already said it. The Jinyi Guards are the emperor's personal soldiers, but they don't have the luxury of those civil servants to talk too much," Song Ling'er said with a smile, "By the way, don't call me senior sister. I should call you senior brother."
"It's all the same." Gu Yingxiang said.
Gu Yingxiang is not yet thirty years old this year, but he has followed Wang Yangming more than ten years ago. According to historical records, "youth followed him when traveling", he is a proper senior brother of the Wang family. At that time, Wang Yangming spent all his time studying the art of war and martial arts, and Gu Yingxiang also followed him.
He studied and applied the Tianyuan method of arithmetic to the changes in military formations.
Gu Yingxiang added: "We are thousands of miles away from Guizhou. Your Majesty is worried about the inconvenience of your journey, so he has assigned ten royal guards to serve as your subordinates."
"That's great." Song Ling'er said happily.
When the Jinyi Guards were first established, they only served to protect the emperor, investigate criminals, and supervise officials. Now they seem to be able to do everything. The emperor often sent the Jinyi Guards out of the capital to escort important people, such as the widow of the Duke of Guizhou in history, who felt that her brother-in-law was trying to kill her.
The emperor also sent royal guards to protect mother and son.
As for Gu Yingxiang's position, he is in charge of all the files and documents of Jinyiwei. He has great power in the Jinyiwei system.
There are also Jinyiwei experienced in the Northern and Southern Town Fusi, but those experiences are only from the seventh rank. Gu Yingxiang, the head of the Experience Department, is the sixth rank, and is basically a civil servant with a Jinshi background.
Gu Yingxiang handed Song Ling'er a list and said: "I personally selected these for you. They are all people with clean wealth, upright character, and depressed people. You only need to treat them well, and these ten Jinyi guards will naturally treat you well."
Loyalty awaits.”
"Thank you, senior brother!" Song Ling'er said, cupping her fists.
This is the benefit of having someone in the court. If it were someone else, how could he check Jin Yiwei's files at will?
Seeing that it was time to get off work, Gu Yingxiang said: "Let's go together. I happen to be going to study arithmetic with Brother Ruoxu."
Song Ling'er didn't understand what was so fun about arithmetic that it made Senior Brother Gu so obsessed with it. But she also felt very proud that her lover could attract these real scholars with whatever he created.
When the two were passing through the Jinyiwei Department Store, Wang Yuan was chatting with the merchant selling lanterns that day.
According to the rules set by Zhu Yuanzhang, people do not need to kneel down when meeting officials unless there are special occasions. When merchants saw Wang Yuan, they bowed their hands and said, "My surname is Li, Li Fengzhong. I wonder what I want to do with Scholar Wang?"
"Please sit down," Wang Yuan asked with a smile, "Judging from the accent, Mr. Li is from Beizhili?"
Li Fengzhong replied: "My ancestral home is in the south of the Yangtze River. Emperor Taizong built Beijing and my whole family moved here."
Those were the indigenous merchants, not Huai merchants or Shanxi merchants. After Zhu Di built the city of Beijing, he did forcibly relocate a group of wealthy households from Jiangnan due to insufficient population.
Wang Yuan exchanged pleasantries with Li Fengzhong and then asked: "Where did Mr. Li get the roasted beads from?"
Li Fengzhong didn't understand what Wang Yuan wanted to do, so he answered honestly: "Yan Shenzhen."
"Where is Yanshen Town?" Wang Yuan has never heard of it. The name is quite easy to remember. Maybe all the residents in the town are very good-looking.
Li Fengzhong explained in detail: "There is Yanshen Town in the north and Jingdezhen in the south. Yanshen Town is affiliated to Qingzhou Prefecture, Shandong Province. It is rich in porcelain and colored glaze. Burnt beads are just one of them. There are also countless colored glaze objects in Yanshen Town. Wang Xueshi
If you are interested in this, you can go to my shop and choose it yourself."
"Oh, what other glazed utensils are there?" Wang Yuan's interest greatly increased.
Li Fengzhong said: "There are hairpins, necklaces, bracelets, cups and bowls, bottles and jars... They are all made of imitation jade and are called medicinal jade."
"Then go take a look." Wang Yuan stood up and said.
Li Fengzhong opened a jewelry store. It was located in Jintaifang in the north of the city. The two-story building was full of storefronts. Most of these stores were attached to a noble person, and that person would not stand in Beijing for a hundred years. After all, it is difficult to be a businessman.
It is even more difficult to be a merchant in the capital.
What surprised Wang Yuan was that the glass products of the Ming Dynasty did not seem to be very precious, and the glass jewelry was all placed in the corner.
It is cheaper than jade and gold jewelry, but much more expensive than silver and copper jewelry.
Li Fengzhong pointed to the glass objects and said: "Scholar Wang, these are all medicinal jade (glass)."
"Let me take a look." Wang Yuan nodded.
Wang Yuan only took a few casual glances and realized that the glass in front of him obviously contained a lot of impurities, mainly yellow, blue and green glass. There was no transparent glass product from beginning to end.
Obviously, the ancient Chinese glass manufacturing technology and skill tree have been completely distorted. What craftsmen think about all day long is not how to remove impurities to make the glass more pure and transparent; but to find ways to add impurities to make the glass look colorful.
Wang Yuan asked: "Are there many people buying medicinal jade (glass)?"
Li Fengzhong said: "When my grandfather was alive, medicinal jade was very popular among high-ranking officials and nobles. Nowadays, few nobles wear medicinal jade."
The subtext is that things are rare and valuable. Glass was very precious in the past, but now it is trashed on the street.
Li Fengzhong pointed to several belt plates (belt decorations) and said: "Only belt plates, the nobles must buy. Civil and military officials like those similar to sapphire, and nobles and internal officials like colorful ones."
"Why are medicinal jade (glass) strips so popular?" Wang Yuan asked.
Li Fengzhong said: "Because officials of the fourth rank and above must use medicinal jade for their belts. The jade pendant of Scholar Wang's No. 1 Scholar's uniform is not real jade, but medicinal jade."
Wang Yuan was stunned and speechless for a moment.
The uniform and accessories for the number one scholar were all brought from the Imperial Academy, and they were returned after wearing them for a few days. The imitation of the jade pendant was so realistic that Wang Yuan didn’t look carefully, thinking it was a jade pendant, but he didn’t expect that he actually wore it several times.
Sky glass pendant.
This was a rule set by Zhu Yuanzhang. At that time, glass was still very scarce. Only officials of fourth rank and above, as well as top scholars, belt plates and belts could use glass products.
It was completely beyond Wang Yuan's expectation. He also wanted to make a fortune by making glass, but he didn't expect it to be so popular that even the nobles didn't bother to buy it.
If Wang Yuan traveled back in time and saw in history that someone traveled back in time to the Ming Dynasty and made a fortune selling glass, he would definitely crawl over along the network cable and beat the author: You fucking cheater!
Picking up a glass hairpin with no bubbles, Wang Yuan asked: "Is this also made by Yan Shenzhen?"
Li Fengzhong said with a smile: "The bubbles of this medicinal jade hairpin are very small and cannot be detected. Only Yanshen Town can make them. The medicinal jade belt plates for officials of fourth grade and above are also made in Yanshen Town. The craftsmanship there is unparalleled in the world."
.”
Wang Yuan said: "I'd like to ask Mr. Li for a favor."
Li Fengzhong said: "Scholar Wang, please speak."
Wang Yuandao: "Help me hire a medicinal jade craftsman from Yanshen Town. I can give him three times the salary! If you want a top medicinal jade craftsman who knows everything, I can make a promise. If this person does a good job